Principal's Page

Principal's Report

I hope you are all well. We have completed Week 5 of a 10 week term. The half way point. I have not been informed of the date of return of students, but would be surprised if they were allowed back on site this term. I would bank on this term being remote - but things can change quickly.

Staff stayed behind on Friday after school to write on a Gratitude Wall for Parents. We pay our respects to you for your incredible resilience and support of your child, your teachers and your school. I hope you spend time reading it.  Here is the link: Parent Gratitude Wall Link.

Thanks to all parents for joining in on the assembly last week. I became aware that not all parents could log on. Not this week, but next, I will try again and record an assembly and send a link to parents. Not all of our technology is successful and we are on a learning curve. Apologies if you tried to log in but were blocked. 

I am excited because Grades Prep and 1 are starting the Seesaw program this week. It will be phased in and we believe we will use it well past the remote period. It is designed to create close feedback links between home and school. Like all new things, there will be a learning curve. You have been wonderful in learning new systems to connect. We strongly believe this is a step in the right direction. Be patient with our learning curve as we move onto the new platform.

Grades 2-6 have been using Microsoft Teams and OneNote to create home-school links. It is much more efficient than the email exchanges we started with all those weeks ago. We are again grateful as you learned along with us in moving to these platforms.

Please check out the last two pages of our iNewsletter this week. They contain Remote Learning Superstar students and some writing from the Grade 3/4 students. We hope you enjoy them.

At staff meeting this week, we wrote a comment alongside all 465 students at our school. We ranked how we felt each one was going during the remote period and will make it a point to reach out to those in need. If you feel you are needing help, please use the following contacts:

• Wellbeing Phone Number: 0434 541 066
• Wellbeing Email Address: wellbeing@southmelbourneps.vic.edu.au

I have included a video sent through to me by one of our parents, Kelly. Thanks to Kelly for thinking of this. It outlines how important it is to defeat this virus by following the rules. It includes various languages so I hope it hits the spot. 

Compass Newsfeed for Kids - I Need Your Help

When I was at University High School, I had great communications with the students via Compass Newsfeeds. I would send them little jokes and happy pictures to keep in touch. Although our students are young, I want to do the same thing.

Can you help me?

Here are the instructions for checking Compass Newsfeeds if you are a student. If parents could make sure this is set up, I will send some simple messages over the next few weeks. I will give you time to set this up and send you (families) a Newsfeed letting you know to help your child check my Newsfeed to them.

Here are the instructions so you are all ready when the time comes:

Year 1 to 3 – iPads

1. Click Compass app (located in General folder for Year 1 and Loan iPads)

2. Login using Cases code as username and full first name as password, see examples below:

• ABC0021

• joe (for example)

3. News feed will be displayed on the Compass Homepage

Year 4 to 6 – Laptops

1. Open Chrome, the start-up page should open to Compass

2. Login using Cases code as username and laptop/O365 password. The default password is full first name, however students likely have changed their password on their laptop or in Office 365.

a. ABC0021

b. mypassword

3. News feed will be displayed on the Compass homepage

Stay Strong

I am very lucky to have such dedicated staff surrounding me in the workplace. You are very lucky to have staff that truly and deeply care about each child. Together, we are strong. We probably have five more weeks of remote learning to endure and we will be fine - we will reach the end strongly. There will be bumps along the way, but keep believing.

Take good care.

Noel Creece