A Christchurchhigh school‘s experiment with “hybrid learning” could well be the vanguard in changes to how our children study.
Hagley College is trialling letting pupils work from home for two days per week to address falling attendance rates.
It hopes to target students whostruggle with attendance due to mental health concerns or sickness.
The hybrid learning model will be offered to 20 NCEA Level 2 students. Students will attend 16 hours of in-person maths, science and English classes a week, and the rest via scheduled video calls.
New Zealand education specialist Derek Wenmoth helped Hagley College design the trial. He told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan last Friday other countries have programmes specifically targeting students struggling with issues like anxiety, and New Zealand is behind on the uptake.
Aren’t there more potential distractions (and less supervision) for teenagers at home than in a classroom?
“Simply having a teacher in a classroom doesn’t actually change things – it comes down to the same educational principles of being really explicit in your instructional design and having programmes that are highly engaging and motivating for these students,” Wenmoth said.
Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor says he backed each school’s prerogative to make their own choices, but in his view students needed to show up to class, in person, five days a week.
Auckland Grammar School headmaster Tim O'Connor says students need to be taught to be less fragile. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Turning up at the right place at the right time, being professional and learning how to socialise with peers were life lessons everyone needed to learn.
If anxious students stay at home all the time rather than being given the tools to cope, our nation is in for a “sad future”, he said.
“I’m over resilience. I think resilience is now a cliche and we actually need to be teaching them to be less fragile,” he said.
Christchurch's Hagley College hopes its new part-time trial of at-home studying is an innovative way to help students.
The hybrid learning debate will likely follow the same trajectory as discussions about hybrid working.
Many Kiwis have embraced “work-from-home” policies – they can forgo a commute and get their tasks done from the comfort of their lounges or bedrooms.
Employers, initially enthusiastic, have begun to push back, with some attempting to get staff back in their offices for five days a week. With unemployment rising – and the labour market loosening – expect some bosses to push harder.
Given the changing nature of work (who could have predicted even five years ago a pandemic would lock down the world and result in formal work-from-home policies?), it’s hard to know the environment in which many of our kids may earn a living.
Considering that, shouldn’t we be encouraging them to be out in the world, following a routine and turning up alongside their peers?
As O’Connor says: “Why don’t we just go back to the basics with them and say, ‘Hey, no, you need to be present. You need to be doing these things, these things aren’t up for negotiation, you just need to be at the right place at the right time’.”
