This school had four English teachers in six years and, in one of those years, none at all for a whole term. Two other small schools in the atoll were in the same position, and the three of us had been writing the same letters asking for the same thing.
The arrangement came from a conversation between three principals rather than from anywhere else. One English teacher, appointed to the largest of the three schools, teaching all three over a video link on a timetable the three schools agreed between them. This school gets six periods a week across grades three to six.
What was needed: a screen, a camera and a connection at each school, which the parents' associations of two of the three paid for, and an adult from the host school in the room for every single lesson, which was the condition all three principals insisted on.
What it has produced. Grammar, comprehension and vocabulary taught by somebody who studied the subject, marked work coming back with a specialist's writing on it, and the same voice teaching a child from grade three to grade six rather than four different people.
What it has not solved. Speaking practice over a link is poor. The teacher cannot see the child who has quietly stopped following, which is why the adult in the room writes her a note after every lesson and why we treat those notes seriously. And a failed connection is a lost period, which happens about once in twelve.
It is a good answer to a bad situation. All three schools would rather have a teacher each.
