Strictly online classes – Ifill

At least one private school will not be returning to face-to-face teaching for academic studies.

Principal of The Ifill School Akil Ifill announced that from September the school will be going fully online to allow for a flexible learning system where students can remain in the comfort of their own home and parents can monitor how classes are being administered.

He said after consulting with parents through a series of meetings, the school made the decision to go fully online at this time while still concentrating on providing quality education.

Ifill said since last year, just before the first national shutdown to curb the spread of COVID- 19, the school launched a specially developed portal to meet the specific needs of online learning.

The principal said: “We have been doing this since March last year when we were the first school to launch an online programme and it is our own because we developed our own system.

While the other schools were figuring out what to do, we were already online with our own platform. For 2020, we did not do one single face-to-face class. Parents are excited about it and students are excited about it and the staff at The Ifill School are excited about it.

“This allows us also to have school from Monday to Sunday and not necessarily from Monday to Friday making the school flexible and also students can pick and choose when they want to do certain things. Traditional school does not have the flexibility that online school has.
This is the direction that the world is going in.

COVID being here doesn’t change the fact that you have more efficient and creative ways to teach students.

“The after-school programmes we are still going to have. We are working with stadiums and also the Police Sports Club and the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) groups who we have been working with before, to have athletics, football, volleyball and the various sports programmes that we offer at the Ifill School.”

However, Ifill said that from September, the private school will only be taking students from Class 3, Class 4, and secondary school students because these age groups are more suited to understand the dynamics of online school. He said the secondary school students will also be pointed towards the direction of sitting the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) examinations from September.

“We are only taking from Class 3 and up from September because those are the ones that are accustomed to doing things a particular way. And some would have their reading and writing skills so it would suit them best. Not that it can’t work for a reception or Infants A student, but it is best suited for older students,” he explained.

Ifill also pointed out that online school would allow his institution to stay alive and relevant following losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents will also be able to save on school fees which have been reduced, and also save on transportation costs.

“The benefits outweigh any type of disadvantages,” he noted. “It is not about being the first to do it, it is about doing it properly in the first place. I have been researching doing this for about four years. And somebody has to make the step to be bold and go out there and do it.

“In Barbados, we have this fear of change.

The thing about online school is now we are opened up to the Caribbean. We have parents who are in the Bahamas, some are in Bermuda and some are in Antigua. So their child or ward can travel and still be doing school.

“You can actually take a vacation and still be doing school. The most important thing about school is that learning takes place and I think that is where the focus needs to be. There is this misconception that face-to-face is better than online and that is not true. It is just that people are accustomed to face-to-face. There are so many ways to do things, but we do things the same way all the time. So I am excited for the future of learning in Barbados.”
(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)