Welcome Back to Our Prep-2 Students

It’s certainly very nice to have the P-2 students back on deck. There have been lots of excited kids at both campuses this morning, all happy to catch up with their friends and teachers. As you can see from the photos taken this morning, the children have settled back in beautifully. Our parents clearly did an excellent job preparing their children for returning this morning and we know there will have been many reassuring conversations taking place in households over the past few days. Thanks for your efforts in this regard.

Throughout remote learning, we knew it would be important to maintain a connection to the children via-video conferencing, in the belief this would help them transition seamlessly back into school. Early indicators suggest we got that right.

Our teachers also put a lot of thought into how to run these first few days at school to help transition students back to school successfully. This is important given it’s now a full 10 weeks since many of the P-2 students have been in their classroom. This morning included lots of relaxing activities providing opportunities for the children to chat, share stories and catch up. It also included a simple orientation, making sure students understood any changes of routine and highlighted hygiene practices we will all be adopting.

Morning Drop Off

A big thank you to our parents for listening to requests to stay off site unless absolutely necessary. We understand that is a big change for most of you, but rest assured that we will take good care of the kids whilst they are on site and hopefully we’ll be back to normal by the time term 3 starts. Our teachers are still available for you via email, compass messages or over the phone, but you just won’t be able to pop into the classroom for a while.

The drop off worked really well this morning and it was great to have lots of volunteer staff from grades 3-6, our specialists and teacher aides to welcome students and help out where needed. We expected there would be a number of anxious students needing support, but pretty much were left carrying resource packs and having a friendly chat. This is a reminder of the resilience of our kids and their ability to adapt.

We’re glad we didn’t complicate things by organising a staggered morning drop off, as the arrival of students was very smooth this morning and our parents were sensible with social distancing.

Staggered End to the School Day

We will run with a staggered end to the school day (between 3:24pm & 3:30pm) as a means of avoiding the inevitable clumping of people that happens when all the students are dismissed at the same time. There will be lots of staff out in the yard from 3:24pm making sure all the children are well supervised.

Hygiene Practices

Please rest assured that everything possible is being done to keep students and staff safe as they return to school. A number of measures are in place, which Scott explained in last week’s newsletter. These messages have been repeated in the Wellbeing section of this newsletter.

On-Site Learning

We are now into our 7th week of running an on-site learning program for children of essential workers. This has catered for anywhere between 25 and 75 children on a given day and has presented us with a range of challenges and an ever changing landscape. One hundred and sixty different children have attended at some stage over the 7 weeks, most in a part time capacity.

Despite the challenges, the on-site learning program has been very successful. A big thank you to Jess Micallef and Mitch Walsh who have done an excellent job leading the program, ably supported by teacher aides, Base 1270 staff, casual relief teachers and some student teachers. The children who have attended have handled the situation really well, but they’ll be looking forward to things returning to normal.

School Council

Last night we had our May meeting via-video conference, which is likely to be the method of coming together for some time.

Reflecting on Remote Learning

Apart from the usual monthly business, we spent quite a while reflecting on the experience of remote learning. Between now and the end of term, we will continue this work for 2 reasons, those being:

To prepare for the possibility of returning to remote learning at some stage in the future.
To compile a record of the Covid-19 experience from a school community perspective. Hopefully the circumstances of the past couple of months will be a one off, so recording our reflections will be of interest in years to come.

So over the next few weeks we will come up with a bit of a plan to gather these reflections.

School Concert

As most of you would be aware, we alternate between a concert one year and a fete the next. We were scheduled to hold a school concert in August, but School Council made the decision to cancel this event for 2020.

This decision is based on:

The fact that it’s highly unlikely any events such as this will be allowed to proceed any time soon.
Student learning has already been interrupted this year, so we won’t be wanting to spend lots of time rehearsing for a concert in the first half of term 3.

The plan is for the school concert to be pushed back to August 2021 and to follow with a fete in March of 2022.

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