[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by 21C

What was hugely beneficial to me was that our school (in line with our entire diocesan school system) relaxed our scope and sequence. We didn't have to keep up with our structure of completing a topic/chapter in 3 or 4 weeks. We also stopped our summative testing, even since our return to the classroom, and have focused on our own formative testing. This has reduced the anxiety levels of students, parents and teachers. Our mid-year student reports were still issued, albeit slightly later, but they were more comment-driven rather than grade based (no grades were given).

I can't get over how much the difference in testing has made. In the past, we would test after every two chapters. We needed to post the dates of the tests in an assessment handbook for parents at the start of the year and issue test notifications to students two weeks in advance. The tests would be common printed tests used across an entire cohort and there would often be anxious parents contacting the school once the results were handed back either wringing their hands in anguish (often calling for the dismissal of the incompetent teacher that caused this calamity) or complaining that their child should get extra marks. Now I usually tell a class that we are about to finish a chapter tomorrow, have a revision lesson the following day and then do the test on the subsequent day. If we do a topic that doesn't require any working out then I often use an online Maths site that is self-marking. The student gets their result instantly instead of several days later for the paper version where different teachers mark a different section across the entire cohort.

TL-DR working from home started out stressfully for me but eventually I fould a sweet spot for me and the students.

Thanks for sharing. These last two paragraphs really speak to what I saw both as a parent who talks with other parents and as the spouse of a teacher who talks with other teachers.