It is clear from the Covid 19 pandemic that on-line learning, when organised and resourced well, can play an important part in education. Surely then this gives us the ideal opportunity to consider whether on-line learning can be used to provide better educational outcomes than the current 5 day school week.
I know from experience as a former primary school teacher that most teachers will regularly work in excess of 50 hours per week in term time. The results of this tend not to be positive for staff and pupils. Indeed a high proportion of newly trained teachers leave the profession within the first few years, largely due to the excessive demands of the job – such a waste. Those who stay spend a significant part of the school year exhausted, demoralised and unable to perform to the best of their abilities, resulting in negative consequences on pupils’ learning. Perhaps Covid 19 has shown us that on-line learning can help to overcome some of these problems.
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