THE WYKEHAM JOURNAL 2020
‘ We will keep one of them as a museum ,’ Tim Hands says ; ‘ I ’ m not joking . A used museum , a bit like the anatomy room at the University of Bologna which is still in use . But the rest need major modernisation to accommodate group sizes that are right for modern teaching techniques , and that are economically efficient ’.
Dr Hands remains committed to class sizes of up to 20 pupils , and ‘ Div ’ remains at the core of a Winchester education , as ever its unique selling point : ‘ Div is a part of our culture which seeks to analyse the wider culture of the world and understand it . It ’ s a way of teaching that ’ s unique to Winchester . What makes Winchester different are the individual distinctive ingredients , the constituent parts and Div is part of that .’ Dr Hands is also working with the Warden on another teaching project that is currently in its infancy . The online teaching forced on the school through the COVID lockdowns has raised openings for online teaching abroad .
‘ If you are living in a village in India for example ,’ the Warden says , ‘ the only way you ’ re going to get good quality education is by having enough power and Wi-Fi signal to do it online , unless you ’ re very lucky and have a good teacher in the village . So we are exploring whether we could share what we think is one of the best educations in the world with children in other countries whilst still protecting our reputation and the quality of our academic offering . It may be easier to learn online than send your child five or ten thousand miles round the globe .’
These changes are being introduced against the background of the COVID pandemic . The past year has been an extraordinary and challenging one as it has for everyone . It has been one of the very few times in history that either the Headmaster or Warden has been forced to close the school . ‘ We had no idea whatsoever what was coming our way ,’ Tim Hands concedes . ‘ I remember watching the lockdowns in Wuhan and thinking , “ Oh , that looks awful .” It didn ’ t cross my mind it would affect our school .’ Within weeks he found himself taking the highly difficult decision to suspend teaching in Winchester , though he believes they were well ahead of the game when it came to dealing with the move to online teaching . By luck of timing the school had upgraded its online and IT facilities , fitting a state-of-theart internet infrastructure that enabled
The past year has been an extraordinary and challenging one , as it has for everyone . It has been one of the very few times in history that either the Headmaster or Warden has been forced to close the school .
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