Principal's Message

Welcome back to Remote Learning

Staff spent last week completing Professional Learning and organising and preparing for the return to Remote Learning. A big shout out to all our parents who were so supportive to day, as the Junior School classes connected through Google Meet for their check ins. It was very impressive to see everyone giving it a go. If you had issues at all please contact your child's teacher.

Parent Zoom Q & A

Thank you to all the families that attended the Zoom Q and A on Friday. It was lovely to see everyone and hopefully you were able to get something out of the session. 

A summary of our discussion in response to parent questions:

1. New concepts were taught during the last Remote Learning period, although this was more difficult in the Junior School without video conferencing. With Google Meet in the Junior School for small groups (and check ins) this will help to facilitate explicit teaching. 
2. Assessment is a focus and although there were assessments previously, many of the results were not a true indication of student performance. It's important to be aware that assessments indicate what we need to teach differently, revise or misconceptions that students have. It is important students complete assessments independently so that teachers can make adjustments to their teaching.
3. The term overviews (apart from Guided Inquiry because we have had to change) will still be followed (with a few tweaks). These are up on the website and in each Learning Centre's news this week.
4. Attendance will be taken at 3.30pm. Students need to attend the class check-in in the morning and/or have uploaded a task by 3.30pm to be marked present. Students do not need to complete all learning tasks and we know there are days they won't and where either they or your family needs a break. We understand this and expect it to happen. Class teachers and Specialists will check-in if tasks are not being regularly completed to ensure that there is not some way we can support students more.
5. Schedules/timetables for all classes will be sent out the preceding Friday for the following week. 
   1. Foundation and 1/2 classes will publish Seesaw tasks by 7.30pm the night before so that if parents want to view the following days tasks they can. Students are not expected to begin tasks.
   2. 3/4 classes will send out the links to the slides for the coming week as well as the timetable. The link to the slides is a guide for parents, if you would like to have a look at the tasks your child will be completing throughout the week. Your child's teacher will be assigning these tasks through Google Classroom, so please don't commence any tasks before teacher instruction. 
   3. 5/6 classes will publish their tasks at 8.00am each day.
6. Differentiation is a strategy to ensure students are being taught at their point of need. Our aim is to ensure tasks are sufficiently challenging to facilitate the greatest amount of learning. Research shows that in any one class there can be a range of  seven year levels of achievement. Star tasks, open ended tasks, flexible groupings including mixed ability and like ability are all used to support differentiation. 
7. Commenting and feedback from staff will be on certain pieces of work. There will be a minimum of one piece of work commented on each day. It's important to remember that students upload their work at different times. Specialist teaches will comment on work the following day and this will often be the case for classroom teachers. Work uploaded late in the day will often not receive comments, as staff are planning for the following day/week and they are still required to complete Professional Learning and administration tasks too.
8. Paper packs for Foundation were made available on Friday with their brand new dotted thirds Writing Book. The school nurse letters and results of assessments were also included in the packs.
9. Requests for paper packs for other year levels can be made to the office. Please remember this is the slides printed. With all students participating in video conferencing, paper packs will not be necessary for most students.

Student Garden

It is with regret that I am letting the school community know that Karen Jefferies will no longer be able to tend the student garden. Karen has worked tirelessly over the years that her two girls Chloe and  Holly and her son Jay (who finished at the school in 2019) attended the school from establishing the garden, maintaining it during the school terms and over all the holidays. Karen would harvest vegetables for our weekly school raffle and many times she worked with students and teachers in the garden and the kitchen!

Discussions are underway with School Council on how to honour the Taubert family and all the work that they have contributed to our school through the beautiful student garden. 

I would like to put out a call to encourage families to make contact if you have a passion for gardening or want to develop one, to see if we can establish a Student Garden Community Group. There is no way that we could have done all we have done with planting, harvesting and cooking without Karen and I would hate to see the school lose such a valuable resource.

Please email the school at mt.pleasant.road.ps@education.vic.gov.au to express you interest as soon as possible and we will look to establish a group.

Bring Your Own iPAd Program - Year 3, 2021

We work with Edunet to support the Bring Your Own iPad  program that starts in Year 3. The new purchasing portal for 2021 is now open. Edunet will be present at the Information Night in Term 4 to go through the portal, but in case families want to access the portal now, the login details are:

URL: https://mpr.technologyportal.com.au 

Access Code: MPRPS2021

We recommend the Apple iPad 7th Gen 128GB WiFi - (the price through Edunet is $623.95.) Of course the iPad may be purchased from any retailer. iPads are usually delivered to the school office for parent pick-up.

If you have any questions concerning the program before the information night in Term 4 please do not hesitate to contact the school.