From the Principals' Desk
Return to School In Real Life
Since the Premier's announcement on May 12 that Victoria's schools would be undertaking a staged return to on-site learning, the attention of both staff and students has been firmly focused on how and when our various student groups would transition from remote learning to learning in classrooms with their teachers. The process was one which involved making a number of significant logistical decisions, and has involved the modification of many of the ways in which we have traditionally interacted with Nossal's learning and teaching spaces.
Underpinning all of our decisions was a combination of specific directives from the Department of Education and Training, who produced a detailed operations guide for schools which was published on Friday 15 May. This made explicit the advice from the Chief Health Officer that he "fully endorse[d] a return to on-site schooling" because of the low transition rates in Victoria, coupled with "evidence that largely indicates that transmission between children in the school environment is low." With this in mind, we were able to approach the problem of the return to school with a focus on establishing and maintaining physical distancing for staff in the first instance, understanding that this was not required for our students.
Having said that, we are also very cognisant of the fact that our students are undertaking their final years of schooling, and need to be thinking of themselves more as adults and less as children. When moving through public spaces, especially if they are not in uniform, they will be perceived as young adults and so they need to behave as responsible adults would in their negotiation of spaces and in their interactions with others. We are also aware of the fact that "low risk" is not the same as "no risk" and that some of our students and their parents may have concerns about maintaining physical safety in the more crowded environment of the school. For this reason, a large number of modifications have been made to the arrangement of furniture in the school as well as to the management of traffic flow through corridors and on stairways. Students are being advised to adopt appropriate distance between themselves and their peers, and the supplies of soap around the school have been supplemented with readily accessed supplies of sanitiser. Like other schools, Nossal also has additional cleaning staff on campus during the day to help maintain the sanitation of high-touch areas like door handles.
Mr Page has outlined the details of the school's staged return in his document Returning to School Guidelines May 20 (attached below), and Mr Butler has provided detailed information to students about the on-site operational changes which have been put in place in a complementary publication, Return to School Directions (also attached). In order to ensure that all students are fully inducted into these processes, we are also staggering the return of students more heavily than some other schools, bringing our Year 10 students back on Monday 1 June and our Year 9 students back on Tuesday 9 June. This will permit our most senior students to understand and test the arrangements in the first week, and then to instruct and support our more junior students as they return. We have also asked our Year 12 students, as leaders of the school, to ensure that they are in attendance for the tutorial sessions on the first day back of each of the other year levels, so that they can offer this support throughout the day and help ease what may be an anxious time for our younger students.
The Logistics of Return: Curriculum Days, Traffic, Uniform, Parent Visits
Change of Date: Curriculum Day
As you read on, please note in our Important Dates section that the curriculum day which had previously been scheduled for Friday 5 June has been postponed to Friday 19 June. This will be a student free day, as usual.
Travel To and From School
Some of our students have expressed concerns about travelling to school by public transport, and we expect that we may initially see an increase in the number of cars approaching the school in the morning and the afternoon due to parents choosing to drop their students off instead. Parents and students are encouraged to make themselves aware of the advice for safe travel which is available on Public Transport Victoria's website: (https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/more/coronavirus-covid-19/) and to consider a return to this mode of travel given the inevitable traffic congestion which will result if all parents (not just at Nossal, but at surrounding schools) are choosing to drive their students to and from the campus. The traffic situation at Nossal is further complicated by the works which have now begun for the upgrade of the Clyde Road level crossing. If you are going to drive to and from school, please do take these aspects into account and allow more time than you usually would.
Winter Uniform
Parents will also no doubt be aware that students are returning to a colder and wetter Nossal than the one they left. Winter uniform is now expected of all students. Our uniform supplier, PSW School Uniforms, re-opened on Wednesday 20 May, so parents of Year 9 students who have been unable to acquire a winter uniform will now be able to access them. The PFA will also be opening its second-hand uniform store (with physical distancing restrictions in place). You can find out more about that later in this newsletter. If your student cannot wear winter uniform because you are still waiting on a supplier, please make sure that you have contacted their tutorial teacher or Head of House to alert them to this fact, and to let them know when to expect the situation to be rectified.
Avoiding On-site Visits
Finally, can I remind parents that the Department of Education & Training has strongly advised that all schools limit the number of adults visiting the site at this time. If you need to contact the school and you are able to do so by phone or email, or to do the task using Compass, please do this in preference to a visit to reception.
Looking Forward: Term 2 Reports and Course Confirmation
In order to accommodate the various modifications to the learning and teaching calendar which this term has brought with it, Semester 2 has been extended by two weeks and will now end on the last day of Term 2 (Friday 26 June). As a result, Term 2 reports (which will be somewhat modified to reflect the modified programs which our students have been undertaking) will not be published to parents until the first Friday of Term 3 (Friday 17 July). At this time, parents of students in Years 9 and 10, in particular, will also be invited to make an appointment to attend a Course Confirmation interview on Wednesday 29 July (as previously scheduled). More information about the changes to the Term 2 reports will be available in the reports themselves, and further information about the Course Confirmation process, which is how our students plan their subject choices for next year, will be forthcoming via Compass and our other standard communication channels.
Tracey Mackin
Assistant Principal