From the Principal
Dear Parents & Carers
We have all learnt a great deal in the eight weeks since face to face teaching last took place at Queen of Peace on March 23. I am grateful to the staff, children and parents for your extraordinary commitment to maintaining continuity of learning for our students.
Our next challenge is to transition back to face to face teaching and I am confident that the cooperation, flexibility and hard work amongst staff, students and families that helped us adapt so quickly and effectively to remote learning, will make this next phase successful. Life at school will be different to the pre COVID-19 era.
Our day to day operations will be changed to ensure we keep staff and students safe. Professional advice is that students are very safe at school. Adults are at greater risk of transmission, infection and negative health outcomes than young people. The two most important factors in ensuring the safety of everyone at school is physical distancing between adults and effective hygiene practices. We will be emphasising physical distancing between adults and effective hygiene practices amongst all students and staff.
More details regarding our return to school will be sent out next week as you would appreciate there is a lot to work through. Please contact me if you have any concerns or further questions. Schools are complex and dynamic places and no doubt there will be unforeseen challenges which we will need to adjust to, using common sense as we go along.
Curriculum News - Reporting
As our school moved to remote learning as a result of COVID-19, our usual ways of working and engaging with students looked different in Term 2. Included in this change is how we will report on student learning for Semester 1. Our usual practice is to distribute a written report in Week 10 of Term 2 followed by a 3 Way Learning Conversation in the following week.
This year, the timeline will be different. Semester 1 reports will be delayed until Week 4 of Term 3 followed by 3 Way Learning Conversations in Week 5. This timeline allows for the children to adjust to learning at school and gives teachers an opportunity to engage in explicit face to face teaching and assessment of learning.
During the learning at school period at the end of Term 2, teachers will focus on the childens’ wellbeing as well as continue to give explicit teaching in Faith Life Inquiry (FLI-which includes science this term), English and Mathematics.
During the first 4 weeks of Term 3 the teachers will continue to provide explicit learning in FLI, English and Maths. This will give teachers an opportunity to consolidate the childrens’ understanding of some concepts taught during Term 2 as well as focus on areas of the curriculum that may have plateaued during this time. The teachers will also use this time to assess the childrens’ learning for reporting and to inform future learning.
Please understand that the content of the report will be reduced, as the usual assessments undertaken in the everyday classroom throughout the term will not have been possible. While the Semester 1 report together with the 3 Way Learning Conversation will be indicative of your childrens’ progress, the end of year report (December) will provide a more comprehensive view of the year’s learning across all usual curriculum areas.
• Joanne Pearce, Learning and Teaching Leader
The following important notice was shared with families via CareMonkey yesterday:
Dear Parents and Carers
Thank you for all your support during these past few weeks of remote and flexible learning.
Following advice from the Chief Health Officer, the Victorian Government and the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd (CECV) have advised that schools can begin a phased return to onsite schooling.
In the first stage, students in Prep, Grade 1 and Grade 2, senior secondary students (Years 11 and 12 VCAL and VCE) and all students in specialist schools will return to school from Tuesday 26 May. To support all school staff to prepare for this transition, Monday 25 May will be a student-free day.
In the second stage of our return to onsite schooling, all other year levels will return to school from Tuesday 9 June. For those students who cannot be supervised at home, the existing model of onsite schooling will remain in place during the two-week period from Tuesday 26 May to Tuesday 9 June.
The current process that we are using to enable parents and carers to indicate the days or part-days for which onsite schooling (this survey) is required will continue for this two-week period. All other students in those year levels will continue learning from home until Tuesday 9 June.
Once a year level has returned, all students will be expected to attend school as normal. This means if you choose to keep your child/children home after their year level has returned to onsite schooling, we can no longer support their learning from home. This same approach is being taken by all Catholic and government schools in Victoria.
To support the health and wellbeing of all students and staff, our school will continue an enhanced cleaning routine and will encourage frequent handwashing.
If your child is ill or is feeling unwell, they must not attend school. They must remain home and seek medical advice. While the Chief Health Officer has advised that students will not be required to maintain physical distancing at school, there will be a number of important changes to our school operations, consistent with health advice to all schools that will be made available in coming days. These will apply until further notice.
I will provide more details about our local school context as soon as possible, but it is important to note that changes will include:
• adjusted arrangements for drop-off and pick-up, including staggered finish times
• restrictions on access to the school site for anyone other than immediate school staff and students
• the way we conduct parent–teacher meetings and interviews
We understand that some families may feel anxious about this move back to classroom teaching and learning. I can assure you that this decision has been taken on the basis of the best health advice available to our state.
More information about the return to school and coronavirus (COVID-19) can be found on the CECV website, which will continue to be updated: www.cecv.catholic.edu.au/Coronavirus-information-for-parents.
Thank you for your continued support and patience during this time. We look forward to welcoming students back to the classroom.
Warm regards
Darren Gibbons
Principal
