In my role here at Bromcom I am fortunate to work with an amazing bunch of people. However, it’s always important to realise that, like children in schools, we are always learning.
As we all began to digest the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday night a number of documents began to land in my inbox. These were the details relating to the re-opening of schools when the government feels we can enter Stage 3 of the Covid unlocking process. See, I’m starting to sound like an expert!
Multiple documents with reams of pages needed to be skim read and then fully absorbed. Personally, I’m taking great interest from three angles. Firstly, what impact does this have on my teenage son, as he continues to sit opposite me ‘virtually learning’. Then I need to consider the Bromcom family of schools, what support can we offer immediately with our Cloud MIS system to help lessen the burden. Finally, as an educationalist, I’m interested to imagine what my response would be if I had been back in a school.
With the rumours circulating last week in the press, some of our Trusts had already been in touch to start the process of discussions on how Bromcom could support the ‘new norm’ that was heading our way. We held a virtual meeting with Trust leads yesterday afternoon, working collaboratively to look at the situation that we all find ourselves in. We had one aim, to find a solution.
We were able to discuss what initial opening plans the Trusts had, not only in June, but also looking ahead to September. We were able to openly discuss with our Head of Products what the system could currently do and more importantly where we could instigate quick developments to support schools as they begin to open. Our Helpdesk and Customer Services Manager were on hand to identify key processes that we would need to support our schools in applying. Discussions took place about help documents and short how-to videos.
We discussed flexible timetabling, structure of the school day, home-school communication and statutory attendance returns. Having come from a school environment myself, the mutual level of respect meant that all conversations were solely focused on supporting the schools, and more importantly, the young people within them.
Over the next couple of weeks, Bromcom’s aim is to setup workshops for schools and experts to share best practice and discuss as educationalists, resolving the devil in the detail. As always we will continue to offer support to all our schools as the Covid situation develops.
As I write this, I see another raft of gov.uk emails arriving, better get back to sifting the wood from the trees. The only phrase I can use at the end this blog is ‘stay safe’!
