Yesterday it was confirmed that remote learning would continue until at least the end of term 3 due to the escalating COVID situation. There is no guarantee that we will be back onsite at the start of next term and so we are keen to make sure that the learning we are providing is as strong and engaging as possible for all of our students trying to learn from home.

Last week we ran a series of surveys to get an impression from parents and children what they are feeling about our current remote learning program.

With the curriculum day on Monday, it has been a good chance to stop, reflect, reset our messages and expectations and then head off on the same page and in the knowledge we are providing the best teaching and learning for the students.

The survey data and comments are overwhelmingly positive and support this view that we have adapted well and provided great support to students and families so far. We thank those parents and students who took the time to complete the surveys.

A few key points from the survey data;

Parents feel the level of challenge we are providing is good (75% rated this as a good balance)
Whilst providing the right amount of work is probably impossible to achieve (as we know that some kids will race through tasks to get them done and others will spend a long time and want everything to be perfect), more than half of parents think we are providing the ‘right amount’ of learning for their child.
Whilst there were a wide range of views, overall parents feel that our balance of synchronous (live) vs asynchronous (pre-prepared) learning leans slightly too far towards pre-prepared tasks and videos.
Parents give good feedback about how the variety of tasks we provide help their children to learn (although they are most positive about ‘live’ google meet sessions – especially small groups).
Parents do though appreciate having pre-prepared tasks as well so they can access them anytime and support their children around their own commitments.
Unsurprisingly, almost all students think they are getting enough work.
F-2 students rated small group google meets, pre-prepared video tasks and teacher feedback comments as the ways they learn best.
Overall, 3-6 students feel the amount of work and the level of challenge is about right.
3-6 students rated receiving feedback, pre-prepared tasks and small group google meets as the ways they learn best.

In discussing the data, we took away the following key points about how our program at SKiPPS might be ‘tweaked’ to better meet the needs of students, parents and staff;

Getting a balance of different tasks is key for learning and engagement (and this balance needs to change slightly to include more whole-class live teaching, alongside the small groups and pre-prepared tasks that we are currently using so effectively).
Setting some clear whole-school routines, timings and expectations will benefit everyone and allow for clear consistent messages about what we do and when and will help students to manage their workloads .
Provision of feedback and acknowledgement of work submitted is something students really notice and appreciate.
We feel moving towards a structure that more closely reflects what a normal school day/week feels like is probably beneficial for everyone.

As a result, you will see the following changes in place from this Monday morning;

The day will still start at 9am with a short (15 minute) Google Meet for teachers to do the roll and check-in with the kids as we are currently doing.
Apart from on specialist day (Wednesday) teachers will then move straight into a short (15-20 minute) explicit live teaching session on Google Meet for the whole class in Literacy.
Following this, teachers will keep a small group of students in the Google Meet for a further 25-30 minutes to run a live literacy session to enable better engagement, discussion, feedback, shared reading, etc. The students in this focus group will change each day so all children get the chance to work in this way regularly.
During this small-group session, the rest of the class (not involved in the group session) will complete the learning task related to the whole-class teaching independently and not in the meeting.
Overall this live ‘lesson’ will take about 45 minutes and will aim to resemble the literacy teaching at school.
This same process (with a live whole class lesson followed by a small group on Google Meet) is followed at 11:30am for Maths. Again, taking roughly 45 minutes.
Beyond this, the rest of the tasks (Writing/Reading, PE, Inquiry) will be pre-prepared and uploaded at the start of the day. Students will access and complete this learning around the two live teaching sessions each day, providing them with the flexibility that so many enjoy.
The ‘timetable’ and routine created around these two teaching sessions will hopefully naturally help students to have breaks and manage their days without burning out.
Class teachers will provide a feedback comment on 1 piece of work each day for each child. This could be an audio or written comment.

This new arrangement might be best understood by looking at the weekly overview that each team will base their remote learning program on.

Whilst the different teams will tweak things slightly to suit their students and situation, we will aim for consistency in structure and timings to support students and families get into healthy routines.

As parents, we would really appreciate your help to ensure that your child is on their class Google Meet session at 9am and 11:30am each day for this live teaching. Attendance at these sessions is an expectation as there will be key learning delivered 'live' at these points.

This new structure will be in place for the final two weeks of term and we will seek feedback again from parents and students at the end of this fortnight to gather their views on this slightly changed way of working.

While these changes will suit many students and families, we still understand that many students and parents are struggling at the moment to stay on top of things and manage remote learning each day. Above all else, we want to continue to stress that we understand that every family situation is different and the amount of support you can provide to your child is limited by your own work or caring commitments.

It is fine if not everything gets done - maintaining a balance of physical and mental health is more important at the moment than completing all of the tasks set by teachers. Families need to find the balance and the routine that will work for them in the coming weeks and, as always, we encourage you to use the SKiPPS remote learning program to the extent that it helps this.

We can help catch children up on any missed learning on the other side once they are back at school.

As always, please reach out if you have any questions, concerns or feedback.

Neil Scott

Principal

Port Melbourne Secondary College