The Times has an interesting piece mentioning several of our client schools about how schools have been able to deliver work online to pupils while some of them (and their teachers) have been stuck abroad because of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland.
"This [online support] is a precursor of the way education will go in the 21st century. Five years ago, schools would not have been able to cope." - Anthony Seldon in the Times
Wellington College, who use Firefly for their website and intranet/learning platform, have been able to set up web based tutorials and encouraged their pupils to work from internet cafés if they could not return to the country.
It's the second time this year where weather conditions have forced schools to look carefully at their online teaching and learning capabilities. The snow forced many schools to open late at the beginning of the spring term. Magdalen College School in Oxford used their Firefly powered website to quickly publish online teaching material while the school remained closed.
Making the investment in a good learning platform allows schools to be more agile in the face of unexpected events, as well as being much more convenient during the rest of the year for pupils and staff who are not at school for more mundane reasons - scheduled holidays, evenings and weekends!