I almost wrote teachers catching students up… but I don’t think that is our responsibility. (We can facilitate but I do not think I should pay a lunchtime cost because a student was on holiday.)
I have, however. been looking at absenteeism and how students can catch up. This is regardless of whether the student has justified (sick, work placement) or unjustified (family holiday) absences. Data indicates (unsurprisingly) a strong correlation between being at school and success (Duh!). Worse, is the interruption and delays caused in class when a student is well behind and holding up the class with constant questions covering material already covered. I suspect some students will also suffer from a sense of helplessness…
If a student cannot be at school they need to catch up. A students success or otherwise in catching up is a function of:
- critical nature of lesson missed (key content covered or revision)
- % of important content delivered verbally (no record)
- % skills modeled and not repeated
- length of lesson (50 or 100 minutes)
- productivity in class (if 70% the 70 mins for 100 min lesson)
- expectations of teachers (set at beginning of year)
- school expectations reflected in policy
- expectations of parents and degree that they oversee work (Google Classroom can provide summary progress information to “guardians”)
- student capability (are they capable enough to fill in the gaps by themselves)
- student motivation
- student options ie friends, homework club, resources at home
- teacher resources ie lesson plans, text, videos (YouTube and key class content)
No doubt there are others.
I am looking at an integrated approach to students catching up missed classes ie part parents supervision, part teaching resources, part expectations, part technology… It will be interesting to see where this leads.
edwin bruce, teacher 