From the Principals' Desk
Dear Parents,
We appear to have survived the first week of remote learning successfully, and I hope that you have too.
We are discovering that it is more challenging (and tiring) than we had imagined and for our teachers who are working remotely and managing their own children working remotely it has been extremely difficult to balance. I imagine many of you are in the same position and are trying to balance the increased demands of working from home with supporting and assisting your own children and/or partners. If you have young children, and are doing it as a sole parent the demands would ramp up considerably, and sadly I am aware that some members of our school community have lost jobs as a result of the community lock down.
Ms Mackin and I have been working on some more prescriptive guidelines for our staff and students about how best to manage the current situation and it is evident that while we are well prepared, have the technology, and are more than capable of running a full “normal” timetable online, attempting to sustain this may in fact be damaging for our staff and students. (and the parents at home who are trying to support and assist their families).
Our biggest hurdle will be to reduce the expectations about how much should be achieved vs how much needs to be achieved this term. James Merlino – the Victorian Education Minister – earlier this week stated unequivocally that Victorian schools would continue to operate remotely for at least the remainder of this term. That is another 9 weeks and no guarantee that we would be returning for a “normal” term 3 depending on the progress of the virus. So, we need to ensure that our model is sustainable for at least that length of time.
Many of our students (particularly those in Year 12) are worried that they will be disadvantaged by the current situation and I offer continued and genuine re-assurance that this is not the case, and Nossal students are more likely to be advantaged comparative to many other students. We are all mourning the loss of eagerly anticipated milestone events and activities and the opportunity to mix socially and do the many things that we previously took for granted, but in terms of the educational program, our students will continue to achieve excellent results and high level university entry BUT – the way that will happen will be different this year.
Unfortunately we are still waiting on VCAA to advise us of the official changes that will be made to VCE assessments and exams, although this is imminent and in the meantime the teachers are making sure that the students are covering the core required course content.
What we must do is scale back the curriculum and assessment requirements to enable more balance in the online environment.
This means essentially –
- less direct instruction
- less screen time
- less homework
- fewer structured lessons
- more self-directed learning (the student working independently in their own time and own pace after initial teacher input)
- more “asynchronous” classes with little or no direct teacher input
- regular and frequent designated times off screen throughout the day to refresh, be active, move around, exercise or simply relax.
We also need to accept that we will all need to be offline or unavailable at times (planned and unplanned) as the demands of family, shared or limited internet access, technical issues, illness or the need to care for others or to manage other issues in the home environment. The key to moving successfully through this change will be flexibility. While we were determined to normalise our students school experience as much as possible, we need to make the expectations realistic and manageable, and ensure that good health and wellbeing (physical and mental) is not compromised.
There is little definitive scientific or medical advice about the “right” amount of screen time for adolescents but we all know that regular breaks are essential, you need to give your eyes a chance to focus on things in the distance, and you need to be regularly physically active. Under the current situation increased screen time is inevitable as downtime for our students will involve online interactions with friends and families, online games and social media, and recreational viewing of movies, videos, and music. We do not need to be overly concerned by this – but do need to be conscious of it and the potentially negative health impacts of too much of any one thing. Obviously too the usual reminders about adequate sleep (8-10 hours for adolescents), appropriate nutrition, physical movement and exercise and recreational and social activities are more important than ever in the current environment. Please refer to the attached “Daily Isolation Wellbeing To Do Checklist” provided by Ms De Zylva for a simple guide and reminder.
I have also attached the “Working from Home Safely and Purposefully” guideline recently sent out to teachers by DET, it is a good general guide that applies equally to staff, students, and parents.
For parents who are assisting their children learn from home, you do not need to be a subject matter expert or the teacher, you need to continue to provide support, encouragement and comfort to enable them to work most effectively from home.
The Virtual School Victoria (who do this all the time) suggest that the key things parents should do to support their children are ....
• having a routine and setting expectations
• making sure your child has a space to work in
• providing a level of supervision suitable to your child’s stage of development
• monitoring communications from teachers
• checking in with your child often to help them manage and pace their work
• monitoring how much time your child is spending online.
I sincerely thank you all for your efforts and ongoing resilience and support as we navigate the positives and negatives of the COVID-19 lock down.
The wellbeing of our students and staff and their families continues to be of paramount importance and will become increasingly challenging as the term continues. Please refer to the wellbeing information and links that have been supplied by the wellbeing team and please be proactive in contacting us if you have any difficulties or concerns. We would much rather be attempting to resolve any issues early rather than after they have become huge problems or caused damage.
