From the Principal
Welcome
Dear members of the St Raphael's school community,
The world is certainly a different place.
I want to assure you that we are all in this together. No one is immune to the potential repercussions of the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
As adults, we have a choice to make as to how we handle the uncertainty of this situation and how we model this behaviour to our children.
With so much uncertainty at the moment, we feel that it is important that we take the advice of the medical experts and listen to government advice as to how we should proceed. I understand that many parents are anxious about the future and the safety and wellbeing of your children, family and friends. This is completely understandable. All of us are feeling this right now.
However, children do have a right to an education in this country and, at this stage, we have been informed that school is the best place for them to be. The expert advice is that children should be at school in a regular routine and learning in an environment that is safe and provides normality to their everyday lives.
Many of our staff, either directly or indirectly, may also be impacted by the spread of this disease and they too are concerned about what the future holds - the health implications for their own children, partners and parents, the potential for partners being made redundant, potential business closures, loss of income and the economic uncertainty that faces us as all as we move forward into an uncertain future.
Over the last two weeks, I have witnessed the absolute professionalism, calm and dedication of our teachers as they have dealt with this rapidly-changing and uncertain situation. Every staff member has been supportive of any new initiatives that we have had to quickly implement to ensure the safety, health and wellbeing of the children. Your children's health and safety is, and always will be, the school's priority. I remind you that I have a duty of care to provide a safe workplace for all staff, as well as the children.
As a Catholic school, we need to call on the school’s Gospel values of Hope, Honesty and Trust. These Gospel values are deeply embedded in our DNA. More than ever before, our world needs to trust and have faith in the authorities in charge of advising our communities - the medical experts and politicians - that they are making the best possible decisions in the interests of public safety. Now is not the time to doubt and ignore this advice. We need to have faith in the experts and faith in humanity.
As a community of faith, we pray for a resolution to this pandemic and we pray for each other, those who have contracted the virus, the workers who are bravely looking after the sick, those who will be hit economically from the effects of this global outbreak and those who are frantically trying for find a solution to end this pandemic.
The school is here to support everyone. For those who may experience financial difficulty out of this unpredictable situation we want you to know that there may be fee relief available. Now is not the time to worry about this. We will deal with these logistics at an appropriate time. Right now, our focus is to ensure we can offer the children a 'normal' education.
Our school is open and we have had quite a few requests from parents who have chosen to keep their children at home for teachers to send school work home. As you would appreciate, this is an impossible task for teachers at the moment as they deal with the current changing landscape and preparing for the potential of school closures. I have instructed them to send a generic email to parents who are sending this request.
Dear ______________,
As detailed in the school circular sent home on 17/03/2020, the school is still open and providing learning and teaching for your children.
If you choose to keep your child away from school due to your personal concerns then we can not provide additional work for your child to complete at home.
However, we do suggest that your child can continue doing their normal homework tasks and check Google Classroom (Year 3-6) for spelling words, reading tasks and mathematics tasks as well as viewing your children's timetables and learning intentions as detailed in the year level section of the fortnightly newsletter.
We are taking things day by day and continue to be advised by Catholic Education Melbourne.
We are aware that some people in our school communities will have heightened levels of concern and anxiety regarding the many impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. These thoughts and feelings are normal and understandable.
The following resources and articles are also available for you to consider:
https://schooltv.me/wellbeing_news/special-report-coronavirus
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-04/how-to-talk-to-children-about-coronavirus/12020324
We want your children to learn and right now, the school is open for them to do this on a daily basis. All reports are suggesting that this pandemic may go on for some time yet, with the worse to come in the winter months. I seriously urge you to listen to the expert advice, support the teachers and your children by sending them to school to learn.
We would like to thank parents for supporting the measures we have out in place. Pick up at 3:30 pm is certainly a lot calmer and fewer gatherings of people congregating at the gates. A-K surnames will be picked up from Cooper Street. L - Z surnames from Breen Street. All morning drop-offs remain at Breen Street.
We have also cancelled all incursions and are trying to minimise visitors in and out of the school. We ask that if you need to pick up/ drop off your child during school hours that you ring the front bell and let the children come out to you. We will organise for them to be signed in/ out. This will minimise the number of people entering the school buildings and office areas. We ask you to be discerning about whether you really need to come into the school or not. These are important decisions for all parents to make. The teachers have requested no parent helpers and for parents to refrain from coming into the learning spaces until further notice.
I would like to thank the parents who have already completed the Google Form
https://forms.gle/jVTvSGbEQrKsvxhe8 that was sent home yesterday (18/03/2020) to determine our logistical capabilities in the event that the school may close and how we can provide your children with remote/ distance learning. As you can imagine, this poses a few technical and logistical issues but, with your support, we feel as a school that we are well placed to provide a suitable education for your children should school closures become a reality.
Last night our staff held our first remote ‘Zoom’ video conference meeting with all teachers participating from a remote location. There were some challenges, but we will continue to develop procedures and protocols to upskill our staff to ensure that they are well prepared in the event of school closures.
We are also working on policies and procedures for the children if this scenario eventuates. We will need your support and ask that you assist us as much as possible in the coming days with upskilling your children to self-manage this technology from home.
I would also like to ask for anyone who works in the Telco industry if they could contact me directly at: principal@srprestonwest.catholic.edu.au. We may need some sponsored broadband/ internet access support for any families who currently do not have access to the internet at home or where their children may be learning. This will be critical if children are required to learn from home or another location (ie: grandparents house).
Next week, I will be holding a parent information session via Zoom on Tuesday 24th March at 4pm to outline the school’s plans for the way forward and to answer any questions or concerns you may have about the current situation. If you would like to be a part of this session then I will send an invitation to you via the email address that we have stored in our database on Tuesday 24/03 at 3:45pm. It is simple to join the Zoom meeting. You will be emailed a link and simply enter the Meeting ID contained within the email that I send. See below.
It is free to join but you will need to ensure that your device has internet access, a microphone, speaker and camera. If you need to update your contact details please email Lynette in the office asap at: lgamble@srprestonwest.catholic.edu.au