Reach Academy Welcomes Another Year of Fantastic Mock Results | Shivkaran Brar, Reach Academy Feltham

COVID and Reach’s Response

Today marks the second anniversary of COVID-19’s introduction to the UK. It has been a long and gruelling two years, but schools have progressively adapted to the COVID work environment. Throughout 2020, we saw schools struggling to adapt to the system of online learning where a majority of students and teachers alike were newcomers to the now-familiar Zoom live meetings platform. A significant amount of students didn’t have a suitable device or internet connection to access online learning services, resulting in many students missing out on crucial content. Although many schools were soon able to aid students in attending online lessons, the damage had been done, and many students were too far behind the content to catch up. Throughout 2020 and 20201, we also saw disparities in learning when certain students, unfortunately, tested positive. The majority of students had access to regular learning, whilst others often had to wait days before they had the chance to catch up on old lessons whilst stuck at home. Many schools loosely enforced the mask-wearing policy, often meaning students unintentionally spread COVID, exacerbating the aforementioned problems.

These problems have been plaguing all schools in the UK, and the rest of the world, to a large extent, however, Reach’s response to COVID has allowed students to benefit from school just as they would have had COVID not been an issue. Reach has been consistent with policing mask policies, ensuring students have access to laptops and other devices to access online learning should need be, and been consistent in holding online zoom lessons during lockdowns and for isolating students. This has allowed Reach students to achieve an average grade of 5.87 across all subjects, with 11 pupils on a grade 7 or above in core subjects such as English and Mathematics. Students scored particularly high in History and Geography, with no one scoring below a 5 in Physics.

The Future of Reach Students

Reach Academy has clearly demonstrated its students are able to achieve outstanding results and has more planned for the future. Schools are being better and better at adapting to situations out of our control, and Reach is no exception. As COVID-19 becomes an increasingly normal part of our lives, schools and students alike evolve and improve.