A HIGH school history leader is tackling his students’ isolation when it comes to home-learning by using virtual reality to bring lessons alive.

Pleckgate High School head of history Martyn Bajkowski has used innovative methods to make sure his students are still hearing his voice in this time of lockdown and remote learning.

Mr Bajkowski is no stranger to using these kinds of methods as he was one of the first to trial virtual reality technology in classes, as well as encouraging visitors from places like the Holocaust Trust to bring history to life at Pleckgate.

With the coronavirus outbreak meaning many of his pupils are home-learning, Mr Bajkowski has been using website loom.com for his Year 10 classes.

It means they can actually hear his voice, he can talk to them about the lesson and use slides to illustrate it – as he would in class.

He said: “The premise behind it is that many resources and written instructions are limited in terms of what impact they can have - students can misunderstand your intention and some key historical explanations are hard to understand as a 14/15-year-old compared to listening to someone.

“Loom records your screen and your voice so you can talk through what you want them to do.

“It also helps you give feedback to students about their work individually.

“You can show their work as a slide and then talk them through what they can do to improve it.

“Students may start to feel isolated if they are constantly in one room speaking to no-one and just doing their work.

“So actually having a familiar voice talking them through the tasks not only means that their learning is better but might also help their well-being as well.”