Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

These are indeed, very interesting times. Thank you to all of you for caring for our children and each other. The only successful way forward is for ALL of us be compassionate and caring and to completely follow the government restrictions. The more people who don’t, the longer the restrictions will be necessary and the greater the risk and rate of spread. Please keep your children at home unless they are with you for shopping or other essential activities. And while we cannot effectively visit family, friends and neighbours, please find ways to stay connected.

To start Term 2

It is really difficult to predict what school will look like for Term 2 but, at the time of sending this email, it seems that Term 2 will have:

• All students will be using the Home Programs as their learning program
• All children will be allowed to return to school as school will re-open from vacation. This will be for all children. These children will still complete the Home Program at school with teachers in what we call Face-to-face. This is subject to change at any moment so please keep up to date with government restrictions. 
• Some families will opt to keep their children at home and these children will be required to complete the Home Programs under the supervision of their parents
• A very small number of children will complete a Home Program on paper. These will be available from the school office upon request. Please contact the school on 5596 8333 and we will print a copy for you. Please provide 24 hours for this to be completed. These programs are different to the Home Program developed by our teachers. They are the generic department programs.

Home Programs are ready

Teachers have worked very hard this week during the student free day period to create our on-line learning programs. We call these our Home Programs. Each week will have a different home program connected to the week before so it is vital that you work with your children through each day of each week. The progression is really important. Eventually I anticipate web-conferencing and videos and links to YouTube and more.

     
** Please note that any watching of YouTube clips is at parent discretion. Pop-ups and advertisements may be influenced by your personal search history.

Access to home programs needs

Students should already have the necessary platforms that they will need in order to access their Home Program. These apps include:

• iTunesU
• Seesaw

   
The home program enrolment codes will be emailed home on Friday 17 April between 12:00pm - 6:00pm. You will need to enrol before Sunday evening for these to be ready on Monday.

Teachers will be on-line each day

Connection between students and teachers is vital. Teachers will be on-line each day for two set windows. Students will be able to access their teacher directly during this time. We will also be creating our own videos or accessing videos already on YouTube. And excitingly, we are waiting for the department to operationalise a web-conferencing platform where we can conduct live lessons.

Our teachers will always do their best and your children may surprise you with their independent thinking skills and capacity to time manage. I have every confidence in our teachers and I know that they will make the home programs as effective as possible.

     
Your feedback will help

This is the first time our school has ever created a home program of this magnitude. Things will go wrong and could have been done better or differently. We will learn as we go along on how to make this program work best. We have been trialing the home program this week in Year 5 and have already asked families for feedback. This information is being used in the next set of home programs we create.

All families will be offered the chance to provide feedback on the simplicity of the home programs. This will happen after Home Program 1. This information will be used in future programs. Please keep in mind that teacher planning is already 4 weeks ahead of where student learning currently is. This means visible changes will take a few weeks to actually see.

      
Our responsibilities to make this work

Our school has just under 100 teachers. When our home programs begin, we will have those 100 and an additional 1000 new teachers. And like all new teachers, it takes a little while to learn the best way to do things. We will all have different responsibilities to maintain so that learning comes first. Please check and print the attached responsibilities lists.

                 
Get off-line as much as possible

While access to our home program is heavily web-based it is important that you turn off iPads and encourage face to face activities as much as possible. You will see that many activities do not require an iPad or computer.

Term 2 sure looks different but it also looks really exciting. It offers students the opportunity to access their learning in a way that has never occurred before. I am looking forward to the experience. But most of all, I am looking forward to our community returning to normal. I already miss this.

Thank you to everyone who has left a lovely message on Facebook today regarding the goodbye message from our staff.  We really wanted to watch families drive past so we could see your faces but this was not to be so we came up with another idea.  

Click here to see the post and video.

And just in case you missed it, here are a few photos.

Last week I wrote about how two of our our Prep classes writing a thank you card and sending chocolates to the nurses at the Gold Coast University Hospital.  Our nurses are always just so amazing at helping others and we wanted to show our appreciation.  It is so satisfying to see our children being taught about selflessness and gratitude.  

Closer together

This week has been very different for everyone but we have made sure to make the most of the opportunities presented to us. We have had a small group of children at BSC & ASC each day and it has given the students an opportunity to build on existing friendships, build new friendships and connect with educators. As educators we have truly enjoyed watching the friendships blossom this week, particularly between older and younger children in small group settings.

The children have been the driving force behind the program each session and we have made the most of our low numbers by letting the children choose what activities we will do each session. The children have worked together each day to decide and we’ve had lots of new play opportunities as a result! We’ve been down to the oval, blown bubbles in the courtyard, experimented with shadows and we even had a dance party. Having a small group of children has allowed us to truly respond to the children’s needs. When the children want to run and play, we run and play. When the children want to relax and chill, we relax and chill. Each day the children have arrived excited to tell us their plans for the session and it’s fantastic to see them taking ownership of their OSHC program!

Seeing the children of the older and younger grades come together to show support to one another has been wonderful to watch. Having a small group each session means that Preps all the way up to grade 6 are playing together. We’ve seen the seniors take on leadership roles this week and take the younger children under the wings.

Easter break is now here and it will look like no other Easter break we have ever had. Nonetheless, I hope that you all enjoy this time with family and appreciate the great things we have.

Stay safe and look after each other.

Kind regards
Vic

And remember