[Testimonial] How did the Amsterdam school ensure teaching and Settings continuity with Skolengo?

Published on May 19, 2020 by Laure - Updated on 14 mai 2024 à 12H01

Testimonial from Céline Alric, Director of the Amsterdam School Principal, a branch of the Vincent-Van-Gogh High school in The Hague. Céline Alric, School Principal and music teacher, gives us her feedback on the implementation of distance learning.


How did you set up distance learning?

"As soon as the lockdown was announced, I set up fast-track training courses to help primary school teachers who hadn't yet got to grips with the solution. They were introduced to all the features needed to maintain social and Teaching links during this period of distance learning. I tried to pass on my knowledge of the tool as best I could, using the online help provided by Skolengo. "
From the very first week of confinement and following this accelerated training, the Teachers were able to carry out their mission remotely, thanks to the full range of functionalities on offer.


How did the first week of confinement go?

"We had a few connection problems for the first three days, but everything quickly returned to normal. To avoid an explosion in connections, at the start of the lockdown we sent the Educational community a list of best practices for connections, as well as a schedule for disseminating information to families. The evening before, teachers publish their Assignment(s) for the following day in their Organiser.


How did you maintain the teaching link with your remote students?

"Primary and 6th grade teachers mainly used the Organiser to distribute work to do, follow up on work delivered by Students and post Corrected assignments. "
"Primary teachers used the Blog to create attractive activities. A fourth-grade teacher posted activities for her students via the blog on context-related themes: my life in quarantine, will pollution stop during containment? etc. The students took to the Data set and responded to what was asked of them, using different media (video, image, soundtrack)".


Were you able to maintain social links with families and School staff?

"I managed to maintain the direct link with School staff and families thanks to the multitude of communication tools integrated into Skolengo. "
"At the start of the lockdown, I created several Sections to help teachers fulfill their mission of Teaching continuity. Teachers could post teaching videos to pass on to parents, so that they could ensure teaching continuity at home. And on a daily basis, I use Mailbox and Targeted communication to distribute important information to parents. This gives parents all the information they need about School life. "
"The Teaching team also designed Forms to gather information to find out in particular how learning was going at home. "


What is your initial assessment of this "constrained" distance learning?

"I'm very pleased to see that the primary teachers who were using another solution just before the confinement have adopted the tool so quickly. We're now all working with a single tool, so we're ensuring our support for teaching continuity with students and parents in a unified way across the School. "


How has your School ensured administrative continuity?

"The Vincent-Van-Gogh High School in The Hague, of which my school is an annex, uses Skolengo's Settings and Management module to handle invoicing and enrolments for my school. They're very happy with it. "
"Tracking enrollments with the Dashboard is a real time-saver. We can easily analyze registration files and identify missing documents. One click is all it takes to circulate our decision to parents and track statistics throughout the enrolment campaign. The grouped e-mailing to families is also an asset for ensuring effective communication without wasting time. " Elisabeth Segaud, digital coordinator at the Lycée Français Vincent-Van-Gogh in The Hague.
We now have a single tool to manage the entire operation of our School. It's practical to have a single tool to carry out all the School's missions.


Now that you've got an overview of Skolengo's functionalities, can you give us a Practices that you'd like to develop after containment in your School?

"Tomorrow, we'll have to continue using Skolengo to set up inverted classes in particular. My goal would be to continue to master the tool better and better, to adopt it on a daily basis in the classroom and then adapt learning according to the level of the Student in order to achieve differentiated teaching. "