Edinburgh independent schools - Distance learning response

[Popskipiekin]

We’re planning to move up to Edinburgh for the academic session 2021/22 with two early primary age DC. We’ve been really impressed with the response during lockdown of our current (London) school and their provision of materials for home learning.

I was thinking that a decent response to lockdown would be something I’d be really interested to hear about as we try to choose schools for our two DC for next year, and I wondered if anyone had anything to say about the lockdown schooling response from any of Watsons / Heriots / Edinburgh Academy / ESMS ? Thanks so much - anything you can say would be helpful. I don’t know any of these schools - my brother went to EA but that was years ago - and am just trying to think outside the box slightly to get some info to help narrow our decision (which may or may not be made for us when the DC have their assessments of course).

[cocopops]

Dd is at ESMS- senior school. Not impressed at all with how the school has handled it. Very few online lessons and an average of 3 zoom calls a week.

That said, I hear it was 10x worse in the junior school.

Lots and lots of v unhappy parents.

[Popskipiekin]

Gosh cocopops I’m so sorry to hear that. I suppose it did take some schools completely by surprise. We were lucky to be at an early stage of schooling and in a small school - perhaps a lot easier to mobilise than a big secondary (or primary). I hope it will improve for your DD next term...

[motherstongue]

Personally I’d look at Cargilfield Prep. Fab school, small class sizes and very on the ball about everything. More expensive than the others your looking at but worth the money

[rookiemere]

DS14 at Watsons - online teaching has not been great. Some teachers putting in a huge effort, others not. Overall organization of work sent out very poor. Finally got me set up to show what work DS had on google classroom after report card said he hadn't logged into one subject all term - first time I was notified.

It's actually really changed my perception of the school. Although I believe they were better for those in key exam years and they have put a lot of effort into trying to make blended learning work next term - although I hope it's not needed.

[motherstongue]

rookiemere and cocopops!!!! I’m really shocked at your responses!!! DD is at Glenalmond and the lockdown provision has been great. Way better than I ever expected. I would have been fuming in your shoes. As a comparison they had online live classes Monday to Friday from 8.30am until around 4 p.m. with all work submitted and marked with feedback. DD in 5th form so sitting (or not sitting) GCSEs so 1st half of term was basically just revision then after 1/2 term they started them on A level syllabus on a new timetable. She was bored for the 1st 1/2 of the term but got more motivated once the A Level subjects started.

[Popskipiekin]

motherstongue thanks so much for the Cargilfield suggestion. Makes complete sense that a smaller school would fare better in current climate but I guess I don’t want to go down the road of preps and then a move to one of the big public 13-18 schools later. I was so happy in my 5-18 day school, once we do this move I’d like the DC to have the option of staying put for the rest of their schooling.

Does give pause for thought though - that possibly the larger the school, the harder the response to lockdown has been.
Hearing rookiemere’s comment re Watsons would seem to bear this out - sorry you’ve had such a bad experience there, are you thinking of moving DS? I guess we all hope it calms down and returns to status quo. So if you and DS were happy pre covid hopefully you’ll be happy again if things are allowed back to “normal” soon.

[cocopops]

I’ve heard good things about Cargilfield so second the suggestion.

I also agree with you @rookiemere on the change in perception of school. My DD has been at ESMS for 13 years and I’ve always been supportive and happy with them but now I have lost all faith in the leadership. And the way they have handled their comms during lockdown was atrocious.

I would have moved DD but she is in her exam years so I don’t think that would be sensible. If I had my time again, I would have sent her to a school that does A levels- I think there is a high probability that the exams will be cancelled next year and am now stressing about that (especially of A levels go ahead and she is competing with those who have actually sat exams)......

[hosnav]

I contacted Heriots to ask them as my son is potentially applying for entry in 2021 and was not impressed with the response. "So far, it has been a mixture of assignments set to work on independently along with some live classes and pre-recorded videos. Staff and pupils have been communicating via our online learning platform as well as through Teams. All coursework is submitted via the platform and feedback and/or assistance is provided by the teachers. The plan for next session, at the moment, is for a 50/50 blended learning where pupils spend one week in school and one learning remotely."

In my children's current school every single lesson is live with the teacher there for the duration, following exactly the same timetable as they did when they were in school. We were closed for three months and on two occassions my son missed a scheduled registration/meeting with a teacher and I was immediately emailed to be informed and ask where he was.

[Popskipiekin]

hosnav that’s so interesting - and thanks for being so proactive as to ask them direct! Disappointing of heriots as it has such a reputation for academic excellence.
Nobody is coming out of this very well so far, aside from Cargilfield of course

[potterspotter]

I know not in your list as girls only but we found St George’s lockdown comms & learning to be excellent, their pastoral care was good too and a great job of the online transition events.

