From the Principal

Dear Parents & Carers

It was a momentous occasion on Tuesday when our Year 3-6 students joined their younger fellow students in a return to school. The sounds of chatter and laughter now fill the school buildings and yard again and it is wonderful to have students back where they belong. There are many things that we have all learned during this time of lockdown and one is that human connection and a sense of belonging are so absolutely vital to our wellbeing. Knowing that Queen of Peace is ‘our place’ and that we all ‘belong’ in this space, is a great feeling.

Our main goal this week at Queen of Peace has been to return as quickly as possible to regular school and learning routines. We know that students feel safe and secure when boundaries are clear and daily routines are known and expected. We will continue to focus on wellbeing and social connection of students to assist with re-settling them into school life, as well as providing explicit teaching in English and Mathematics.

For the remainder of this term we will continue with staggered pick up procedure and our restrictions on gatherings such as celebrations, assemblies, school tours, incursions and excursions. We await further advice from the State Government and Catholic Education Office about the lifting of these restrictions for Term 3. We will inform you of any changes as soon as we know.

An opportunity to learn

In a media conference recently, Education Minister John Merlino said,

"Out of every crisis there is an opportunity....our schools have been doing a great job....we need to learn from that and make it a feature of our education system. This is a real opportunity to improve our education system and learn lessons from this remote learning experience.”

Many families have already shared their experiences with us, both positive and negative. We encourage feedback from parents on your experiences as you engaged in learning at home, what worked well for your children and what you believe could change as a result of your experiences over the past few weeks. As a staff we have reflected on the remote learning experience from our perspective and in the last few weeks teachers have been seeking the thoughts and noted the achievements of our students.

You are most welcome to send your feedback to me at

dgibbons@qopaltonameadows.catholic.edu.au

I read this article from Catholic School Parents Victoria and would like to share it with you:

The Role of Parents to Continue to Engage in Learning at Home

There is no doubt that the recent experiences of learning at home has changed perspectives of education in a broad range of ways. This will be the case for every person involved in the continuation of learning at home for students in Catholic schools. Students, principals, teachers and parents have all now shared an experience where each of us had to work together to make sure children could continue to learn at home, beyond the school gates.

So many learning experiences are available now to continue to improve how we engage with our children's learning especially once they return to school. The decision to close schools at the end of term one saw the need for schools to very rapidly evolve to provide remote learning at home. This involved the very important element in a child's learning journey; to engage parents as partners to support learning at home, for teachers to improve communication of learning with parents and to ensure students were engaged and able to learn from home no matter what their family circumstances.

Over five decades of research continues to indicate that the missing piece in education has been the enabling of parents as partners, for teachers to acknowledge and build on the already existing capacity of parents to engage in their children's learning.

So what can we learn from this experience and how can we continue to communicate with teachers, to encourage a partnership approach and to work together for the benefit of student wellbeing and their learning, no matter where it takes place?

When families see value, meaning and relevance in their engagement, there is an uptick in family (engagement). But before any of this happens, we must have a healthy relationship with that family and at the root of the relationship there is trust. (Dr Steven Constantino, The Seven Big Ideas: Pandemic Edition, 19 April 2020).

The many stories we've been hearing about learning at home during term 2 has certainly changed the perception parents have of teaching and the work of teachers. Many teachers have gone above and beyond to cater for the needs of students during this time. Communication improved, particularly for parents of children in primary school who needed to be more hands-on during the many weeks of learning at home.

The insight to be gained from this experience for parents and teachers:

Learning happens everywhere and is connected with learning at school. There are many ways that children learn and parents are able to engage, facilitate and enhance learning opportunities and have meaningful conversations about learning with their children - when they are enabled and privy to what their children are learning.
Some parents experienced online parent-teacher interviews and appreciated the opportunity to have meaningful and personalised conversations with teachers about their child's learning - parents felt their increased knowledge of what their child learns, how they learn and what was expected of them as parents made it so much easier to know what questions to ask, how to speak in a shared language with the teacher and to feel supported and enabled as a partner in the process. Remote parent teacher interviews could be a consideration in future particularly for working parents; "The ability to have a conversation without others in the room was appreciated."
Some feedback from parents showed they had mixed emotions about their children returning to school - while it has been exhausting for parents and teachers alike, it has obviously been a very rewarding experience for some in connecting with their kids, "I will really miss this extra time I've had with them..."
Creativity has been a major factor in learning at home over the past few weeks as children have been engaged in more creative down time, allowing them the opportunity to express themselves outside of a timeframe or having to complete work before the school bell rings. The time at home has given them a chance to learn new ways to learn, both online and offline, both in their class groups online and independently, with a new ability to adapt to change and to be more engaged in the learning process.

Warm regards

Darren Gibbons

Principal