6 │ CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL CONTENT IN DISTANCE LEARNING Distance learning in basic and upper secondary schools in the Czech Republic 39 The school tries to motivate the pupils to work independently in the home environment; teachers assign tasks focused on practical skills (teachers often upload videos with technological procedures and send photo documentation to pupils). After the assigned tasks (preparation of menus, festive tables, mixed drinks, cold dishes) are completed at home, pupils are invited to the school for an individual consultation and feedback from their teachers. The above procedures are discussed with the pupils’ legal representatives in order to obtain their support. Vocational training is tutored in one online lesson a day; in addition to theory, practical homework is assigned based on the relevant fields (joiners – making feeders; chefs – baking sweets; waiters – cutting noodles), and there are individual consultations. Vocational training supervisors join twice a day online in the hairdresser field and once a day in the chef-waiter field and assign individual work (standardisation, procedures, using the opportunity to cook at home). A frequent way of dealing with the impossibility of carrying out vocational training is also to concentrate theoretical learning in the period of distance learning and, conversely, to set back theory at a time when practical activities can be performed. However, such a procedure presupposed and presupposes that pupils return, at least in small groups, to schools or vocational training workplaces. So far, the extent has not changed – in December, when pupils were in school, no theory was taught, but only teaching practice in blocks. Currently, the school emphasises theoretical preparation; after returning to schools, attention will be focused more on practical skills. Vocational training is carried out in the full range of 6 lessons. Of which about 1.5 lessons (90 minutes) are online synchronous learning; then individual work is assigned – a task for the next 4.5 lessons. Pupils handed over their work to the teacher at the end of the 6th lesson. The objective was mostly to complete the assigned task, make a written description and take a picture, or also send the completed task, etc. As soon as it was possible, the school started individual education, because it has 30 teachers for vocational training, it is able to provide individual education for 30 pupils a day; such education is provided to each pupil about once a week. In the past year, it was clearly possible to observe changes in the approach to educational content. After the spring period of 2020, a significant group of schools expected relatively standard in-class learning for the new 2020/2021 school year, possibly interrupted by short breaks due to lockdown measures, etc. However, the long period of distance learning led the managements of many schools to reconsider their approach to content reductions and, with regard to the approach to educational content, many schools also used the available recommendations issued by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and other institutions, including the Czech School Inspectorate. However, the biggest problem remains practical learning in some fields of vocational education, which can neither be reduced nor replaced with distance learning.