A Day in the Life… Making a difference
Every day is amazing, we all learn something new. Students learn from teachers but also teachers from students.
What animal is that? What can you tell me about it? Really? What did you do at the weekend? How is the biking going? Wow, that’s fantastic!
Life at Wendover Online School isn’t just about school work, it’s about you, it’s about all of us, we’re all on a journey and we love to hear about all of your achievements, especially interests and hobbies.
That’s what is so great, we have the time for lessons; personable teachers who take the time to listen and understand and students are able to develop skills outside the classroom too. It really is all about ‘us’.
From one lesson to another teachers tell us how we are doing as we go along, and from time to time we look back and realise just how far we have come. Whether it’s algebra or French verbs, even Art or Music there’s a real sense of progress and that makes us all smile.
Lessons are usually in the morning, it might be Maths followed by Science, Geography or History. Each teacher is a subject specialist but they are more than that: they are specialists in working out the best way for us to learn.
Sometimes we are busy discussing problems; writing sample answers on the screen or writing in our books so that we can scan it or show it to the teacher on the camera at that moment.
That’s why it’s important that we take time to present work well. Some of the work is produced on the computer, other work is in books, so there’s always the chance to check back to what was done in the lesson.
It’s great when we can share our Art work with our tutor.
It’s certainly not lonely. Everyone, students and teachers, looks forward to the lessons. We share learning with our classmates and with other subject teachers and somehow it’s easier to make the links from one area to another.
It’s wonderful that we are able to mix with different people depending on the subject. Sometimes it’s 1:2:1 and that’s great too and lessons progress really fast.
We have our own caring community, one that allows us to be who we are and to learn in a way that suits us.
All in all, it’s such a calm start to the day, none of the running around to find school bags and uniform, all our materials just stay on the desk, books are all our responsibility, everything’s kept close to our workspace.
Rules? Well, we do have a few important ones: be respectful and polite, be on time and generally be organised.
Most of that’s fairly straightforward and when we get in a tangle with the organisation of work, our tutor is there to help. In fact, all the teachers are really responsive.
Homework? Yes, we do have independent learning, it might be reading, writing an extended story over a number of weeks, music practice, or revision for assessments so we do have responsibilities but once that is completed we can pursue our interests, some of us love the outdoors, others practice music or sports.
The flexibility of our programmes allows several of our students who are elite athletes, or have other pursuits, to work around their other commitments such as training, tournaments, or concerts for musicians.
A truly international online school
If we have to move around the world, well, school just comes with us, similarly if we are pursuing other activities such as sport at a really high level and need to work our education around our training schedules.
It’s really interesting to look at all the things that we are able to do thanks to having such a flexible learning environment.
Below you can see a map of all the locations where our students come from, making us a British international online school for all.