[Popskipiekin]

potterspotter well as my alma mater I’m very glad to hear it! (And sadly no chance of sending my own DSs there)

Shame others couldn’t manage it as well as St G’s. I wonder how the Edinburgh academy came out of it. I should take a leaf out of PPs book and go direct to horse’s mouth.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Waves at potterspotter hello fellow St G'er! I'd just come on to suggest it too but not DS compatible - although in that case what about Merchiston?

St G took a couple of weeks to get going (we basically didn't get much until after easter) but once they started what they offered was very solid and certainly better than friends at some of the other bigger schools were getting. Younger end of Junior school at some of them seemed to be particularly weak.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

Sorry, missed you have young primary - EA I heard didn't handle it well at those ages

[Popskipiekin]

Hi StatisticallyChallenged, thanks for your post. Glad you had a good experience for the summer term at least. Good to hear that some schools can get it right!

DH is against Merchi as he had a bad time at an all boys school and it’s considerably more expensive than the other schools we’re looking at Our DC are getting so much out of coed right now, I guess we’ll see how they fare when they’re older but I’m happy to stick with it for now.

That’s a pity about what you heard re the junior provision at EA. I know I shouldn’t go all out in judging schools purely by this one criteria but it’s certainly something I’ll be asking a lot about when we meet the Heads.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I hadn't looked at the fees for MC - two DD's here! Funnily enough DH didn't enjoy his all boys school either and I'd initially been quite opposed to single sex myself. It was just fluke that when we decided to move eldest DD, St G's were one of the places with spaces and a friend had recently viewed it and said "go and see" and we just loved it straight away. I think the arguments are a bit different for single sex for girls vs boys too.

I think it's reasonable to take the remote learning provision in to account, we could easily end up in lockdown again and given you keep paying fees it's a big question!

[Popskipiekin]

Oh I loved my time at St G’s! And I’m sure it’s just got better and better. I moved down south for 6th form to a coed and after some fantastic physics teaching at St G’s I was the only girl doing physics A level with 30 boys - think that speaks for itself really, single sex for girls is fantastic for encouraging into STEM (and a whole host of other things I’m sure). Hope your DDs are very happy there.

[HH160bpm]

Two at ESMS here. I was pretty happy with the volume and provision, the 4th year got a massive head start on higher work and the younger one (senior) got a decent amount of work. I was chased when one missed one lesson. All adults in the house working more than full time from home throughout, thankfully our WiFi supported everyone’s simultaneous video calls.

I know parents who were in pieces trying to work and support full day online learning, and parents who had someone available all day to support it who were delighted with the same model. I honestly don’t know how any emergency remote learning model could work for the family variations of available adult, home access to tech and WiFi speed.

I’m actually more concerned about the 50/50 model that’s been proposed. How is that meant to work with the same amount of staff? If they are in full time when are they creating the remote learning? How are they supposed to teach online and be in class? More teachers would surely mean a fee hike, pretty unpalatable for 50% remote learning and very little of the usual non-academic provision.

[HowManyNameChangesNow]

I would suggest looking at Cargilfield also. During lockdown they went straight into a full timetable of 'live' lessons. Very well supported, musical concerts, assemblies, drama productions all went ahead!
In August they have already announced everybody back, everyday.

[HowManyNameChangesNow]

They also supported parents by lending out technology to those who needed it and had a keyworker group in school each day.

[Marmalady75]

We’ve had a great response with Clifton Hall. The headmaster is very much on the ball and regularly sends out videos to the parents explaining what is happening, how the school is responding etc. The teachers have been great throughout (including a 1:1 with teacher every week and daily live sessions). We felt very supported.

[Marmalady75]

Oh and we have known since mid June that the children would all be back full time. They have adapted other parts of the school to accommodate smaller groups if necessary.

[rookiemere]

It's great that some schools have been so good - I really wish I'd followed my instincts with GWC and started raising my voice a bit earlier. We received no phone calls for the entire period, even after I'd raised a few (non formal) complaints, I only received emails.

Silly things like there was meant to be an evening to explain Duke of Edinburgh award to the parents. This was obviously cancelled because of coronavirus, but rather than trying to organise a screen call event, or a prerecorded session or at the very least an explanatory email, we were told of its existence and asked to read the website and email any individual questions.

A small and petty example, but I think illustrates that there was little coherent thinking on how to replicate as much of the school experience from home and proactively take opportunities to contact parents.

We did get weekly emails - I still remember the particularly tone deaf one where the schooling our DCs would receive in the next academic year was mentioned third paragraph after Black Lives Matter and something else. Now I'm not saying these other things don't matter, but to me and I would hope to the school the children's education should be paramount.

Anyway we were satisfied with it before all this happened, so fingers crossed life will go back to normal.

[HowManyNameChangesNow]

Have also heard good things avout Clifton Hall too.

[WickedGoodDoge]

rookiemere Off topic, but if you want to know anything about how DoE works at GWC, just send me a DM. DS just finished his Gold DoE.

[rookiemere]

@WickedGoodDoge thanks - I think I've figured it out DoE now, although DS doing none of the activities we selected together so goodness knows if that will work out .