Maintaining Learning Continuity in Liwa International School for Girls

Liwa International School for Girls is an American Curriculum school that has invested in digital solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning that are taking place in all subjects. It is a K-12 school with a predominantly Emirati or Arabic-speaking cohort. English is, therefore, an additional language for the majority of their learners.

Kate Hutchinson, Head of EYFS and Elementary, and Shakila Mohammed, Assistant Principal for Early Years and Elementary, were both looking for a package that would help them improve attainment results in Maths, English, and Language Arts. They decided to invest in Exact Path and it is having a significant impact which has exceeded their original expectations.

Kate explains, “this initiative has been used across the whole school and we are seeing significant improvements in attainment results. It has become the main resource for Maths, Reading and Language Arts and “has improved upon and replaced many pre-existing resources that were being used and the fact that they are all sign-posted and collated within one resource is brilliant and saves preparation time.”

Shakila has been impressed with Exact Path and says “it has helped to improve parental engagement and students are coming into school early to be part of it. It has brought parents, teachers and students together. Parent demonstration videos were created and success challenges for both students and teachers have added competition and driven usage.”

Kate and Shakila have both seen huge improvements in attainment throughout the year. Exact Path uses diagnostic data (which can be your MAP results) to identify learning gaps. It then provides students with engaging lessons by using animated videos to explain skills and knowledge. It reinforces this instruction by enabling students to practise the new skills and knowledge before assessing them with a Mastery Quiz and a Progress Check. At all stages, it gives feedback to the students and provides live reporting to the teacher so that they can monitor progress and intervene where necessary. It provides live formative assessment data which is updated continuously and adapts as your students make progress.

Kate and her staff use Exact Path within lessons to assess new material as part of station rotations and catch-up courses. Some children arrive in school at 7am to use it as part of catch-up programmes, “it is firmly embedded into our schemes of work and lesson plans and has become a key component of our teaching, learning and improvement strategies. We have ‘buddying’ schemes, super users, student and teacher challenges and have created drop-in rooms where students can work on the program.”

It was very effective when ‘normal’ teaching and learning were occurring but Shakila has been very impressed by its use and effectiveness during distance learning, “it has enabled us to transition easily to distance learning and teachers can monitor formative assessments remotely and intervene through Zoom synchronous lessons. We have just set up our student summer challenges within it and hope that this will maintain the growth they have seen and limit any summer learning loss.”

Both Kate and Shakila confirm that Exact Path has enabled them to “personalize learning, improve attainment and maintain learning continuity”.