Dear parents, carers and students,

On behalf of our school, I want to say a big thank you to all our students, parents and carers for your continued resilience and support during Term 3. I know remote and flexible learning has not always been easy, but through our collective efforts, our students have continued to make valuable progress in their learning. You can be confident that our school will support any student who has had difficulty engaging with the remote learning program to reengage with their learning.

Term 4 is important for every Victorian student, and our teachers will strive to deliver high-quality learning for everyone. Whether we’re teaching remotely or face-to-face, our focus for Term 4 is on making sure that every student is supported in their wellbeing, learning and transition needs.

The Victorian Government is yet to outline the plan for a return to school in Term 4. I will be emailing all parents, students and staff over the holiday period once that information has been provided.

Health and safety measures

The Term 3 remote and flexible learning arrangements were put in place to significantly reduce the movement of more than one million students and their families across Victoria, to help slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Thanks to you and your family for contributing to this on behalf of our school community.

As on-site schooling resumes, we will continue to have in place strong measures to protect the health and safety of students, staff, families and the community. This includes defined areas of play, restricting parent access to school grounds and continued emphasis on hand hygiene and physical distancing where possible to name a few.

Whether your child is, or children are, returning to face-to-face learning or will be continuing with remote and flexible learning, please be assured we will be focused on three key priorities in Term 4:

Mental health and wellbeing

Our highest priority will be the wellbeing, particularly the mental health, of every student and member of staff. This means effectively mobilising all available resources to support our most vulnerable students and enabling staff to access the relevant support services.

As a Berry Street School we will continue to focus

Learning and excellence

Some of our students have thrived in the remote and flexible learning environment, others have maintained their learning progress, and some have fallen behind, despite their best efforts and those of their families and teachers. Our priority will be supporting both those who need it to catch up and those who have progressed to continue to extend their learning. Our tutors have worked hard to support those students requiring additional help whilst in the remote learning model and this will continue once students return back to the college.

Transitions

We will make every effort to ensure successful transitions for children moving from kindergarten into Prep, the Grade 6s moving into Year 7, our current students moving between year levels, and the Year 12s moving into employment or further education and training. The release of the ATAR results for our Year 12 students has been delayed until the Thursday the 16th of December. The school will establish structures to support our students during this time and assist with their needs no matter what they are.

We have also commenced planning for 2022 with the VCE program nearing completion. This will allow the planning of the middle year’s elective structures and for information to be provided to families in the coming weeks of Term 4.

We know some families are worried that their child may have to repeat a year due to the disruptions of coronavirus (COVID-19). There is little evidence to support the benefits of repeating a year to catch up. Instead, schools will use teaching strategies that draw on the best evidence available to help students meet their learning needs. 

Parents, families and carers can be confident that the best option for almost every child is to stay with their peer group, whether that is moving from kindergarten into Prep, or moving from Grade 6 into Year 7 at secondary school, or students moving up any year level in between.

Our school, working with you, has shown it can be flexible and adaptable in responding to the challenges of coronavirus (COVID-19) and will continue to meet student needs as we look towards the end of the 2021 school year and ahead to 2022.

I wish everyone the best over the holiday period and encourage you to engage in both leisure and pleasure to address the concept of refreshing oneself. Leisure being finding the time to engage with nothing, switching off and getting away from the demands of everyday life, while pleasure is finding time to do the things you enjoy most.

I hope we are all able to find some time over the break to refresh and return to school with a renewed optimism for Term 4.

Kind regards,

Corey Jewell

College Principal

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