Like all schools, COVID restrictions in 2020 challenged OLMC to ‘pivot’ almost all of our learning and teaching practices and day-to-day operations. Rapid and substantial planning, as well as a great deal of staff improvisation, enterprise and IT upskilling came to the fore. So too did the goodwill and homespun resourcefulness of our students. They joined forces with their teachers to ensure that interactions were frequent and rewarding and that learning remained purposeful.

Google Classroom and Google Meet became the ‘new normal’ mechanisms for learning and teaching, with other key applications also serving us well. Periodically, almost everybody encountered malfunctions, however, students and staff happily attested to improvement in their trouble-shooting skills and mastery of a broader range of digital technologies.

The partnership between school and home is always important. In so many ways, 2020 was truly a partnership with our parents as together we shared in the joys and challenges of home-based learning. Our teachers were regularly buoyed by their wonderful affirmations about the quality of the learning offered to their daughters.

Staff and students attest to having learnt a great deal about themselves and new ways of working. Recurring insights include that remote learning encouraged innovation and strengthened skills in problem solving and critical, creative and agile thinking. We intend to leverage these rewarding outcomes in 2021.