A secondary school lost its physics teacher in August and could not replace him. Twenty two students in grade eleven were a year from an examination with nobody to teach them.
The arrangement we built was a class rather than twenty two subscriptions. The school took an afternoon slot, the students watched together on one screen, and a member of the school's own staff sat in the room for every lesson. That teacher was not there as a formality: she kept order, answered the small questions, collected the work and told us each week what had not landed.
We set and marked the work for the whole group and sent the school a report on every student each term. She got the lesson plans and the notes a week ahead.
By the end of the year she had taught enough of it beside us to take the grade nine classes on herself, and this year she is teaching grade eleven with our lessons as support rather than as the lesson. That was the outcome we wanted and it means the school will pay us less next year.
Twenty of the twenty two passed.
