Principal News

Dear Sacred Heart Community

As we come to the end of the second week of our  "distance education" platform of teaching and learning, I would like to reiterate how thankful our staff have been, for your patience with the challenges you have faced, and  your gratitude for the work they have planned, and commitment to regular online contact with your children.

Again, this platform is not intended to replicate the learning experiences that happen within the normal classroom. However, what is most important to keep in mind, is that your children are gaining learning experiences that sometimes the more formal nature of the classroom cannot afford. 

I would also like to congratulate our students. The overwhelming feedback from the teachers and their parents, is that our students are approaching their distance education with a sense of enthusiasm, and are displaying great independence and resilience.

As I have mentioned in previous correspondence, this is uncharted territory, and as a staff, we are going to have to adapt, modify and change structural aspects of the "distance education" platform, and content, when we become aware of issues that are creating even greater challenges for our students and parents.

Already, feedback to our Years Three to Six teachers is that some of our students are finding the longer duration of online learning, is having a physical effect on them with sore eyes being experienced, and in some cases, headaches being reported. The staff spoke about this in our meeting last night, and modifications to the Year Three to Six program will be made to hopefully help alleviate this problem.

We are also aware that some students have not received feedback from their class teacher or had their questions answered on certain days. Generally this has been because their teacher has not been at home working remotely, but has been on duty at school. Hence, I have attached the roster displaying which staff are at school each day, supervising our students whose parents are working. On these days, these staff will not be available to the students working remotely. Finally, a request from staff is that parents use email to make contact with them regarding any issues you need addressed or questions you may have rather than using telephone. Your cooperation with this request would be greatly appreciated.

 Learning through distance education (Some reflections from our students and parents)

Hi to all !  I have been asked by Mark to write about my experience of home schooling. Well my situation is a little different because I'm still working from my small business on High Street, Preston. And my children are with me, David in grade 5 and Andrew in year 7. The first few days have been challenging with the anxiety levels quite high, trying to juggle a business in these unprecedented times, and two children home schooling. I have learnt that I’m not a teacher and trying to be one is just going to send me insane.  Yes, I did appreciate teachers before this but even more so now. So I think let them do the teaching and we should as parents support them.  (Danni)

It is hard to do schooling from home. The first day I had my mum by my side the whole day helping me figure out how to work from home.  I miss going to school because I can’t see my friends and teachers in person any more. (David Year 5)

Dear Denise,  Thank you for teaching me so much during this hard time . You always make sure we are okay and not confused with our learning . I really really like that you're my teacher , you're so caring for your students and you keep them educated . And also you're really fun  because you created the school sleepover that would have been the best part of the year if it was not postponed so late , but that is okay. I also have one question if we don't have the sleepover this year will we have it in 5/6 ? That's all enjoy your day. (Ria Year 4)

I think it’s safe to say that I was not physically or mentally prepared for home-learning when the day arrived.  Our family had moved house over the Easter long weekend and as you can imagine there was still a lot of unpacking to be done. I was already exhausted.  I had not thought through how I was going to support my kids in their learning activities while also working full time from home and managing some last minutes tradesmen who had their own work to complete in our home.  I completely underestimated just how much supervision would be required to keep the kids “on-track” working through the activities on the timetable.  Boy did the wheels fall off on Day 1.  I was a mess.  The kids were unsure as to how this home schooling caper was going to work and our first school day finished well after 3:20pm. Roll forward a short school week and the good news is that we now have a feel for how this may just work for the foreseeable future.  Every morning we setup a learning space for Tom and Amelia (formerly known as the kitchen table!)  The kids get changed into their school uniform to encourage a learning mindset.  Our internet has been installed and we all have a better understanding of how to use the Google suite of learning tools.  We still have hiccups on a daily basis but I feel that we are better prepared to tackle them head on.  A huge thank you to Mark and all the teachers who have been a great support promptly responding to my “help” emails.  Without such a dedicated team we would not have come so far.  (Annemarie)

 I think home learning is going very well because we all have tasks and everything is set up so I can complete them.  I think it also helps our social skills and our ability to learn in different environments.  There are some down sides such as if I finish tasks early I am not really sure what to do.  I also miss my friends. (Thomas Year 5)