Teaching and Learning

Please see below the email that was sent to our school community yesterday:

As a school we are keen to keep continuity of learning and provide a service to our community.  We have been advised by our Governing Board - Kildare Education Ministries, the Catholic Education Office, the Victorian Government and the Chief Medical Officer of Victoria, that as far as possible, school should remain open for business as normal.

However, we are acutely aware that some families are making decisions to keep students home based on the fact that they may be exhibiting cold/flu like symptoms or you have personal, specific concerns about your child's safety. We understand that totally, and as parents and guardians you have every right to exercise your own decision making relevant to your personal circumstances. And of course if your child has flu like symptoms we ask that they stay home anyway!

With the above in mind, we have made the decision to move to a Dual Learning Platform - starting this Friday March 20. This will allow us to:

Cater for students who are at home currently, given illness or other reasons.

Be prepared for a Home Learning Program should we be advised in the future that schools are to be closed.

What does this mean?

From this Friday, teachers will be placing learning tasks and activities on Simon. Students will access this information in each of their subjects Learning Area pages. Specifically this work will be found in the “Class Notices” section of their class home page. Should work not be there, we encourage you or your child to email the teacher directly. 

So what will this look like for your child?

Whilst classes are continuing to run as normal at St Joseph’s College, for those students that are absent, or in the case that in the future the school is closed, students will be able to access their class work through the Class Notices section on SIMON. (see example below)

There, students will find the link to a Running Record Sheet (see example below) where the Classwork from tomorrow onwards will appear.  Teachers will specify what learning activities are to be undertaken, if there is a class task to be completed and what type of feedback they will receive. 

Teachers may also have established a Google Classroom for their class and provide students with a link to this resource.

As a parent you can ask your child to open the Running Record on their laptop so you can see the classwork being undertaken and monitor that your child is completing this. 

Please contact your child’s teacher or LM if you do not have access to the internet at home. We are looking at ways that we can overcome this.

We will continue to provide a calm, measured and normal environment at school, whilst planning how to continue our teaching and learning program remotely if required.