For teachers and support staff the school has been operating our usual program with most staff working from home; our switchboard diverting to Sheren’s mobile phone and most operational and organisational functions continuing. The Principal Team, Ms Shute (Business Manager) and Mr Humphries (IT Network Manager) are manning the school with a flexible roster and are available to open up (with prior warning) if students need to collect anything from their lockers or bring in their laptop for repairs. Please ring me directly so we can ensure someone is available to assist as we will be also involved in online meetings, briefings, and professional development activities as per usual. Our regular staff meetings, daily briefings, professional learning program and myriad other organisational staff events are still occurring via TEAMs and I pay tribute to the work of all staff, but particularly Mr Fankhauser and Ms Mackin who have been instrumental in ensuring that we are able to work so effectively and relatively seamlessly within the TEAMs environment – we are able to do much more than many other schools and are leading the world in school wide implementation of this. The upside of the current situation will be the rapid acceleration and improvement of online learning and remote work practices and it will be interesting to see how this transforms the way we will operate in this space in the future and the impact it has on schools and workplaces when we are able to return to “normal.” In that respect the experience may
Parent Teacher Interviews
As I write this, we are part way through our first fully online parent teacher interview evening and it is a very different experience for me. The school is dark and quiet, and Ms Makin and I are in our offices waiting to field any phone calls or respond to messages, texts, emails. I miss the hustle and bustle of the face to face interviews and the opportunity to greet and speak with many parents and families, but am pleased with the organisation of the event and the responses I have heard so far have been positive. There have been some teething issues and teachers have to be absolutely scrupulous about sticking to the allocated times – but that part seems to have worked better than previously. We will seek feedback and review the event and as with many of the changes we have had to make – there will be pros and cons. We know 10 minutes is rarely enough time but have to strike a balance between how many parents the teachers are able to see, and the length of time needed for a meaningful conversation. If more time is needed, or you were unable to arrange an appointment with a particular teacher – please contact the teachers directly to arrange an online or telephone meeting with them to follow up. Teachers who were unavoidably absent and missed meeting with you will contact you and respond progressively.
Whole School Assembly
Our first attempt at a whole school online assembly was an abject failure and we discovered that TEAMs could only deal with about 250 people in the one meeting so they have now upgraded our capacity and we should be able to have up to 10,000 attend. We will test this out on Monday April 27 when we will run an assembly for all 900 staff and students, and thanks to the work of Mr Butler and the school captains, an ANZAC Day tribute with a special guest presentation.
That presentation is from Retired Lieutenant Commander Dave Lassam (RAN), a friend of the Nossal High School community through his involvement in our annual Speech Night. Commander Lassam has recorded a short video presentation for our school and it can be viewed here.
Edutest Testing Dates – Year 9 Entry 2021 and Vacancy Testing for Years 10/11
The original dates have now been postponed, although the application and enrolment processes will still proceed. At this stage application numbers across the four selective schools are down considerably due we think to uncertainty that the test will take place. Interestingly Nossal’s first preference numbers are not down and are at about the same level as last year. The tests will run – although later in the year, so if you know of anyone who is unsure – my advice is apply anyway – they can always withdraw later – but if they don’t sit the test they will not be eligible for entry at all.
Works at the School
Additional cleaners have been working in all schools over the past month to ensure the spread of the virus is contained and as we have had very few people in the school it is now exceptionally clean and shiny and looking better than ever. We have been taking the opportunity to make a few small improvements and are having maintenance work done while the school is empty, and to provide our local contractors and tradespeople with much needed income.
The Clyde Road Crossing Removal contractors have been very busy here this last week building a large site depot for their sheds and equipment on the paddock opposite the school.....good timing with no students onsite. They will be there for up to two years while working on the Clyde Road Railway Crossing Removal and have been very conscious of the need to ensure the safety of our students so have been consulting closely with us to make sure it all works out well with minimal impact on our site and operations. The look like they will be good neighbours and have offered to help us out where they can, and suggested the possibility of our students working with their architects and engineers or touring the site to see how such a complex project is organised, and there might even be the option of some work experience with their parent company.
How Australia's best prepared school learnt from the SARS outbreak
This article was just published on the EducationHQ website.... educationhq.com
Victoria’s Nossal High School was likely better prepared than any other school in Australia for the coronavirus pandemic.
Prompted by a professional development talk on the SARS outbreak of the early 2000s, the selective entry public school began ... (Full article in the PDF below)
Nossal is well prepared for this – we are managing the situation exceptionally well I believe, but there are significant challenges for us all and it is likely to get more challenging as the term progresses and the impact of being in long term lockdown erodes our resilience and tolerance.
Conversely – we will also get much better at managing in this environment and will be better able to capitalise on the positive aspects and opportunities it presents.
Please stay safe, happy, and healthy, and please contact me directly should you need any assistance or have any questions or concerns.
Roger Page
Principal