Year 12 Pastoral Guardian

What an absolutely joyous day it was on Monday to welcome the Seniors back to the College for learning face to face.  Congratulations to the Captains and Ms B for initiating the creative ideas and the P&F Support Network for organising the festive welcoming banners and balloons.  Laughter, smiles, and a bubbling lunchtime area showed that the students are incredible, social beings who love being together, especially in their final year of school memories.  Well, there’s lots more treasured memories to create in 2020.  Most Year 12s looked genuinely happy to be back with so much to share face to face, and the atmosphere at the College was vibrant.  The value of connection has been most apparent in our return to learning at school.

In challenging times, positives, creativity, and initiatives spring forth, and at Mt A the true spirit of our Franciscan community flourished.   I was impressed with Senior students’ leadership in maintaining connections and college spirit over our time in isolation.  Home Room teachers shared that Year 12s showed positive leadership and mentoring of younger students in online meetings, and lived up to Ms B’s challenge at the beginning of 2020 that all Year 12s as leaders be the “champions” of home rooms.  The Captains ran entertaining and motivating assemblies and Instagram posts weekly to motivate the whole college community. 

It was interesting to hear from Sports Department's Joshua White and Shan Caruana about the initiatives of Captain Emma Winstanley, the Sports Committee, and Sports Captains.  I would like to share Emma’s report:

To help girls within the Mount Alvernia community, I thought videos of workouts and recipes would help them maintain an active and healthy lifestyle while they are stuck at home.  I filmed myself and one of my sisters completing a couple of workouts.  As well, a couple of girls from the Sports Committee, Chloe (Year 8) and Sally (Year 9) and I shared recipes for smoothies which girls could try at home.  The goal of these clips was to encourage those at home to stay active and connected. Exercising and healthy eating are major factors to a person’s wellbeing, especially through these stressful times.

Also, the Cross Country Captains thought of a great way to connect while at home.  The captains, Chloe and Sophie, created a Teams video session for the Cross Country team to provide the girls with a workout, on the mornings of our usual training days.  This gave the girls an opportunity to continue to train together throughout isolation and maintain their daily routines.  These occur every Monday and Wednesday morning at 7.00am; they run a quick 30-minute workout for the girls interested.

Overall, the aim of these workouts and videos was to provide girls with a resource and opportunity for them to complete healthy activities while at home.  We hoped it encouraged the girls to continue with daily exercise and healthy eating whilst also helping to reduce any feelings of stress.

I have noticed in my senior classes that students learned how to learn more effectively with a different mode of communication with teachers via technology and you as supportive parents at home.  They have worked hard and learned how to work both independently and collaboratively in team collaboration spaces.  As young adults, they have had a taste tester, months ahead, of the independence, time management, and a degree of flexibility required in a tertiary environment.  Of course, many students completing certificate TAFE courses have already had experience in these aspects of learning and responsibility. 

Well, you have read my teacher and Pastoral Guardian perspective and you have your valuable parent view after so much extended family time recently.  I just want to share with you now some positive, mature reflections from Year 12 students of their experiences that confirmed what I had observed:

Being a Senior whilst learning from home has definitely been a unique experience.  The Year 12 cohort had already been through a lot in 2020 so far – senior ties and jerseys, our Formal, and the Swimming Carnival are just a few of the things that we saw as a kick-start to the year.  So, being told that we were going to learn from our homes, without any form of face-to-face contact with one another, was certainly a shock for some of us. However, through this time apart we have learned academic independence, and are now able to really value the time we do get to spend with our peers.  Overall, we’ve gained a huge amount of respect for the hard work our teachers put in each lesson, and are now increasingly grateful for each academic opportunity as it comes!

Lily Cotgreave

I enjoyed working from home as I am an independent worker but found the transition back to school life and coming back to school hard as I had to change my schedule.

Keali Nicholson

Thank you for looking after us all now we are back. 

Audrey Bennett

The Learning from Home experience was one that allowed each student to exercise their independence and discover the ways they learnt best.  It was a beneficial opportunity for us to become self-motivated learners and use our flexible timetable to our advantage.

Katie Guthrie, Tillie Weinert, and Bianca Celere

Learning from home gains were more flexibility, independence, becoming more reliable on ourselves.  It was an easy transition. 

Amy Turner, Maddie Ellis, Chantelle McEvoy, Charlotte Andrew

To me online learning was a really positive experience.  I found I was way more productive than I would be at school because I was unable to talk to people around me.  I also enjoyed sleeping in and exercise in my breaks.  I feel like I had my life on track.

Emily Brogan and Olivia Searle

I found that, when I was working from home, I had much more independence and I could work at my classes at my own pace, whether that pace was spaced out over eight hours or three.  I found the transition back fairly easy. 

Ella Blazak

Initially, it was quite an adjustment to transition from school campus learning to online learning; however, after embracing the new school learning, we found that we quite enjoyed the independence that online schooling gave.  Also, we found that we were able to complete schoolwork more efficiently which built our time management skills.  We have enjoyed seeing our peers, friends, and teachers as it brought back the face-to-face interaction that was lost when completing school online.  

Chelsea O’Bryan and Hannah Bracey

We have gained a sense of independence which has given us a taste of what university would be like. The transition between Learning from Home and coming back to school was easy, just as if we never left.

Erin Jones and Jessica De Felicis

A common thread is the appreciation of the gain of independence in their learning that has set our young adults up well for a positive 2020 and their futures at this time of challenge.

I hope you and your family are well and have enjoyed moments of renewed family connection that we may not have in our usual busy schedules.  Please take care.

Karen Farrow