Hundreds of students in Bexley have taken to the internet to continue with their schooling following the coronavirus lockdown, with one local institution opening up online classrooms to continue educating during the crisis.

Bexleyheath Academy says it has educated nearly 1,000 pupils remotely every day throughout the first week of school closures, after designing an effective virtual learning system.

Graeme Napier, principal at the academy, said he expected “virtual teching to go from strength to strength” as students and staff adapt to the unprecedented challenges presented by Covid-19.

“I am so proud of all our students and staff for reacting so quickly and effectively to this new way of working. We know that there will be challenges ahead in the coming weeks but I know that we will be able to meet them head on, and we will continue to offer a great education to our community,” he said.

“The last few days have gone to show the strength of our school community. I know that it has been a strange experience for a number of our students, but I hope they are starting to enjoy their new ways of learning. We are all finding our feet and I fully expect our virtual teaching to go from strength to strength during this time.”

According to the school, the day starts with a virtual all-staff briefing followed by assemblies online via YouTube before virtual classes start at 8.45am.

Staff then deliver their lessons live over video link, or using live resources with all work organised online.

The school has designed a virtual dashboard for all parents and students. This has a timetable for each year group, key information for setting up their virtual learning environment, ‘how to’ guides for accessing and uploading work sheets, and a list of key contacts in case of any issues.

The news comes as the school continues work to improve from the inadequate rating it was given by Ofsted in November 2018 which subsequently saw it subjected to special measures by the education watchdog.

Since then, there has been major change over of leadership and staff at the school, with a monitoring visit by Ofsted in November last year finding leaders and managers were taking effective action towards the removal of special

measures.