School Leaders

Remote Learning Feedback Survey

During the week, we sought the feedback of our parent community via Compass on how remote learning is going. We would like to thank the approximately 70 families who took the time to share their perspectives so that we can improve.

The majority of families surveyed shared that the current structure is working well and should remain. Please see the questions and response graphs below. 

We are always looking for the next step that we can take to make your child's education even better. Through the responses and comments families shared in the survey, we gained rich insights into what is working well and what improvements we could make. 

Over the coming weeks, we will be aiming to make the following tweaks:

• Improve the format of specialist classes so that less year levels are in attendance at the same time.
• Offer occasional and optional extra curricula activities for students to have fun and see friends from different classes. This will begin on Friday as part of our focus on RUOK Day. Beyond this, we will aim to incorporate these sessions into weeks where there aren't extra sessions already i.e. assembly. The activities will vary over time, but we did have quite a few requests for a drawing class, trivia game and dancing. None of our leaders are particularly keen to run a dance class, but we are fortunate to have many skilled staff so will try our best to deliver through them!
• Reinforce with students that they are welcome to complete tasks on paper whenever possible and submit a photo of their work to reduce their screen time.
• Provide a few extra and optional screen-free task ideas that families can keep on hand in case their child finishes tasks quickly. There were a few requests for puzzles, writing ideas and challenges.

With every family's situation being unique, it is difficult to come up with a model that works for everyone. Even within the same class, students and their families can have vastly different perceptions based on their individual circumstances. We hope that the actions above can allow families the flexibility to find a routine that works for them.

Over the coming week, teachers will be looking through the responses to see if there are tweaks that could be made to individual classes or year levels to further respond to the feedback. 

We thank you again for helping us to improve.

How is your child finding the amount of work provided?

• Blue = Too much - My child can't get through everything (12%)
• Orange = Perfect - Just the right amount each day (68%)
• Green = Not enough - My child wants more (20%)

How is your child finding the format of live lessons with their class teacher and independent tasks throughout the day? Please only consider lessons with your child's class teacher in this question. A following question will ask about specialist lessons.

• Blue = Too much time on Webex - My child would benefit from less live lessons and more independent tasks (6%)
• Orange = Perfect - The right mix of live lessons and independent tasks (84%)
• Green = Not enough time on Webex - My child would benefit from more Webex sessions and less independent tasks (10%)

Specialist classes: Our specialist team (STEAM, Music, Mandarin and PE) are seeking your feedback on the amount of specialist lessons each day. Students currently have 2 specialist lessons.

• Blue = Too much - Reduce the number of daily specialist lessons to 1 (28%)
• Orange = Keep it as is - 2 is a good amount (65%)
• Green = Not enough - Increase the number of specialist lessons to 3 (7%)

SMPS Wellbeing

Please note that for extenuating services in relation to school services and support, we have a Wellbeing email address: wellbeing@southmelbourneps.vic.edu.au This email address is monitored between the hours of 8:30am and 4:30pm Monday to Friday. A member of the Wellbeing Team (Miss Carmen Britnell or Miss Jenny Davies) will endeavour to respond within 24 hours during the Remote Learning period. 

Supporting your child's Mental Health during lockdown

Click here for an article published this week in The Age

Resources to Support Parents and Carers during Lockdown

Headspace has created a video providing tips for parents and carers during lockdown and are running free webinars for parents and carers about offering support when they are concerned about a young person’s mental health.

Wellbeing activities and conversation starters are available for parents of primary school-aged children here.