The Return of Our Students

We are so thrilled to finally be able to welcome back each and every one of our students to school. This has been an unpredictable and difficult year for many families, and I know I speak for all of our teachers when I say that teaching just isn’t the same without those crucial face-to-face interactions. 

Yet, it is such an encouragement to see such resilience on display in our classrooms. Despite many setbacks and challenges, we are witnessing growth in our students as well as willingness to put in extra effort to catch up. 

We know that, for some parents, there will be concerns about potential learning gaps and we take these concerns seriously. As soon as students returned to onsite learning, we began gathering data to enable us to find out what areas would require additional support. We are now in a position to be able to respond to the identified needs. 

Here’s a snapshot of current and proposed initiatives in each of our sub-schools.

Junior School 

By Linda Goldrick (Head of Junior School)

In order to assist us in the process of gathering data and identifying student needs, we employed three new Junior Teachers (Ash Holdsworth, Sarah Sweeney and Karen Angus). We are confident that these additional resources will help us implement and differentiate programs that will maximise each child’s learning potential. 

Wellbeing is also a priority, with the understandable spike in anxiety as a result of the pandemic. We have put an increased emphasis on checking in on the wellbeing of our students, shifted integrated studies to wellbeing for the remainder of the year and have focused on year-level devotions - with the assistance of our Junior School Chaplain, Matt.

With students gaining less socialisation practice during lockdown, we’ve taken steps to assist their transition in the playground, with a supervised ‘playground experience’ that involves our Chaplains and Interns helping support collaborative play. Years 3 and 4 are participating in a specialised sport and physical education program that empowers students to navigate social situations with autonomy and through collaboration. 

Middle School

By Adam Messenger (Head of Middle School)

In Middle School, we are focusing primarily on wellbeing, making shifts to our PUSH program in Year 8 with particular emphasis around mental and physical health. We understand that the time away from school has been hard on our students and that they will need extra care and support in order to thrive. 

We’ve increased resources for learning support as well - with educational expert, Helen Loe, now helping out with literacy and numeracy groups in Year 5/6. Time has been increased for our Learning Assistants to help out in-class and in small groups, as well as one-on-one targeted sessions. Study is an important area for growth, and we’ve implemented additional study periods, as well as lunch time support groups in areas of literacy and numeracy. 

Senior School

Ivan Seskis (Head of Senior School) & Vicky Fraanje (Head of VCE, VCAL and VET)

The pressure to perform academically is keenly felt by our Senior Students and we have introduced a number of programs to maximise learning during this potentially stressful time. 

Year 9/10 students have the opportunity to join small group tuition in the subject areas of English, Maths, Science, Geography and History. This opportunity has been put into place to support students in their learning experience and to help with student well being. This will continue for the rest of 2020.

For our Year 11/12 students, additional time during the first month of Term 4 has been allocated for 3 Learning Assistants to work in class and one-on-one with students (in accordance with a booking system). We’ve also doubled down our efforts to support our Year 12 students in their exam preparation - with access to Connect Education revision lectures, exam notes, students completing practice exams and Quizlet cards for a number of subjects.

We know that it can be difficult to attend school in a mask, so we’ve released a special BHCS edition mask for our Year 12s who have missed out on many special opportunities this year. We are hopeful that this will enhance social engagement and create a sense of community. Wellbeing is so important to us and we’ve taken the opportunities we do have to make our class of 2020 feel special, such as providing a grab-and-go lunch for the students during the GAT test. 

While this hasn’t been the year any of us would have wished for, we are optimistic that the change in circumstances will lead to growth and increased levels of resilience, and we thank all of our parents for your forbearance and positivity in the midst of difficult times.