From the Principal

Principal Message

Dear Families, Carers and school community,

It's been an extraordinary opening to the term, hasn’t it? Wow! What a shake-up of everything we know and love. It has probably been the most challenging time in my career and no doubt in your lives as well.

Over the past 6 weeks, Yarrabah has been working to ensure everything that can be done is being done to provide continuous learning opportunities for as many students as possible. Working in teams, Yarrabah School has developed a program of work in each section. This has been guided by our curriculum to ensure we are offering a breadth of study and experiences.

We have said all along that the most important thing is to have a go, not needing to worry about teaching or supporting your child through a full daily schedule but checking in with the school and sharing what your child has been up to.

Our commitment is to ensure we are checking in with you and your child. We see this as a core responsibility during this trying period in our history. We don’t want to lecture you or remind you of things that have not been done. No. We simply want to ensure you are OK and that your child has opportunities to engage in the program of work, be that online or off. We might also be able to pass on your needs to someone else that can help you differently.

Lauri and a small team of staff have delivered well over 15 devices across the school to families in need and will be delivering up to 5 internet services for those in hardship or without internet capability. Many of the devices have been donated or repurposed from school stock. You should have also received kits delivered to your door. You may not have received the second kit yet, but be assured, it is coming. Our Nail IT kit is also being delivered.

Our commitment to ensuring your child has access is paramount to the ‘gain’ pillar. We want all our families to ‘gain’ access to the program being delivered. If you do not have adequate access or technology to support your child, let the school know ASAP. If you have not received the support kits sent out before Term 2, let the school know. We want to ensure you all can ‘gain’ access to the program.

We have also been using Seesaw Family and Student accounts as the LinkIT VS platforms of choice throughout the school. Seesaw delivers updates, the schedule, the contact needed between peers and staff and lessons. Seesaw is fabulous and the sections have been using it tremendously well. Please take the opportunity to ‘gain’ access to Seesaw Family account, even if you choose for your child not to post their progress, having access and being available to this platform is essential. The other platforms developed in support of the school LinkIT VS program include the Web Portal and social media platforms (Facebook and YouTube). These are less important however provide you with a whole school experience.

The second pillar in our strategy is to ‘maintain’ engagement. To date, we have developed a simple schedule of work that is mirrored across the school in the morning. This has enabled each part of the school to focus on planning and programming. It has also ensured that you can set up a routine with your child and know what is coming up each day.

To ensure we ‘maintain’ a viable curriculum and delivery approach, we have sent out two family surveys so far. The most recent survey is attached to this newsletter and I encourage you to complete it, if you have not already done so. These surveys ensure we have an up to date understanding of your needs, experiences and attitudes to the LinkIT VS program. Within reason, we will respond to these results in the delivery and planning of the future schedules, planning and lessons.

We are attempting to 'maintain' engagement in the program by ensuring all teachers and core staff are participating and presenting lessons throughout the week. This has been an essential component of maintaining student engagement. We are also working hard to plan and deliver lessons that can be accessed by different ability, make use of consistent school-wide communication supports and provide opportunity to practice IEP elements. This has been tricky in some situations, but we are doing what we can and will continue to strive towards the goal of 'maintaining' all students in the LinkIT VS program.

The final pillar of our strategy is the ‘sustain’ element. To sustain a child's interest in school we need to be mindful of the relationship we build and support. The relationships are so essential to sustaining a quality program and we are constantly reviewing how to build these relationships and sustain them throughout this period. As a result of the last survey, our staff are contemplating ways to reduce the instructional elements and length of video's to help sustain engagement, peer involvement and relationships between the instructor and the student. To help sustain the relationship we will also reduce the need to have every video lesson edited perfectly, thus reopening the human side of our teaching. After all, class is not always run to a script either.

The relationship element has been a critical factor in the well-being team’s conversations over the past 6 weeks. As a team, the committee have been discussing ways we can continue to build and strengthen the relationships we have between home and school. One of the ways we have done this is to be available, provide opportunities for meeting up and talking to each another. Increasingly over the next few weeks there will be a focus on face to face and interaction between peers.

What’s next?

The school developed a Continuity of Learning Leadership team in order to lead the development and sustenance of the LinkIT VS program. This team believe, with your feedback and engagement, that our initial approach has been successful, however we recognise that a second tier of support for students that do not engage online or via the resource kits, needs to be introduced.

This will become known as the LinkIT My Life program. The aim of this program is to provide more individual preference opportunities, resources and supports to students that are not engaged in the model to date. This program is not age-specific. It will be overseen by an Occupational Therapist and supported by co-educators. The program will be individually tailored to specific students provided separate kits being sent home. The program will encourage families and carers to become a circle of support to their child and others. It is a program that will provide families greater opportunity to share like experiences that might have otherwise not been possible through Seesaw, Facebook or YouTube.

Week 5 of Term 2 will be a special week. Over this week we plan on providing section teachers Professional Practice days, to reflect on the program, remote learning strategies and prepare for the weeks ahead. We will be sending you out information about week 5 soon to prepare your child. Week 5 is also an opportunity to take a rest, to reflect on things that the child really enjoyed or to repeat things that might have been missed. Your sections will be notifying you soon about week 5.

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone in all your efforts and patience during this difficult health crisis. It is a health crisis and not an educational crisis after all. We are abiding by the recommendations being made, staying home but really looking forward to resuming face to face work with you all soon. Take care, stay safe and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Kind regards,

Matthew Harris

Principal

Yarrabah School