Not far from the frontline in eastern Ukraine, the school in the industrial town of Kostiantynivka is bombed out but a handful of pupils are still attending class online.
Children from “seven families are still there… despite what is happening,” says their teacher Svitlana Dotsenko, who fled to the southern city of Odesa with her son to escape the fighting and works remotely.
Keeping classes running nearly 17 months into Russia’s invasion has pushed teachers to their limits as much as pupils, who are persevering with classes despite the odds.
Dotsenko is one of more than a thousand educators from Ukraine to take part in a course in the Polish capital, Warsaw, to take on the challenges of schooling in wartime.
Attendance in class can be patchy, according to Dotsenko, who teaches English.
Sometimes pupils are absent because the internet is unstable in Kostiantynivka, just 32 kilometres (20 miles) from Bakhmut, scene of some of the most intense fighting of the war.
But just as often their failure to turn up to class online is because of the psychological stress — a problem the 45-year-old educator is learning how to cope with.
“Mostly, children close themselves off,” says Ganna Skydan, 41, who is also participating in the course.
“They don’t turn on the camera or microphone,” she says.
A few still engage with class but “there are those who have been through some stress and don’t want to come out and make contact”.
Occupied schooling
Skydan’s town Tokmak in southern Ukraine was captured by Russian forces in the very early stages of the war, while she fled to Lviv in the west of the country shortly after.
She is still teaching her class despite the Russian occupation and threats to families from Russian soldiers.
In areas held by Moscow’s forces, tens of thousands of children are pursuing their Ukrainian schooling online, the education ministry said last year.
Pupils sometimes double up on courses, says Skydan, who still runs classes from a distance.
“They attend Russian schools and later come to our classes. It’s because parents are afraid that their children might be taken away.”
Around four million secondary-level students went to classes during the last school year in exceptional circumstances, according to education ministry statistics.
In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, authorities agreed earlier this month to allow traditional offline education to restart.
Schools would only be allowed to open, however, if they had a “specialised shelter” in case of attack, the governor of the Kharkiv region Oleg Sinegubov said.
Despite the unpredictability of the conflict, many pupils have retained their focus and even shown an increased interest in their education, the teachers said.
The new attitude is noticeable in Dotsenko’s virtual classroom.
“Some children have even started to study better, pay more attention to their learning, and become more active,” she says.
“Perhaps they realised the importance of such things.”
Help for teachers
Sometimes, it is the teachers who need support, however.
Natalia Selivanova was just eight months into the job when the war started.
“It is extremely difficult,” confides the 27-year-old, who says she draws inspiration from her class to keep going.
Helping teachers is the focus of a British Council course in Warsaw, which trains staff to create a feeling of safety in the classroom and focus on the positive, says trainer Liudmyla Klymenko.
Teachers must “help themselves first and foremost… and also help their children cope with these conditions,” says the 68-year-old.
Tragic news from the frontline is commonplace, but Klymenko says the course focuses on making sure “this trauma they have experienced does not leave such heavy traces for the future.”
“As we say, you have to put a mask on yourself first, only then can you help others.”
© Agence France-Presse
