Principal

Welcome to Term 2

Welcome back!

For most of us life is different to anything we have known before, be it living with just those in our own homes, not seeing family and friends, not going to work, not having work and having our children in their houses not in their school. 

As a staff we want to thank you for your support leading into the end of Term 1, with the holidays starting early you all scrambled to do what you could to ensure the staff could spend those days leading into Friday March 27th when our term finished, planning and preparing. 

Our staff have continued to work to put together the remote and flexible learning program that your children are currently undertaking. The programs will develop and build as the term goes on, any issues or feedback would be appreciated. The staff will be checking in with students via Webex, we have already had great feedback about how this is allowing students to continue their connections with their teacher and their classmates. We know there have been glitches, it is important we find out what they are, adjust, solve and continue with our learning. Thank you for your patience.  

We have provided many different guides and supports via Sentral messages from the school, teams or individual teachers. 

We aim to provide you with enough information to enable you to support your child with their learning, our aim is not for you to teach them. As the the weeks unfold there will be more specific and explicit teaching being undertaken with whole classes and groups of students.

The focus for this week is to get everyone used to the platforms that we are using and focus on wellbeing. 

On site attendance

All students who can learn at home must learn from home. This is a very clear directive by the Victorian Government based on the advice of the Chief Health Officer.

All students will be learning from home, except for children on days when they are not able to be supervised at home and no other arrangements can be made, for example if you are an essential worker and there is no one at home to supervise your child.

We have identified a small number of willing and able teaching and education support staff who have agreed to be rostered to provide supervision for on-site learning, this will include Casual Relief Teachers who are familiar with the school operations. The majority of staff will be working remotely in Term 2 and we will be operating on a very limited number of staff on-site each day.

Students who attend school will undertake their remote learning program under supervision they will not be taught as they normally would be - it is important that you explain this to your child if you are making a request for them to attend onsite, we will ensure social distancing is observed and playing in the yard will be limited to certain areas with no access to the play equipment.

We will provide advice around what to bring to school if your request for attendance onsite is approved. It is expected that children will need to have independent things to do when they have completed their learning program for the day. 

Coming to school is a last resort and only those students who have approval are allowed on the school site. 

If you are working from home then all efforts need to be made to supervise your children at home, setting a clear timetable and setting expectations for task completion is essential. 

We ask our parents to provide clear information about why their child needs to be onsite, some parents have provided proof of their essential worker status from their employer. All information will be assessed and only those meeting the needs set out by the Department will be given permission to attend. 

Thank you to everyone for adhering to the timeline which will enable us to safely staff the school. 

Wellbeing

We have put together a Google Site to support Wellbeing throughout this term. 

We have included information on:

• Self care - sleep and mindfulness
• Care Learn and Share
• Rights, Resilience and Respectful Relationships
• Coronavirus
• Cabin Fever
• Resources

The site will be updated regularly so revisit when you can - Boroondara Park Wellbeing

We would appreciate any feedback about what can be added so don't hesitate to contact us with your ideas. 

Abences

Please remember to log into Sentral and add your child's absence if they are unwell. We need your support to make sure you enter the absences and give the reason, this will support the work of our office staff this term. 

Class Reps and Class Directories

We have had contact from some parents who did not provide their details for the class directories. Margaret in the office will work on adjusting the Directories and resending them to each class if they have altered. 

Photo credit

Thank you to Olivia for sharing her rainbow, it made me smile. 

Susanne Lowe

Principal