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Dear current and future parents,
protecting our health and safety is a top priority for us.
The Covid-19 Virus has brought changes into our lives – both on a private and on a professional level.
Surely you are wondering:
What will future classes look like during the Covid-19 Pandemic?
Our teachers thought carefully about this issue and made a few recommendations that you can read below. The most important thing is not to deny children the right to education, neither basic nor musical. Because in such difficult times, being in contact with Art, which has an enabling and relaxing effect on us, is a privilege more than ever.
How did we work during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic?
For the safety of our students and employees, we replaced the regular classes with online classes beginning from March 16, 2020.
In addition to the regular classes, our students had the opportunity to perform at two online concerts via ZOOM-App before June 13th when classes ended.
As soon as safer epidemiological conditions were met at the end of May, we gave parents the opportunity to choose: To continue with online classes or to return to school.
Since our classes are individual, safety can be provided much easier compared to teaching a group. When the first people were infected at the beginning of March 2020, we made wearing masks in our school as well as disinfecting the hands mandatory. Ventilating all classrooms between each student is something that has already been part of our routine.
Teaching proposals for the school year 2020/21?
As long as the Covid-19 Epidemic lasts, safety measures will be in place: wearing masks during classes as well as the disinfection of hands and instruments. We will once again emphasize the advantage of individual teaching and the ABRSM program under whose license we work in our school.
In our school can be a maximum of five teachers and five students at the same time.
We propose a three-phase teaching plan in relation to the current epidemiological situation.
The first phase: We have all classes in our school.
We repeat that there can only be a maximum of ten people in our school at the same time. If the epidemiological situation allows it, it’s preferred to have lessons in person.
Časovi u muzičkoj školi „Eva Music“ poštujući bezbednosne mere
The second phase: One class in person, one class online.
If the epidemiological situation worsens, we suggest to have one class in person and one class online and make sure that there will be only a maximum of six people in our school at the same time: three teachers and three students.
The third phase: online classes.
If the epidemiological situation becomes very bad, we will move completely to online teaching until the situation improves.
If the epidemiological situation worsens, the music school “Eva” is ready to have all classes via the Internet
We expect that these three phases will change during the school year 2020/21.
Of course we will always leave the possibility, for those who want to, to have all classes online.
What is our experience with teaching online?
Positive sides:
We were positively surprised about the efficiency. The classes we held online were used until the last minute. The children had an extremely high level of attention as well as discipline. With many students we went through more programs in less time than usual.
The most positive aspect about online teaching is that we can work with students who do not live in our country because we are just one click away from all of you. Students from Germany and France joined our school during the pandemic.
The Internet has given us the opportunity to do a lot at the level of learning new compositions, working on the fingering, articulation and even dynamics. Teaching theory works great online.
Negative sides:
The most beautiful phases of working on compositions come short: searching for the tone colour, phrasing, making music, micro plan and dynamics.
ABRSM exams – postponed worldwide.
This year’s ABRSM exams have been postponed to Fall 2020 and our 20 candidates preparing for this international exam will wait for British experts to try out a customized version of the exam in the UK before offering it to their other centres all around the world.
What did the online concerts via zoom look like?
We will say that first and foremost they were emotional. After a few weeks of quarantine and work from home, the fact that we all saw each other together in one place, aroused strong emotions in us.
Our school traditionally organizes four public performances during each school year. Two smaller concerts in our school and two bigger ones in a music hall.It is also one of the strongest motivators for children to exercise. Since we were not able to meet in person due to the pandemic, the online concert via zoom was the only solution.
During the first concert we had a few technical errors on our side, which we learned from and corrected at the next one.
Concert of the music school “Eva” via the online video platform
All students were visibly excited and eagerly waited to show everyone what they had practiced. All of us dressed up ceremoniously, which contributed to the festive atmosphere.
It was touching that the concert could be listened to by parents who do not live in our country, as well as many friends all around the world. And that was the first such experience for all of us.
Conclusion
We hope that the epidemiological situation will enable us to organize classes and live concerts in the next school year and the transmission via ZOOM-App remains a great option for all those who can’t come to our concert for objective reasons.
From all this we have learned that it is beautiful to have the opportunity to use the Internet and that it’s most important to provide children with continuous education in a way that is safe for everyone.
