Challenge

The International School of Budapest in Hungary had the challenge of continuing high-quality education in the midst of schools closures due to the pandemic.

Solution

Meg Hickman, Vice Principal of the Elementary School there, has been speaking to teachers at the International School of Budapest, particularly the Year 2, 3 and 4 teachers, about how they have been using EducationCity during their school closure in enabling distance learning.

During the closures, teachers have felt that being able to assign Learn Screens for home learning has helped parents understand the curriculum aims for their children and support students better at home. Furthermore, the ability to assign both paper-based and digital work for children has meant that children without access to printers have also received support. The teachers at the school have also been able to monitor attendance on independent work hours.

One of the year 3 teachers commented: “EducationCity has helped me to reinforce new concepts we learnt through Learn Screens, etc. And it has also helped me to revise concepts already done through activities. I also liked doing the activities together when doing revision.”

Furthermore, a year 2 teacher at the school has said that, “EducationCity helped to cut down on paperwork needing to be printed with activities. Mainly, I assigned the paper activities for those who needed some extra help. The interactive activities allowed me to gauge the students’ progress based on the results shown, so I could see what I would need to spend some extra time on.”

As mentioned, teachers at the International School of Budapest have also been able to keep up with students’ progress easily on EducationCity.

The assessments on EducationCity have been a huge help to the school and the teachers have commented that they can see academic progress easily despite being at home.

For distance learning purposes, teachers have commented that EducationCity has proved to be a great resource, due to its ability to organise resources by learning objective. Meg says, “it really helped our teachers to ensure coverage of all remaining aspects of the curriculum during distance learning. Additionally, it allowed me as an administrator to keep ‘in touch’ with each class’s assignments and participation rates.”

Result

A year 3 teacher who relies on EducationCity commented, “EducationCity is good as it has a huge wealth of resources that can be used in multiple ways. You can do things together or assign as work to do at home. There are sheets if you need them. You can check who is working.”

Meg and her teachers expressed that, due to the school closures and the challenges this highlighted, they have also realised many other ways to use the product within and outside of school to boost growth and support. 

Meg has stated: “I think more of my teachers will use EducationCity in the future, even in ‘normal’ circumstances, because now they are all very confident in how the platform functions and skilled at finding relevant activities!”A year 2 teacher from the school stated: “with the class set of tablets now available, I would definitely use EducationCity more in the class as a tool to have students play against each other, etc. Now I generally do an activity on the board as a quick recap or warm-up and have students come to the board but there are more ways to use it. I will also set more homework by EducationCity.”

“I think I will use it more for homework next year. It is paperless and so good for the environment and also fun for the kids,” a year 3 teacher said. “In class, we enjoyed doing activities together on the smart screen, I will continue that. I will also use it more in English Language Learning (ELL). They have good reading and comprehension activities.”

A year 4 teacher also said that they will definitely use the product much more, “definitely. I think instead of going to YouTube to find videos, I will go to EducationCity first. I will use it more for spelling/grammar homework assignments and get them used to logging on and completing a task that’s been officially ‘assigned’. I will also use it for math next year and will probably get more math lessons in this way!”

Alongside this, the school have also enjoyed the support they have received from Edmentum too and have said that all the questions they’ve asked have been answered promptly and technical difficulties were solved without delay. 

Meg has commented: “I am very happy with the level of service.”

We look forward to supporting the International School of Budapest in the future and hope that we can continue our partnership so that they see success with their school’s goals after the school closures.