News
Gateway College goes Online
View(s):The unexpected early closure of schools, was expected to cause much disruption to teaching and learning in schools. This was however, not the case for Gateway College, the only Microsoft Showcase School in Sri Lanka, and one among only 241 in the world. Through the commitment of dedicated teachers and the perseverance of parents and students, the school was able to end the term with minimal disturbance.
Online examinations for Years 10 to 13
After the announcement was made on March 19 to close schools, the teachers of Gateway decided to conduct the mock examinations online. Prior to that, several webinars and practice mocks were held to familiarise the students with the new arrangements. The mocks conducted were timed according to usual exam conditions, with a start time, end time and an extra 15 minutes for uploading if needed.
The teachers are currently marking the scripts, mostly online, and during the upcoming days, discussion of papers too will be carried out online. The marks will be delivered to the students on April 10. The graph below shows the success of the online mocks.
Play Group to Year 9
Study packs were made available separately by all Gateway schools on the common school website for younger age groups. This provided children with the opportunity to engage in additional assignments, as they were free to use other Gateway schools’ study packs. Since all Gateway schools are on a common work plan, students find all assignments relevant. The number of hits on the website during the period in which the study packs were made available show that parents actively facilitated the use of the study packs.
Gateway is making necessary preparations to conduct lessons online for these students too, in case the country’s situation does not improve. The delivery of lessons, with the parents’ support, is expected to begin on April 20. The initial few days will be trial period and complete delivery will begin from May onwards.
Necessary arrangements are being made this week for Key Stage 2 (Years 3 to 6) and Key Stage 3 (Years 7 to 9) to receive Microsoft 365 accounts to create the necessary Microsoft Teams. The school will provide all children with original MS 365 licenses at no cost to their parents. Various tool/s are being researched to find the best solution for Play Group to Year 2 students.
The focus on ICT at Gateway
In developing the schools’ ICT capability, Gateway has mainly focused on teachers’ professional development. Having a Microsoft Innovative Educator Fellow, 12 Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts and 323 Microsoft Innovative Educators within the Gateway school network (Colombo, Kandy, Negombo, Dehiwala and Ratmalana) had contributed much towards the transformation of Gateway’s IT expertise.
Two Gateway teachers were selected by Microsoft to represent Sri Lanka at their annual Education Summit – Education Exchange, held in Singapore and France.
Gateway’s Team Leader in Change Management says, “Microsoft Showcase Schools are premier schools where the school leader has a strong vision for change.”
She said the Showcase School program members are very diverse, but they have the commitment to school-wide transformation in common. The school has had immense benefit through tools such as Microsoft Teams, OneNote, Sway, Kahoot, Forms, Augmented Reality Apps like Merge and Assembler and FlipGrid.
Gateway uses technology to communicate effectively with parents through the newly developed Parent Communication App, emails and numerous social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter. Gateway’s in-house school management system ‘School Online’, which has evolved over the years, is one of the most powerful tools the school has to monitor student progress and attendance, and to generate academic and administrative reports.
Virtual Avurudu
This week, Gateway students would have celebrated the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in school. Therefore, the school has come up with an initiative for the children to stay happy and positive during these dark days and appreciate the rich culture of our country.
Gateway College launched the virtual celebration of Avurudu in collaboration with The Soul Sounds Academy, Workshop Players and Channa Upuli Performing Arts Foundation. Children in three age groups are able to take part in Music, Theatre, Dance and Games and upload their performances onto an Educational App from home.
There will also be Avurudu Kumariya and Kumara pageants and the Funniest Laugh and Fancy Dress competitions. Gateway has opened the competition to all Sri Lankan children across the world.
The portal where the performances will be uploaded is: https://flipgrid.com/virtualavurudu2020 and the event page is: https://bit.ly/3anZaGo