We there­fore try to help our mem­bers by explor­ing the dif­fer­ent answers that our schools and mem­ber fed­er­a­tions have found in deal­ing with this immense chal­lenge and by mak­ing avail­able a good prac­tice col­lec­tion from Wal­dorf and non-Wal­dorf schools across Europe. This can sub­se­quent­ly be used to devel­op online train­ings or to facil­i­tate peer-learn­ing between inter­est­ed teach­ers. Today, we would like to share with you our first result of research with­in our net­work and ask for your help in shar­ing fur­ther prac­tices. Today, we would like to share with you our first result of research with­in our net­work and ask for your help in shar­ing fur­ther practices.

Our Swiss col­leagues have shared with us the Dis­tance Learn­ing Plan of the Inter­na­tion­al School in Basel. The school also devel­oped a Dis­tance Learn­ing Por­tal that can be accessed here with the user­name „guest.school“ and the pass­word „Distance.Learning“. A big thank you goes to the col­leagues at the ISB for mak­ing avail­able these valu­able resources.

The plan defines clearly:

• The role of par­ents, edu­ca­tors and pupils;
• The devel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed approach of the school towards using dig­i­tal tools;
• The tasks of the col­leagues involved;
• The chan­nels of communication;
• The dis­tance learn­ing sched­ules for pupils replac­ing the reg­u­lar time-tables;
• The time­line for rolling out the plan in the school.

But what exact­ly is the pic­ture in Wal­dorf schools in Europe? Do you have guid­ance for your schools from the fed­er­a­tion or are the schools left to fend for them­selves? We would be inter­est­ed in see­ing what strate­gies have been devel­oped and col­lect them cen­tral­ly for fur­ther dis­sem­i­na­tion. There are many ques­tions to ask our­selves, and what­ev­er answers you find to them is high­ly inter­est­ing for us:

• What roles have your schools defined for par­ents, edu­ca­tors and pupils in terms of dis­tance learning?
• How does your school’s or fed­er­a­tions approach respond to the devel­op­men­tal needs of chil­dren and what is your expe­ri­ence with it so far?
• In your expe­ri­ence, what are the best screen-free tools for dis­tance learn­ing of dif­fer­ent age groups (school books, oth­er books, build­ing blocks, puz­zles, board games, …)?
• How are par­ents sup­port­ed in lim­it­ing their children’s task-switch­ing between school-relat­ed and recre­ation­al screen media use (e.g. lim­it access to devices to cer­tain hours, use time lim­i­ta­tion and fil­ter software, …)
• In your expe­ri­ence, which pro­por­tion of the for­mer school hours should be spent with offi­cial „dis­tance learn­ing“ activ­i­ties and which pro­por­tion should be spent with every­day activ­i­ties (e.g. shop­ping, cook­ing, clean­ing, gar­den­ing, ..), or phys­i­cal activ­i­ties (exer­cise, walk­ing, …) con­ducive to learning?
• In your expe­ri­ence, and giv­en the cur­rent Coro­na pre­ven­tion mea­sures in place, what are the best ways to sup­port chil­dren’s phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal and men­tal well­be­ing (salu­to­ge­n­e­sis, fos­ter­ing health, …).
• In your expe­ri­ence, what are the best screen-based tools (online and offline) for dis­tance learn­ing of dif­fer­ent age-groups?
• In your expe­ri­ence, how important/suitable are group activ­i­ties online (for many stu­dents), vs.  1:1 online (tele­phone or video chat) ses­sions for your stu­dents of dif­fer­ent ages?
• How are you coor­di­nat­ing the work with syn­chro­nous tools (like Zoom calls) and what rules are need­ed to make this work?
• What are the tasks of the col­leagues involved with regards to dis­tance learn­ing and respond­ing to the Coro­na pan­dem­ic in general?
• What lead­er­ship mod­el is need­ed in these times and how to col­lab­o­rate with colleagues?
• Are there any dis­tance learn­ing sched­ules pro­vid­ed to pupils to replace their timetable, and if yes, what kind?
• What has been your time­line in rolling out a dis­tance learn­ing plan in your school?
• What are the short-term and medi­um term train­ing needs and how to address them under the cur­rent circumstances?

Please send us an email to [email protected] if you have any mate­r­i­al to share. Once we have gath­ered the mate­r­i­al, we will review what you have sent in and look, if there is a poten­tial to facil­i­tate a video con­fer­ence allow­ing for peer learn­ing. We will also exchange the mate­r­i­al with the Ped­a­gog­i­cal Sec­tion at the Goetheanum, where a sim­i­lar col­lec­tion is feed­ing into a blog on home­school­ing in times of Coro­na. Thank you for help­ing us!