Principal Report
Welcome to Term 2
Dear Families,
I would like to say a huge thank you for continuing to persist with remote learning with your children over the last 5 school days. I know from my personal experience supporting my children while both parents are working, just how challenging this request from the Government is. It feels like the message from the State Government is that we are in this for the term.
Last week was a large learning curve for everyone. Everything was new. When things are new there are always technical issues. I think everyone handled them with kindness and patience and one by one we worked through and found solutions.
Now that a week has passed I thought I would re-share, remind the community what our big goal is and what our expectations are for each of our programs.
We would like everyone who is safe to learn at home, to learn at home. This means that there is an adult at home who can supervise children and that they are prepared to help that child attempt the work that has been shared. For those that cannot ensure that this is available then there is the option of school.
@ home/remote learning
When we created the program we planned 3 weeks of work initially. There was not a clear message at the beginning that we would move to remote learning. We planned the program just in case we were asked to move to this. We worked together as a whole staff to ensure we had a consistent approach to the way we shared that work and how we assessed it. No one had any experience in offering a remote learning program prior. The timeline to complete this was very short. The work we shared we knew could not be the same as what we offered in class. We knew we had to find a level that enabled the child and the parent/carer to work without the support of a teacher. We changed our timetable so that the day looked different from school and our expectations of what children would produce were lowered. We added the ability to Zoom to our communication methods. One of the department requests was to have literacy and numeracy tasks submitted for feedback. We decided three tasks a week would be the minimum. Anything else a bonus.
So after week 2 have we got this right?
We have spoken to groups of parents and children regularly. The experience of what success looks like is different in every house. Some families have both parents at home, only one child, technology they are familiar with etc. Some families are juggling jobs or worse, fighting to keep them; have limited technology and have multiple children in different year levels. All the time the same program is sitting there each day. As we plan the next stage we will start to discuss whether we need to do more, do less, do things differently.
What I will say is ‘YOU DO NOT NEED TO COMPLETE EVERYTHING, IF ANYTHING.’ You complete what you can, when you can if you can. We are grateful for what you do, and in return, we are thankful for the gratitude you show us.
Moving forward into next week the teachers cannot be there all day, every day. After this week they will need to start to reduce their contact, not increase if they are going have work posted online for week 4 and beyond. I am asking them to this because this approach to learning is asking us all to do this. All the staff have worked so hard to get something up and running that has a chance of working. I think we would all prefer to be back to normal and teaching at school. We will get there. We just need to keep pulling together through this period. For now, we will continue to work through any challenges that stop you from being able to support your child’s learning.
At my house most days we do some work. Some days we cannot manage any. We have never managed all of it. Some days we change the work from what the school share, as our kids do not want to engage. Some days we go on a bike ride or a walk (probably our favourite days). Some days we all get on, most days we don’t. What we do is we try, adapt and then throw away our guilt at the end of the day. We also are doing what we said we would never do, bribing our kids, a lot.
@ school learning
Some students are not able to be at home. They are attending school 8:30-3:30 pm. Some once a week, a few every day. They do the same tasks as the students at home. They are not getting the best experience of what school should feel like. Most are not happy but they understand school for their parents was the last hope. The staff here are going above and beyond by volunteering their time, whilst managing their other roles. I would like to thank them.
To help them keep our children at school stay a little safer I need to ask that during the school day families do not use school playgrounds. We have also taped off our drinking water fountains.
Next week we will try and add a few things in that we would normally do. A school assembly will be the main goal next Friday. Staff will also need time to plan work for the future. I ask that you try to find the right balance for what works in your house and to understand why our teachers and staff may not be as accessible as they have been over the first week or so. I will keep you updated with any changes and I will continue to work with our leadership team on how we improve our school approach to help ease the challenges some people are facing.
One of the downsides of COVID-19 is the uncertainty of when normality will resume as well as what that may look like for some people. We are reviewing all of our school activities for the rest of the year. I expect a number of events will not be able to run this year, even if we return for term 3. This will be disappointing if it happens, but we will work within any guidelines we have to ensure there is some fun somewhere for our children in the future at school.
As many of you have now heard Jack Austin lost his brave battle with his illness. Once school is back we will discuss with the Austin family how they would like Jack to be remembered more formally. RIP Jack.
I wish you all the best and a restful weekend and thank you again for your huge efforts this last week.
Craig Bradley
Principal