Myrniong and ELC
Junior School Remote Learning
On Wednesday, the Junior School learning community embarked on the first initial steps of a marathon race-Remote Learning for Term Two, 2020. Ben Lee’s iconic song “ We Are All In This Together” really sums things up well. On balance, the first day was a huge success. Close to 100% of Prep to Year Six students logged onto meet their classroom teachers for a 9.00 am welcome on Microsoft Teams. I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Prep, Year Two, Year Five and Year Six meetings. After three weeks of not seeing friends (and their teachers), the students were upbeat, talkative, excited and eager to commence the 42. 2 km journey. The important thing to remember for students and parents is the Junior School staff are here to support you in your marathon. We don’t pretend for a minute that this is going to be a smooth run. Education is a profoundly relational beast. That is the challenge. Teacher and student interactions and relationships are forged in the classroom. Remote Learning won’t allow for this to occur in the same way. Class discussions are really valuable. During these interactions, teachers can see who is really getting it, and who requires additional support. It's much harder to do that in an online environment, even if you use video platforms like Teams. That said, I must applaud the teaching, Admin and I.T staff for the time, thought and effort they have put into preparing for Term Two. I have great confidence we will grow as a learning community and Remote Learning will yield great results.
On Tuesday May 4th at 7.00 pm, we will run a live meeting for Junior School parents via Microsoft Teams. This will give parents the opportunity to share their remote learning experiences and ask questions.
Protocols and Microsoft Teams
Remote Learning is new for us all. Parents can assist Junior School teachers by ensuring their children follow the following protocols when using Teams.
*Students are not permitted to set up their own Teams meeting outside of teacher generated meetings and lessons. Student meetings use up Internet bandwidth and have the potential to exclude members of the class.
*Students should always blur their background and start meetings with their microphones turned off. Ideally students should be in an open area within the house when attending meetings. It is strongly recommended students are not working from bedrooms.
*Students are not permitted to record meetings and share them.
At all times, we ask our students to be respectful and responsible when using technology and working online.
Stephen Nelson
Head of Junior School
Early Learning Centre
At The Early Learning Centre we are hopeful of a fun and engaging term with our early learners. We will continue to use Storypark with both our early learning groups and have also introduced Microsoft Teams to our Piccino children and families to support our program delivery. Children will receive resource packs and we will provide links and our own audio-visuals to stay connected and offer learning opportunities to our early learners. We encourage all our families to engage with us in our online platforms and share their child’s learning journey with us. Our primary focus over the next couple of weeks is to reconnect with all of our children and families so that we not only maintain our relationships, but that we continue to strengthen them.
Frances O'Brien
Director - Early Learning Centre