Change and Growth

Hello everyone

There’s nothing like a crisis like COVID-19 to shake things up. These past two months have been a catalyst for change and I hope growth too. Within our Ringwood Secondary Community, we have adapted and innovated and altered the way we learn, work and connect. More significantly, we have had a chance to reflect on what’s important to us, and what we want for the future.

In supporting the return to full school operations, both parents and teachers, can be helpful by modeling calm, confident behaviour. This is particularly useful when helping a younger person get ready for school after a break from face to face learning of 11 weeks. Teachers are allies, and students do best when parents and teachers work together as partners.

This return is like the start of a new school year and is a great time to open or continue a dialogue with your child’s teachers. Sharing information with a teacher will help build a better understanding of your child’s needs as they tackle the challenges of the remainder of the school year.

At the same time, it is important not to underestimate how resilient young people are and how easily they can adapt. I am sure that when most are back with their friends and with their teachers, they'll settle back in. The next three weeks will be vital to how everyone makes the transition back onsite.

Finally, can I again thank parents for all your support and feedback during the weeks of remote and flexible learning. As a community, we have adapted to the range of circumstances and challenges throughout this time. I believe we can be truly proud of what we have been able to achieve and the way we have gone about it. The whole school community has worked together very effectively and upheld our College pillars for Learning - learning to be yourself, learning to do, learning to think and learning to live together.

Our students have adapted to being educated in such a different way to what has previously been experienced.

We now eagerly look forward to welcoming all of our students back to Ringwood Secondary College.

Michael Phillips

Principal

Connecting online

The reality of our work as educators at a time where we are transitioning back into face to face teaching is that we will connect through technology for our meetings until we are advised otherwise.

Are our collaborations effective?

Two meetings this week highlighted how adaptable and agile our workforce is. The first meeting was in Zoom which had a professional learning focus and encouraged us to connect, capture and continue to transform education for our young people. I connected with school leaders across the Maroondah Network and learnt so much from them in the wider online space and then through smaller break out groups. The one and a half hours spent online captured ideas around the remote learning experience and allowed us to explore different ways of delivering programs as a system. The professional learning meeting run by Tracey Ezard was invigorating and impactful.

The second meeting was our regular staff meeting which had 3 parts. A presentation, a discussion in Learning Area groups and a plenary session in 50 minutes. Traditionally we would have over 100 staff in the library sitting in chairs packed tightly so we can see the projector screen at the front of the library.

The online meeting in Teams showed us how successful we can be in delivering information to staff, asking for and receiving feedback and collaborating while safely distancing either from home or school. The planning team prior to the staff meeting met through Teams to prepare and co-ordinate the meeting. I am excited to take part in transforming our staff collaborations through technology to ensure our work is focussed, relevant and meaningful. A spark of curiosity has been ignited about new ways of working for improvement.

While next week we have the full complement of students and staff return to school, the remote teaching and learning experience has taught us that our connections online can be as powerful as our face to face meetings.

Wishing everyone in our school a happy and smooth transition into the new normal environment.

Eleni Stathatos

Assistant Principal

RSC Connections

Connecting the Community of Ringwood Secondary College

Issue 8 · 05 Jun 2020

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