Schools open to the new normal By Christophe Zialor |12 May 2020

After weeks of closure, post-secondary schools, UniSey and day care centres finally re-opened their doors and welcomed their first batch of students yesterday.

Seychelles NATION visited the Seychelles Institute of Technology, International School Seychelles, The Guy Morel Institute and Count and Read day care centre to get a run on their first day back.

“Before re-opening the day care we participated in a meeting conducted by the public health authority were they discussed the necessary measures that we would have to put in place,”said Charline Labrosse, owner of Count and Read day care centre.

She noted that before the children came back they marked the floors where each child will remain a few feet apart from each other during their sit down sessions.

Ms Labrosse added that they are making sure that all children are practising good hygiene.

“We don’t really want to use hand sanitisers with small children so we mostly encourage them to wash their hands at the designated sinks located on the compound,” said Ms Labrosse.

At the Seychelles Institute of Technology it was evident that they were adhering to the instructions given by the health department as staff, students and guests were all required to sanitise their hands and enter their personal details such as name, address and phone number in a log book before being allowed to enter the school.

Hubert Barbe, director of the school, noted that a majority of students are the ones on apprenticeship programmes who will be going on work attachment so there will not be a huge number of students on the campus every day.

“As for cleaning the school, we will be doing it everyday,” said the director.

He noted that practical sessions will still go on but the lecturers will limit the number of students in the class at any one time. However he said that the workshops are big enough to accommodate students and lecturer at the same time while keeping a safe distance apart.

“It will be a challenge but the staff are making sure to follow all the guidelines given. Everything we will be doing will be new and I will be counting on my staff to use their expertise to teach our students as well as maintaining the aspects of social distancing,” said the director.

The director and the staff also conducted a meeting later in the afternoon to discuss a contingency plan in the event of a student testing positive for the virus.

At The Guy Morel Institute, Patrick Bristol, the administrative manager, said that the institute has developed its Action Plan based on the recommendation of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development guidelines to facilitate the implementation and the safe re-opening of the institute.

“Other than what we do routinely we have increased and focused more on the three pillars which is Hygiene, Vigilance and Social Distancing as recommended by the Public Health Authority. The campus has been cleaned, sanitisers placed in strategic locations for all campus users, demarcations placed in common access areas to remind users to maintain the distance,” said Mr Bristol.

He noted that the staff are being reminded to maintain the distance while the tracking of visitors on campus is being enforced.

With every school adopting a new way of teaching, Mr Bristol said that the institute is not expecting to see a decline in the quality of teaching as such but in some ways it will increase the support that facilitators have to give to the learners for they will be coming in smaller groups on campus.

He noted that the institute has reorganised its timetable so that learners come for face to face sessions fortnightly so they can ensure that social distancing is maintained. Learners will no longer sign the attendance. Facilitators will sign and confirm attendance of learners.

“Other than the face to face sessions learners will continue to be supported through the institute’s online portal (IFNOSS) with notes, assessments. The institute is also exploring other online training platforms such as Moodle and zoom to complement the existing portal,” he further added.

“The institute is readjusting its existing schedule and additional sessions are being taken into consideration for learners who need the extra support resulting from the partial lockdown. Facilitators have also switched to the blended learning approach during the closure of the institute. Some learners are not used to that mode of teaching and learning, thus this is why extra support are being given where needed. Some exams are being postponed, but not cancelled, to give learners time to catch up. This applies to learners sitting both local and international exams. The institute is doing its best to support all learners,” Mr Bristol said.

The International School Seychelles also opened its doors yesterday welcoming its students as well as a number of safety precautions that they have added on their campus.

Terrence Françoise, vice-principal of the school, talked about the various hand washing stations that they have placed around the school as well as in classes and the hand sanitiser dispensers that have also been placed around campus.

“When we first closed the school we sanitised and deep cleaned the school and last week before students came back we did the same thing. We have also cleaned our vents and ventilation system,” he said.

The vice-principal also noted that they have a limit of 26 students per class and all of them will be sitting at a safe distance from each other. He added that the school has hired more janitors and has increased the amount of time they clean toilets and classroom.

“We have made a new schedule were cleaners are cleaning the toilets every hour when students are in class and every 30 minutes when students are outside,” Mr Françoise noted.

Physical activities have also been halted for the most part and the school has limited the number of parents allowed on the campus during drop off and pickups. ISS has also stopped students from going for lunch off campus, opting for a food delivery service instead.

When it comes to learning ISS has been conducting online classes during the lockdown but students still missed a large part of the syllabus. To make up for this the school has extended its learning time from seven hours to eight.

The students who should have been sitting for their Cambridge examination in May were affected since Cambridge cancelled all exams till November. The vice-principal noted that as unfortunate as the situation is students will still be able to apply for post-secondary and university based on their predictive grades that will be sent to Cambridge and they will graduate with no problem.

All the remaining schools are set to open on Monday next week.

Photos: Jude Morel