Cranbourne Campus News

New Learnings

Students and staff are smoothly settling back in to campus-based learning. As a teacher, we get such satisfaction out of working with young people and seeing that transition from a puzzled look of curiosity or confusion to one of enlightenment at having learned a skill or having mastered a concept. Students too have commented on the enjoyment of being with their friends and being able to receive the help of their teachers first hand. Our ability to return to campus based learning and the success we are having at ensuring very low transmission rates of the virus as a nation, are in part the result of adherence to new hygiene measures such as regular sanitising, and ensuring students and staff who are unwell, remain at home. Things are different at school but staff and teachers are adapting to unique circumstances. 

Last week part of the VCAL learning program included COVID friendly catering of morning tea by the VCAL students for some of the school staff. While learning about budgets, ordering, catering and managing customer expectations is not new to the personal projects’ component of the VCAL learning program, the added element this year has been learning about and adapting to the changing dynamic of running a business in the climate of COVID 19. In the catering component of the course the hygiene practiced has always been at the highest level, however the need to find creative ways to operate the service ensured that customers (in this case some of the teachers) had peace of mind and that the pop up, take away café adhered to the very same restrictions that exist for cafes presently operating in the community. Furthermore, the brownies, pastry parcels and tea cakes were delicious. As a school, we aspire to always be learning and as a staff we have recently been challenged to consider the question of “What if we look at COVID 19 and Isolation as our teacher? What lessons are we learning about our craft as teachers and how best to engage students? What lessons are we learning about our students, who they are and how best they learn? And how will these new learnings help us to continue to be the best teachers for the young people of the St. Peter’s College community?” This VCAL COVID friendly café is just one of the many examples where students and teachers are learning and adapting to changing conditions and that prove that amidst the worry and uncertainty the St. Peter’s College community continues to thrive. 

COVID Emergency Management Plan (just in case…)

A significant amount of planning and preparation by the College Leadership team has gone into setting up the campus to ensure the greatest chance of us not experiencing a COVID out break at St. Peters – these mitigations were shared with you previously in the Newsletter and in letters sent to students and sent to guardians and parents. Of course, another element of the College’s planning is what the college will do to minimise the spread of the virus if a member of the community was to be infected. Knowing what would happen and the role you play in the process, is essential in ensuring a calm and orderly response if the time comes. At this stage, we have had no positive cases of COVID 19 at the College but the link below is a sample of the letter that will be sent via Caremonkey in the event of us learning of a case at St. Peter’s College.  Please click attachment below.

The letter outlines the steps that will take place for an orderly dismissal of students, including the step that parents would communicate with their child via email or text their preferred mode of dismissal and secondly a preferred location of pick up for those who would have their child/ren collected from school. I encourage you to sit with your child/ren and familiarise yourselves with this Emergency Management Plan. “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.”

Friendly Reminder

For the sake of students, staff and the wider community, can we remind all licensed students, parents and guardians of the importance of driving slowly and safely, especially in and around the College during drop off and pick up times. No one wants an injury or accident to occur!

Mr Jeremy Wright

Deputy Principal - Head of Cranbourne Campus