LearnCoach launches virtual classrooms for online NCEA courses

LearnCoach, a platform for online schooling, has launched virtual classrooms for secondary schools across New Zealand, ensuring that the nation's youth are kept up to date with their NCEA study.

Dave Cameron, LearnCoach Founder, and CEO said that they have designed online NCEA courses that can be delivered to any student, anywhere in New Zealand. With the new platform, teachers can monitor and support their classes, while students learn from home.

"We've packaged over 100 online NCEA courses into a personalized platform for teachers, giving teachers everything they need to run classes directly through LearnCoach. The lockdown will have a massive impact on the young people of New Zealand who are trying to study and we wanted to find a way to help minimize the damage that is going to have."

Due to the massive pressures already being faced due to COVID-19, LearnCoach will offer a free subscription for teachers and students to the new online classroom during the pandemic.

Even before the Government's decision to shut down all schools for a minimum of four weeks, LearnCoach had already seen a major uptick in usage, with more than 5,000 new students joining the platform in March and taking extra online lessons daily. LearnCoach's new all-in-one online school platform has seen early support from a number of schools, teachers, and students across the country looking to stay on top of NCEA levels one, two and three, whilst the country is on lockdown.

To set up their virtual classroom, teachers pick any NCEA course, customize courses for their class, and monitor their students. Students are provided with a signup link to access all of their notes, exercises, online lessons and testing uploaded by their subject teacher.

"The students say it is phenomenal," says Russel Dunn, longtime LearnCoach user, and Deputy Principal at Tamaki College.

"It's so important for teachers to manage their classes online. But it's a totally new way of teaching, and that's difficult for teachers that have been traditionally trained. For students, it's great they can learn at their own pace; speeding up repeating or rewinding their digital tutor. It means they never feel slow or silly taking more time to learn. When students have questions, the teacher is able to help," added Russel.