Unsurprisingly, some parents of international school students paying significant fees to ensure their children receive a world-class education felt they were no longer getting their money’s worth.

For secondary school students, remote learning has been correlated with increased stress and digital addictions. But for younger students, negative effects may have been even more pronounced, due to missing out on key developmental milestones that come about through physically playing with other (unmasked) students. Special education needs (SEN) students of all ages have suffered greatly by not having direct access to SEN teachers and teaching assistants who cater to their learning needs.

Speaking of teachers, remote learning has been extremely hard on them, too. A lot of experienced educators – particularly in the kindergarten and primary sectors – were forced to completely change their teaching methodology that was built around in-person learning, and had to do so in a very short period of time. In addition, a lot of teachers live in small flats too, where online lessons proved exceedingly difficult without access to the teaching resources usually available on-site.

Overall, it’s clear that enforced closures have been a contributing factor in the higher than average number of departing international schoolteachers and families. Now, schools are hoping that face-to-face learning is here to stay, and are focused on getting students back on track.

A silver lining

Hong Kong’s schools have done a terrific job of adapting on the fly and developing effective online learning programmes. This has also given way to technological innovations in the classroom that will continue even now that face-to-face learning is back.

In addition, several schools have reported “surprisingly seamless” transitions to and from online learning, with no significant behavioural change among most students. This is thanks to the parents and domestic helpers who helped implement the online curricula, arranged sufficient play dates and ensured that the students got enough exercise.

For students who have shown some level of decline, educators are confident that these changes are far from irreversible. To ensure this, many schools have started hiring more counsellors and support staff to ensure that students’ mental health is maintained during this turbulent time period.

“For the most part, our students have shown great resilience,” said Cami Endicott, grade 4 counsellor, upper primary school, Hong Kong International School (HKIS). “When there’s chaos in the world around us, we often feel the need for some structure and routine for our well-being, so for many students, it’s a welcome change to be back in school.”

Endicott said that because of their experiences of home learning in previous waves, students took much less time to get reaccustomed to the expectations of in-person learning when they returned to classrooms this time around.

“This was mainly because we tried to be consistent in what was academically supported by continuing to teach the curriculum online, so it was a natural progression once we returned,” she said. “When we were able to return to campus, our number one focus was for students to get back into the rhythm of being in a classroom and school building together.”

To this end, HKIS organised across all year groups: classroom community-building activities, reflection and recognition of feelings, well-being checks and a review of routines. Endicott noted that the counselling teams worked with families whose children needed additional support on top of this.

Finally, during the period of home learning, HKIS was proactive in laying the groundwork for students coming back to campus, as staff continued to provide information through morning meetings and connect with students and parents individually, if needed.

“Through the counsellors’ SEL [social-emotional learning] classes, online small groups and individual check-ins, we were able to maintain connections with our students so they still felt like part of our community, even if they weren’t on campus,” Endicott said. “One of the highlights for students to connect with others was our online social lunches. Students enjoyed this time to connect with teachers, friends, and classmates through fun activities such as knitting tutorials, online board games and a variety of art activities.

“All of these online activities helped keep kids connected and smoothed the transition back to campus.”

Forewarned is forearmed

According to Ross Armitage, head of primary, international stream, at the French International School Hong Kong (FIS), his school also helped students’ transition back to “normal” life by adopting a proactive, rather than reactive, approach.

“We knew as professionals that there was going to be an impact, with children being on screen for such long periods of time,” Armitage said. “But once we knew schools would be returning to campus, we planned ahead and increased our school counsellors’ on-campus hours so that students struggling to cope would have more professional help.

“Another thing we did was we encouraged students to have less screen time in classes,” he continued. “Yes, we maintained some of the things we worked on platforms like Google Classrooms, but we’ve never been a totally IT driven school. So we jumped right back into encouraging students to interact with each other, start experimenting, creating and getting involved in their learning.”

Armitage also said the school quickly put an increased emphasis on physical education lessons to ensure that their physical health and development was up to par.

“As soon as we got the word, we started planning our PE lessons in advance. We found out exactly when the students would be allowed to swim, when they would be allowed to play team sports and fortunately, these lessons have been going extremely well.”

FIS, like many international schools, did their best to maintain a normal academic schedule, even during remote learning.

“We always maintained our current timetable, and we did this by using digital tools like Google Classroom slides which makes it more straightforward to schedule things, and helps make the lessons more interactive, ” said Armitage. “It is nearly impossible to keep children’s attention if the entire lesson is just the teacher talking on video.”

FIS adopted a “small-group” approach to online learning – as students were more likely to interact with each other in groups of three or four, than in a group call with more than 20 students. Importantly, the staff also increased communication with parents and domestic helpers to educate them on how to use digital tools like Google Classroom, ensure students’ digital safety, moderate screen time and use additional learning materials at home. They were on-hand for one-on-one sessions with parents too, to address any concerns.

They also organised daily “wake and shake” sessions, where students were made to do a small PE circuit on the spot before lessons started. Armitage said this was to help energise the students to overcome disruptions to their daily routines.

“We found that it is difficult to get the children motivated in the morning when they aren’t getting up, eating breakfast, going to school and seeing their friends before lessons,” he explained. “The ‘wake and shake’ sessions help kids stay more energised and be a little bit more physically active.”

Overall, remote learning was relatively successful, thanks to a herculean effort from the staff. But Armitage is still delighted to have students learning face-to-face and he, his colleagues, and educators across the city, are adamant things should stay that way. He is also hopeful that things like mask restrictions will get lifted. Lately, Armitage and his colleagues have been going to the cafeteria during lunch breaks to look at the students’ faces, as it’s the only time when their masks are off.

“Honestly, it’s been an absolute joy to have children back on campus,” he said. “Primary schoolchildren have to be in school to learn, it’s the most important thing. We are hoping when we come in, in September, school can be as normal as possible with no more masks, and we want parents to be able to visit the campus without having to take hours getting tested.

“It’s been three years now and that’s absolutely huge, it’s had a massive effect. So it’s time to bring things back to normal.”