The Rocket

Principal's Report

Congratulations to the successful beginning of remote learning!

 

We would like to thank our whole school community for their amazing efforts as we began online learning last week.

 

We are committed to our students continuing their learning during this time and realise that for this to be successful we will be asking parents to support us, particularly with our younger students.  We understand that this is placing pressure on parents as you also work from home and we appreciate your commitment. 

 

Parents are reminded that although work will be available for the start of the day, if you need to start work later in the day, that is fine.  We ask that your children go on Google Classroom at the beginning of each day and answer the question ‘Are you here today?’ as this is how the teachers are marking the roll. 

 

We are aware that, for the younger students in particular, you may be unable to get all tasks completed by your child because of your own workload, please look after your mental health first and get done what you can.

 

We have made a couple of changes in response to your feedback, that will come into practice from Monday 27th April.  These changes are:

 

1.  On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday students will be expected to complete their normal class work as set by their class teacher. Wednesday will now be the day that students will be expected to complete their Specialist subjects, Art, Science, Japanese, Music and Physical Education. The specialist teachers will be available on this day between 9 am and 3.30 pm to answer any questions. The Specialist teachers will also be conducting Webex meetings on the Wednesday on a rotating basis over the course of the Term. Your children will be notified of their meeting times as soon as these become available. Specialist lessons will be uploaded by 4 pm on the Tuesday evening so parents and students are able to collect any resources needed  for the tasks planned for the next day.

 

There will be no class work to complete on a Wednesday, only the Specialist tasks. In saying this if students need to catch up with something this would be a good day to do this.

 

2.  Webex Class Meeting will now happen on a Tuesday and Thursday, so that on Monday and Friday’s class teachers can organise for small groups of students to meet with them. All students will be involved in at least one small group chat during the week.

 

All classes are using Google Classroom to deliver the work to students, however each team is using the classroom slightly differently.  The teachers have learnt an amazing amount in a very short time and will continue to develop these skills as the term progresses.  Please find attached instructions for a Scanning app – Microsoft Office Lens App. This free App provides a much clearer picture of student work for the teachers to read and provide feedback on.

 

How to use the Lens App:

  1. Open the App
  2. Hold your device over the document so that it is inside the red lines
  3. Click the white button
  4. Click done
  5. Rename the Title with the student’s name
  6. Click where to save document eg. Photo Library, Gallery
  7. Close the App
  8. Open the saved document
  9. Upload the document to your child’s Google Classroom Assignment page, the same way you have been doing.

 

 

Sharing Student Learning

We would like our newsletters to be a way of sharing student learning with the school community and celebrating the great work being done at home. 

 

You will notice that we have already included some work and items in this newsletter, which we hope you enjoy. 

 

Challenges

We will also be including challenges and activities in the newsletter that students and parents may like to participate in – these are not compulsory, join in as you like.  We ask that students (or parents) send the responses to the email address when and as indicated on each challenge/activity. 

 

We appreciate the challenges being faced by everyone at the moment and thank you for your wonderful support.