Principal's Message

School Philosophy

Orchard Grove Primary School is committed to providing a safe, nurturing environment that engages curiosity, promotes learning, personal growth and wellbeing for all students. We strive to develop adaptability and resilience so students can become valued members of the local and global communities and be prepared for future life experiences.

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Well, as ABBA sings so enthusiastically, “Mamma Mia, here ‘we’ go again". The great thing is that the OGPS community is a resilient bunch and we will all, once again, rise to the occasion to work together to have the best outcomes for the children over this lockdown period. We are so very grateful for the support from our parent community while in our last stint of remote learning and, although I am well and truly over the phrase, the fact is that “we are all in this together”.  With 428 new cases announced today, it is more important than ever that we abide by the restrictions and keep safe. 

This time around, there is more scope for onsite remote learning for students, with the addition of students with a disability and a broadening of the original ‘essential workers’ category. This will mean that we will potentially have more children accessing the remote learning program here at school than last time; however, with higher numbers of students, it does bring extra concern for some around appropriate social distancing and minimising risk for both students and staff.  As always, we are doing the best we can, with constant cleaning, sanitising etc., but we do ask that, if it is possible, you keep your children at home and only use the provision of onsite supervision when it is an absolute necessity. Having said that, if you need us, we are definitely here for you.

Over the last few days, we have been working hard to modify our previous remote learning program in light of the feedback we received from the parent survey, students and staff. This time around, we have opted to have all Google Meet teaching sessions across the school start at 9:00 am, and moved the afternoon check-in to the earlier time of 2:00 pm; this will allow families to go for a walk, bike ride or to spend some daylight hours with their families, something that we acknowledge is important for family connection and mental and physical health. 

You may have heard, from family and friends of students who attend a different school, of the broad ranges of approaches schools took to remote learning last time.  These ranged from only once a week phone calls to children and all other activities done independently, with no class time or online check-ins and minimal feedback to students about their tasks, all the way through to high connection opportunities like we had at OGPS through Google Meet and online contact with peers and teachers.  We believe our approach was the preferred option and best practice, and so, with a few tweaks, we really felt it was important to continue that daily contact with the children to help them feel connected to something bigger outside their direct family.  It seems, from your feedback, that the greater majority of parents agreed with this. 

The major change this time around, in response to feedback, is with our Specialist team. Georgia Syme, our wonderful Visual Art teacher and leader of the specialist teams, explains below: 

Welcome back to Term Three and to Learning from Home from the Specialist team. Whilst we would have loved to be welcoming you back to our classrooms, we are still excited about what this term will bring. You will notice that there are some changes to our program this time. Firstly, your Specialist tasks will be released on the same days as last time (please refer to your class timetable). However, this time there are NO Google Meets with the Specialist teachers. This means you will need to watch and listen to the videos on the website carefully to make sure you understand all instructions. Specialist teachers will be available via their Gmail account if needed. The second change is that we are excited to introduce our wonderful new addition to the team, Mrs Naomi McKenzie, as our Performing Arts teacher.

For the first couple of weeks of this term, we will be running an OGPS Specialist Olympics. Over the following weeks, our programs will be about continuing skill acquisition related to our subject areas, linked to your classroom units where possible.  

It is going to be a busy term and we can’t wait to get started.

As Georgia has just said we are, all keen for you to meet Naomi, our new Performing Arts teacher, and she would love to tell you a bit about herself:

Hi, Orchard Grove Primary School!  My name is Naomi McKenzie and I am very lucky to be teaching Performing Arts while Ms Mets is on leave.  I have been teaching the subject for ten years and have loved every single moment of it!  One of my favourite musical activities to do in class is singing and I enjoy sharing this passion with my students.  I can’t wait to get to know the Orchard Grove PS community and, in particular, look forward to meeting all of the students in person soon. 

Yours musically,

Mrs McKenzie 

We will continue to have a newsletter every week to help keep you all in the loop and to celebrate the children’s achievements during remote learning.  In addition, in each week’s newsletter, we will have a copy of each level's timetable so, at a glance, you can see what will be ahead for the following week. 

Well, before I go, just have a lookout for a message from your child’s teacher. They will be sending through a hello message to you and your child in preparation for the formal start of remote learning at 9:00 am next Monday. 

Take care everyone and stay safe.

Glenda Harry

Principal

PS. We are excitedly waiting to hear news about Gina and will let you know as soon as we hear about her new bundle of joy.