World Teachers’ Day 2021 - thank you
Today we’re celebrating World Teachers’ Day 2021, an annual celebration of people who spend their lives teaching and educating others.
At Kilgraston, our wonderful teachers support, teach and encourage our pupils to fulfill their hopes, ambitions and dreams, pushing them to believe in themselves and to achieve outstanding exam results year after year.
Lockdown meant our teaching moving online in a matter of days, with classes running as normal and, even if we were not in the school buildings, the Kilgraston education continued. Our Junior School timetable included morning lessons where pupils joined their class via TEAMS and an energising calendar of events and challenges in the afternoon alongside that all important down-time.
Our Seniors and Sixth Form, who faced those crucial life-defining exams, were able to attend classes virtually with a timetable of 80% of normal classes taking place in the first lockdown. This moved to 100% of classes in the subsequent lockdowns, a monumental achievement by our staff.
We all met at our virtual assemblies each week and our PE department continued to motivate our pupils, running daily classes online alongside weekly challenges including bike rides and mountain climbing. Our music department even managed to ensure events did not stop, but adapted and shifted, culminating in our annual Christmas performance becoming a drive-in film in lieu of our usual live event in Perth’s Concert Hall.
World Teachers’ Day is a day recognised by UNESCO and has been held since on October 5 1994, so this year, we would like to say an even bigger thank you to Kilgraston teaching staff, and indeed all teachers around the world for the vital role and work you do.
PE department challenges during lockdown
Even in lockdown Kilgraston’s PE department has been working to keep our pupils exercising and energised.
From mountain climbing to snowmen-making, we’ve had many weeks of different challenges.
But this week there was a twist: the challenges were set by each of the Sports Captains and below you can watch Senior Netball Captain, Lower Sixth’s India, setting the netball challenge. Can you complete it?
View this post on Instagram
Our lockdown windows
Lockdown has presented us all with challenges, one is that we cannot be together in person as a school community. So whilst we cannot be together physically, we asked our families and staff to share their home classroom and office windows.
Where some are enjoying sunshine, others are reveling in the snow, see where are Kilgraston family is around the world (music is by Kilgraston’s Clarsach Group). You can see another video of view from our windows here.
We are looking forward to having everyone back in school.
Rebecca’s story of lockdown learning
My lockdown learning
When the second lockdown started, everyone resorted to online learning but for some people like me, we were going into school for the key worker hub. I go into school on days when both of my parents are working.
We’ve all got an allocated desk so at first it was strange not moving around for each class but I am now used to it. It was really nice to see everyone at the hub and the rest of my class online. Once we finish our morning of online learning, our year group has lunch together and goes on a nice walk around our lovely campus.
It is nice to see all of the teachers supporting the hub and helping our parents by looking after us. I am really enjoying getting out the house and not looking at the same four walls all the time (even if it is only for two days).
Rebecca
You can also read Talia’s story here.
Life during and after lockdown - Sixth Form Kilgraston pupil writes in national newspaper about her own experience
Many thousands of column inches have been written about pupils’ return to school, but few have come from the teenagers themselves. Kilgraston School English and poetry enthusiast Anna GH wanted to elaborate on the highs and lows of life in lockdown, her subsequent start of Autumn Term and ‘new normal’ elements that must now be embraced.
Her piece appeared in the national newspaper on 1 September 2020.
Read the full article in TES here
Kilgraston Upper Sixth Lockdown Moments
Some of our Upper Sixth sent in their snaps and stories of the things that epitomise their lockdown experience. Our Class of 2020, congratulations and here are your lockdown moments.