Principal's message

Dear Parents, Carers and Students

Hi everyone

I hope you are all taking refuge in your cocoon you know as home and you are safe and well. Let’s face it, home is everything to most people now. It is a place when we can connect with our families, a place to work and a place to study. Who would have thought that the simple things like whole school assemblies, camps, excursions and sitting down for a coffee or hot chocolate at a café would no longer be common place in our lives.

Yet, we have transitioned to this new paradigm very well. Hopefully there is a degree of routine in your lives now as we enter the second week of students studying from home and the fourth week since students attended school in Victoria. I am sure you have all created space for each other’s routines so that you can get on with the business of work or study, whilst still ensuring that the home duties are shared around to lessen everyone’s load.

Meanwhile, back at MGSC there is a lot of facilities work going on. We are continuing to paint the school and now have reached the Senior School Corridor. We started with the VCE Centre and are now heading towards the IT office. Soon the entire central block will have fresh paint.

The JLC was recarpeted over the holiday period and the new furniture is looking terrific in that area. We will be painting the interior of the JLC in the next week or so. Tammy, our gardener has continued to tend to our gardens and plant further flushes of flowers that will hopefully be in bloom when students return to the school.

I mentioned in my last Newsfeed to students and parents that our teachers are working very hard to support all of their students. I believe that we are well ahead of many other schools who may not have already been using Google Suite as a way of delivering content to students and providing them with an online forum to interact in. The degree of collaboration between teams of teachers is very high with everyone pooling their experiences to enable every class to have an interactive and engaging curriculum.

Our teachers are online with their students as per their usual face-to-face timetable. So when I hear the media mentioning that face-to-face is more valuable than remote learning I feel I want to set the record straight. The teachers at MGSC have been working two weeks ahead of their classes to adapt and document the existing curriculum so that it can be delivered remotely.

When it comes time for each lesson to start, the teacher is right there with the students marking the roll and checking for engagement, understanding and is encouraging input from students. The teacher remains available to the student throughout the entire lesson. To me that is face-to-face learning. In our private lives we now rely on Zoom, WhatsApp, Messenger or FaceTime catch-up with family and friends at a time when we are isolating ourselves. I would say these forms of online communication are just as valid as a face-to-face catch-up. After all, isn’t it the relationship that is the key to people remaining connected to each other? Remote learning is the same. The teachers and the students have an existing relationship that will continue through the remote learning. In some ways I think this is a truly exciting time for educators and for students.

Our student leaders continue to come up with creative ways to build community. They came up with an idea for teachers and students to wear an Aussie Band (or any band really) t-shirt last week. It was great to see the photographs that the students sent in. 

I don’t have any updates for you all as to when we might return to school. That is a decision of the Victorian Government based on advice from the Chief Medical Officer. I can assure you, though, that all students are continuing their learning journey and so are we.

All the best

Linda Brown

Principal