Across the Principal's Desk

5th June 2020. 

Last week was a big week! Our staff returned onsite on the Monday and our Senior Studies students resumed face to face teaching at school on Tuesday. It went exceptionally well and that feeling has continued into this week. Our return with staff was a little heavy going in the morning as we worked through all of the strategies we needed to put into place to make our school a safe and comfortable place for everyone to work and learn. And the rest of the day was more planning and preparation for receiving our Senior Students the next day. All of our teachers were committed to checking on our students’ wellbeing before moving on to how we could further support them with their learning. If we get that right, then academic outcomes will follow.

 

I spoke with our students during Form Group and congratulated them on their commitment to the remote learning experience which has resulted in them being able to come back and move on with their courses. We think they did a terrific job! It was really nice to hear from our students (and some parents as well) that they felt our teachers have done an amazing job – and I concur, they have done a brilliant job! We also ran Student Voice sessions throughout the time of Remote Learning and we were able to gain very insightful feedback from our students which helped us to improve and prepare along the way. There is no doubt it has been a challenging time for everyone but I believe that we have learnt a lot along the way and it has helped us to return to some sense of normality.

 

At our staff meeting this week we focused on capturing our learning from working in an alternative way during remote learning. There is a range of skills and processes that we have developed that will be really useful in improving the learning for our students in the future. It is interesting that out of a very difficult situation we have found opportunities to make things better for everyone.

 

Our Year 7-10 students will return next Tuesday and we are looking forward to having all of our young people back on site. We will greet them in the same way that we did with the Senior Students – we’ll check how they are travelling in terms of their wellbeing and work out how best to support them in their learning. We do not want students to feel anxious about what they may or may not have achieved with remote learning. We will simply focus on what we can do next to help all our students successfully return to face-to-face learning.

 

We will send out communication to parents via Compass and our Website in the way that we have done throughout the Remote Learning process. We will also send information to students via their Google Classroom Form Group Feed. So please check in these places for further information about Year 7-10 students returning on Tuesday the 9th of June.