From the Principal...

School Fees

A letter from the Director went out today via Compass regarding School Fees. I attach a copy here as well and encourage anyone who needs to avail themselves of this assistance to please contact me.

The Changing Face of Education at St Mary's

Our school continues to remain open, however, I do actively encourage you to keep your children at home, if at all possible.

If you are engaged in emergency services, if you are expected to teach elsewhere, or if you are a single parent without support  and you are required to attend work, there will be supervision and support for these children at school. But please be aware that, while they may be at school, they will not necessarily be with their classroom teacher. We will continue to keep in contact via Compass to advise of any updates to changes to the current situation.

Last week we commenced our online learning for all classes via Google Classroom. I am aware that there have been teething issues and I thank parents for their patience and understanding as we work to rectify the problems. I do ask for your continued patience and understanding as no doubt there will continue to be glitches in the system as more people access the internet over the next several weeks.  Please do let us know if you have issues via email to smaadmin@arm.catholic.edu.au and the admin staff will forward this to the appropriate staff members to work towards a solution, this may not necessarily be the classroom teacher.

Currently we have staff onsite and staff on a rostered basis working from home. For teachers who are at school and maybe supervising a class for the day they will not have their own class. This means that the teachers on some days may not be able to respond immediately to students requests for assistance. But please be aware that the school leadership team are monitoring all Google Classrooms and if needed will assist students where they are able.

Just a reminder from my letter last week:

Please remember that our children are just as scared and worried as we are right now. They hear everything that is happening around them and they feel our anxiety and tension. They, like us, have never experienced anything like this before. 

While the idea of being off school for days or weeks sounds very exciting to them right now and they are thinking it will be a holiday, the reality will become very different as they start to feel isolated at home and unable to see their friends. This may cause some behaviour issues and anger. This is normal and would be expected under these circumstances. Just make them feel loved, comforted and reassured. That may mean that sometimes spending time with them will take precedence over getting school work done - and that is okay! Take them for a walk, play outside, cook together, play board games, paint pictures and watch movies. We need to focus on their mental health just as much as their academic skills. 

Further to this I would remind parents that we are providing 2 and half to 3 hours work for students. Take time to get into a routine of doing this work and don't be hard on yourselves if it doesn't work the first time. I have teachers at school who are on a steep learning curve to provide the students with online in formats they have not used before and they are also will make mistakes and won't always get it right so if we all do the best we can and work calmly together we will achieve the best learning outcomes for the students that we can given the present circumstances. I sincerely thank my entire staff for their dedication to student learning and the hours of additional work they put in at night and on weekends to get our online work up and working in a matter of days. St Mary's is very fortunate to have such a dedicated staff.

We are endeavouring via Compass to provide suggestions on eSafety for students and I strongly encourage parents to make themselves familiar with the sites we have recommended and to remain aware of any sites their children are accessing while on the internet.

I appreciate these are difficult and challenging times, I want to thank you again, as always, for your calm, supportive, and encouraging words and actions. I have no doubt that courage, strength, grace and wisdom, will see us through these tough times.

Stay safe and we look forward to emerging stronger and wiser in the months ahead.