Principal's Report

July 2020

Welcome to Term 3

Successful Beginning to Remote and Flexible Learning 2.0

We have had an extremely positive and successful beginning to Remote and Flexible Learning 2.0. I would like to sincerely thank the many members of my Leadership Team who worked with me during the last week of school holidays to prepare for the 'Care' program to commence on the first day of the term.

Week one of Term 3 was declared additional school holidays for the students and preparation time for all staff.

During this week the staff;

Distributed available devices. Many people do not understand that not all of our devices are school owned but are under lease and therefore not able to be distributed.
Prepared individual book packs for each of the students. These packs included 5 weeks of photocopied sheets for the younger students as well as requisites required for specialist classes.

Staff also planned in teams for remote learning as well as attending professional development activities in these areas.

I would like to also thank all of the parents who have sent lovely words of encouragement and thanks.

Challenges

We know that the world we are living in at the moment is bringing challenges, big and small, individual and global, to every single family. From a school perspective we want to reassure you that we are aware of the differing challenges within our community and that we are doing our best to work effectively with you and support you as best we can.

During our last lockdown we sent out a number of articles aimed at supporting the health and wellbeing of your children, yourself and our community. We are aware that many are feeling overloaded with constant communication at the present time so we have now put together a list of resources on our website that you can refer to at any time. If as a parent you source any great articles that you believe would benefit our community please let us know and we can add them to our collection

We have also updated our wellbeing page on the website to reflect our constantly evolving wellbeing team and procedures within the school. As always, if you have any concerns the first port of call should be your child’s classroom teacher.

What to do if I have a health and wellbeing concern for my child or family:

All the staff, teaching and non-teaching, are committed to looking after the health and wellbeing of the children and we believe that the health and wellbeing of your child should be prioritised.

As always, if you have wellbeing concerns, your first point of call is always your child’s teacher who has a range of skills and strategies to implement to promote wellbeing. Your child’s teacher will then be able to determine if any external support is required for your child to continue to thrive and grow. If appropriate the teacher will also talk to others on the wellbeing team to gain further advice to support you.

With good days and bad days, with laughter and with tears, we will all continue to support each other and our school community on an ongoing basis.

Community Notice

Unfortunately we are having people accessing our school grounds during the day and evening. Any person who accesses our school ground, except for our students who are under the supervision of our staff, are breaking the lock-down rules. We have been directed to ring the Police immediately if this occurs. The Police Assistance Unit has been specifically set up for Covid 19 and to enforce compliance. All staff have now been directed to immediately contact the Police Assistance Line and report all incidents.

eSmart agreement 2020

Remote and Flexible Learning 2.0 and our move to MS O365-Teams has raised many areas of concerns with many students using the platform inappropriately. We ask for parent support in this area.

We ask that you please take the time to review and discuss our school eSmart agreement that was signed by you and your child/children at the beginning of the year. This is a timely reminder of respectful and responsible behaviour whilst online for all students.

Student eSmart Agreement

When I use digital technologies I:

Communicate respectfully by thinking and checking that what I write or post is polite
and respectful.

This means:

never sending mean or bullying messages or passing them on, as this makes me part of the bullying
not using actions online to be mean to others. (This can include leaving someone out to make them feel bad)
not copying someone else’s work or ideas from the internet and presenting them as my own. (I will include the link).

Personal Mobile Devices:

If I bring personal mobile devices (including mobile phones, tablets and smart watches) to school, it must be switched off, and handed to my classroom teacher at the start of the day, to be returned by the teacher at the end of the school day. Devices are not to be turned on until out of the school gates.
Protect personal information by being aware that my full name, photo, birthday, address and phone number is personal information and not to be shared online.

This means:

protecting my friends’ information in the same way
protecting my password and not sharing it with others
only joining a space online with my parent or teacher’s guidance and permission
never answering questions online that ask for my personal information.
Look after myself and others by thinking about what I share online.

This means:

never sharing my friends’ full names, birthdays, school names, addresses and phone numbers because this is their personal information
speaking to a trusted adult if I see something that makes me feel upset or if I need help
speaking to a trusted adult if someone is unkind to me
speaking to a trusted adult if I know someone else is upset or scared
stopping to think about what I post or share online
using spaces or sites that are right for my age
not deliberately searching for something rude or violent
either turn off the screen or use the back button if I see something I don’t like and telling a trusted adult
being careful with the equipment I use.

Teams

Please remind your child there is to be no direct messaging with each other through Microsoft Teams. Each student has access to classrooms in Teams and these are for the teachers to manage and monitor. If students are direct messaging in any of these spaces, all students and staff can see and read them.

The protocols and expectations of using the chat features in Teams have been discussed with all children. The following is copied from the latest Video Conferencing & Communications Policy and it states:

"Use the chat feature only to ‘raise your hand’. This is simply typing a ‘Q’ in the chat feature to signal you have a question / comment. The teacher will ask students, in order, to unmute themselves and ask their question to ensure the ‘one person speaks at a time’ rule is adhered to."

COVID - 19 Process and Protocols at BNPS:

Reminder to hand sanitise before and after eating as well as throughout the day
School cleaner has been employed to sanitise high touch points, such as door handles, light switches and railings
Many signs have been placed around the school indicating Covid safe practice
Drink taps have been turned off so that they cannot be used
Playground has out of bounds to the public and is cleaned regularly throughout the day for on-site students only
All areas of the school have been measured and signed with maximum number of people allowed in spaces
School devices are being sanitised at the end of each day
All students are to bring their own resources, nothing is to be shared/borrowed
First aid room is closed to unwell students
An isolation room has been set up for any student that is unwell or has a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius and is required to be collected
Temperature checking of all students who attend onsite.
Physical distancing will be implemented in classrooms to the extent feasible.
The On-site care of students can be supervised by a VIT registered person or a person with a WWCC. Educational support staff can also provide direct supervision of children, provided they have access to support from a VIT registered teacher. There is also no ratio for supervision.
Staff will wear face coverings when moving around the school

These measures are in place to protect both students and staff.

Keep well and keep safe.

Sherril Duffy

Principal