Teachers will have a hard time maintaining physical distance from pre-primary and primary children, said school heads.
The youngest students, many of whom are seeing a school building for the first time, need hand-holding, in literal as well as metaphorical sense, teachers said.
Physical distancing is one of the key strategies to keep Covid at bay.
The challenges that lie ahead for teachers in the primary and pre-primary sections:
Social distancing
“How can you console a crying child from a distance?” asked a teacher.
Pre-primary children have to be helped to eat or be cleaned and washed.
“The children come at the age of 18 months onwards and we have to help them eat or take them to the toilet. SOPs are there but how do we maintain distance when we have to engage with them physically?” said Pooja Dugar, director of Leap Years Preschool.
A large part of teaching in preschools is “tactile”, including helping a child write on sandpaper or telling them how to hold the pencil correctly, said Nupur Ghosh, vice-principal of Mahadevi Birla World Academy.
Children play at Future Hope school on Thursday
“It is natural for children not to hold a pencil correctly and it is the teacher’s duty to teach a child how to hold the pencil,” she said.
Hand-holding has to be done to take students even to the classroom, said Seema Sarpru, principal of The Heritage School.
Another teacher said it was a challenge to maintain distance outdoors, where children have a tendency to group.
Learning gaps
Teachers now need to assess to what extent online classes over the past two years have been fruitful, school heads said.
“I have told teachers that they will have to address learning gaps over the next six months. Students might not have followed what the teachers taught (during online classes),” said Meena Kak, director of Lakshmipat Singhania Academy, which reopened for classes I and II on Thursday.
Some schools have started teaching again what was taught over the last two years.
“We have to redo the portions already done. But unlike seniors, we cannot extend the class time for small children, whose attention span is limited,” said Samarjit Guha, director (operations), Future Hope.
On your toes
Teachers will have to be on their toes.
“Gone are the days when they could take a class sitting on a chair,” said a school head. “They will now have to match the energy level of the children and run after them to ensure that Covid protocols are not violated.”
Nupur Ghosh, vice-principal of Mahadevi Birla World Academy, said: “A teacher’s duty will not end with her classes. She will have to be on her toes till the children are in school. The noise level in the class will be high and she will have to keep them quiet.”