11 February 2021
Mr William Bohanna, Senior Teacher (Teaching & Learning)
As we arrive at the end of this half term in our #VirtualValley, I can happily report that our teaching and learning has continued to be as innovative as ever in all its wonderful forms. Feedback about remote teaching remains overwhelmingly positive, which, I believe, is testament to all our collective hard work; we truly are a community of learners. The message to student remains:
Leave every lockdown lesson with more than you went in with…
Learning, of course, does not just take place in lessons. It’s out of the virtual classroom too.
Our Woldingham Talks programme has gone to strength to strength with a range of stimulating topics from art history, employment in the tech industry, studying anthropology at university to the poet Homer. These super talks have been delivered by a range of staff, students, governors, parents, and alumnae. In addition, we have had a series of Desert Island Valley book reviews. Last week’s, from our Deputy Head Ms Ward, of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall, generated a lovely tweet from the author himself!
Under the leadership of Mrs Chambers our Careers department, with ongoing support from Development Manager Camilla Mair, Woldingham continues to deliver an excellent range of panel presentations and question and answer sessions with leading industry experts designed to inform and inspire students into possible future career paths and the range of opportunities they may consider with life beyond the valley. Over in the Music Department, Mr Hargreaves has been posting the My Music podcasts, where various members of staff have been sharing pieces of music and discussing why these are so important to their lives.
There is so much to enjoy from our #VirtualValley. These examples really illustrate our depth and breath as a learning community, which allows us to appreciate just how learning really is a lifelong process. We would encourage all our students to embrace entirely the fantastic and inventive learning opportunities on offer as we need to now more than ever work together, in the words of Mother Mabel Digby:
The richness, strength and beauty of life rest largely on the diversity of our gifts, the ideas and thoughts that we all bring together.
In this week’s teaching and learning round-up we share some of the fantastic, innovative, and inspirational approaches being used from the drama, German, biology, DT and chemistry departments. You can read the round up here.