Our school re-opened on 20 August.

What’s more, with there not being a local transmission of Covid-19 for nearly 100 days, the government of Thailand has given permission for schools to begin at full capacity - albeit with a list of procedures that must be abided by.

These procedures are predominantly about cleanliness, handwashing and wearing a face mask but also include a section related to large gatherings.

At Harrow Bangkok, we have taken this to mean that we can have multiple people in one room - but we are limited by the size of the room.

And in schools, this causes problems because of course there are so many times when you want multiple people to assemble in the same place - chiefly, assemblies.

The need to meet

Assemblies are the backbone of most schools.

They allow the structuring of key themes and enable key messages to be disseminated to the people who matter most: children. 

However, under the current guidelines, we are not able to structure assemblies as we normally would with 480 children plus 100 adults in the same room, so we have had to be inventive.

First and foremost, we believe that having a live audience is critical for assemblies and this is possible, but only on a small scale.

As such, this means that each week, a year group is scheduled to be live in the assembly room and all others will have the session Zoomed into their classroom.

Video presenters

On the whole, this works well and is not widely different for the presenter. However, you do have to think about the structure of your assembly in terms of how it will be for those in the room and those watching on a live stream simultaneously.

For example, you have to consider how and where you stand and ensure that key points are made clearly so they do not get lost through the medium of the screen.

This means, for example, understanding that sound may be lost and remembering that if you are sharing a presentation the images are simply a small window in the corner - so choosing visuals is challenging and something to strongly consider.

Screen sharing is a possibility but it’s a lot to work into the presentation, so most staff have forgone this.

During our awards assemblies, those who have won are invited to be live and their parents are also able to attend.

Doing this means that we can operate at some level of normality, which is important for everyone.

Focus and IT demands

Of course, this new way means there are new tasks to run for those teachers not delivering the assembly.

Specifically, we are asking teachers to ensure they are supporting their students to remain focused within the classroom on the live event on the screen - and this can be a challenge for younger students.

However, teachers are incredibly understanding of the reasons behind these procedures and are doing all they can to support and adapt to what is needed.

On the logistical side, there is much to consider: we use recording devices and filming equipment as well as high-quality sound engineering, which we were already lucky enough to have.

Within each classroom, we also have a large projection board where the assembly video is streamed so there is always a cinema-like atmosphere.

We have relied on our excellent ICT department to support us to ensure the quality of production is at a premium.

A learning curve

Is it perfect? No. But does it work? Yes.

When we began the year, we felt that seeing all students and setting the tone for the year was critical. Students were split into manageable groups and attended assemblies in smaller numbers but all of them received the same key messages and, most importantly, they received the messages live, in a known venue and directly from a person who was in the room.

Having spent so long online, we must work really hard to remind pupils that we are connected by our ability to communicate and communication of messages if possible should be done face to face.

Mike Godwin is head of pre-prep phase (Years 1-5) at Harrow International School Bangkok.