This is according to Chief Education Officer Connie George who recently said the Ministry of Education has been working to create an atmosphere for online students that will reflect the physical school environment.

“A school day will run from 9 am to 2:30 pm, of course, with the lunch and the breaks in between as usual. So we want it to look exactly like it would have looked if they were actually getting up in the morning and going off to school,” she said.

“We are encouraging what we are calling office hours for the teacher where at that time, they would be able to zero in on the one child or the two children who would need extra attention or extra help with special education or extra the reading time,” the Chief Education Officer added.

Parents encouraged to create structure

To assist with the ministry’s intended goal, George is asking for parents to create a daily atmosphere within their household that would resemble the usual pre-COVID school morning pattern.

“You need to have a good structure for the child at home. The child must feel like ‘I am going to school’. So they must be asked to get up at a certain time, have their bath and their breakfast and get themselves ready.”

Uniform wearing by some schools

To further assist with conditioning the minds of students, George said that some schools have taken the extra step of requesting their students to wear uniforms during the online classes.

“I know that some schools have encouraged children to put on their school uniforms so that when they open the camera everybody is wearing their school uniforms. That’s not mandated, but it does help the child to fall in line and recognise, ‘yes I am really going to school’,” she explained.

The 2020/2021 academic year for local public schools is set to begin on September 21.