Tara Murray
Furlong Park School for Deaf Children took Science Week online and it was a big success.
The school normally has an exhibition of the students’ science projects for parents and teachers to see, but with the latest lockdown had to change it up.
Leading teacher Karen Cagilarini said the students’ work had been “amazing”.
“The original plan was to have parents on site. One of the teachers, Jo Richards, is also the science coordinator.
“The teachers continued to do science lessons online and got the students to submit videos and photos of themselves with their projects.
“Jo then compiled a 10 minute video of them all. Everyone was blown away to see all the amazing activity at home.”
Ms Cagilarini said there was a real sense of triumph in making the video and that student were still able to celebrate their success.
Ms Richards said each classroom presented projects based on the theme ‘Food: different by design’.
“The classroom teachers gave each class a task and they needed to research, create, make and explain using photos and or videos to show their understanding and engagement with food. The completed tasks were uploaded on [online platform] Seesaw.
“Each child’s science project was uploaded for our school’s Science Week video for the school community to watch and learn about food.
“It was amazing to see our students engaged in their project and to see their reaction to the experiments.”
Like all schools, Furlong Park has had its challenges through lockdowns and online learning.
Ms Cagilarini said for many students it has been tough, with the school looking at a number of different communication methods to work with all the students.
“There have been some challenges at home for some of the students,” she said.
“A lot of the families have parents or siblings who aren’t deaf. At home some students are in a world where not everyone can communicate with them in their preferred style.
“We’re in the sixth lockdown and we’ve become good at online learning. Our kids are amazing and it’s a seamless transition each time.”
