Principal's Message

Dear Parents & Carers,

As we prepare to celebrate ANZAC day tomorrow we are very conscious that due to physical isolation the annual services normally held across many towns and cities around Australia will not take place. However we can all still participate in some small way, not the least by visiting the following website which will live stream the  Dawn Service at the Australian War Memorial and provides information about the ‘Driveway at Dawn Movement' that you can become involved in.

2020 VIRTUAL ANZAC DAY SERVICES

Week Two and Remote learning has become a reality for us all - staff, parents and students alike. Although at times, challenged by our remote learning program, the staff have been incredibly impressed with the manner in which parents and students  are genuinely working to engage with this ‘new normal’. Patience, tolerance and respect continue to be the values we are trying to encourage as we work to come to terms with this new way of working.  

The  staff are contacting parents to touch base and see how you are going. The purpose of these phone calls is purely pastoral - we hope to maintain and continue to build the important relationship we have with you, assist you in feeling connected to the school and offer any support we are able to manage. These are so important in our ongoing partnership, especially during this time of remote access to each other. A short 5-10 minute conversation is all that is needed and please be aware that if staff are working from home they will have their numbers set to private. This means that you may receive a ‘no caller ID’ call. 

As we move into Week 3, our teachers are continuing to adjust their remote learning programs to attempt to meet the varied needs being expressed and demonstrated through messages and posts via Seesaw and phone conversations. This is an incredibly challenging task, and they are to be commended for their desire to continue to explore the possible learning options for your children. Along with our learning support officers, they are also increasing the face to face contact with students through Facetime and Google Meets. Earlier this week I briefly joined in one of the senior school meets and it was a delight to see the enthusiasm and pleasure so obvious on the children's faces and in their voices as they saw their friends for the first time in many weeks.

We fully recognise that learning from home is at times a daunting and challenging task for families as you attempt to juggle, your own work loads alongside that of your children. We remind you again that you are in control of how you develop a family routine in order to achieve the best outcomes for your family. There will be days that things run smoothly and there will be just as many days that it all can be too big a challenge, days when all work is completed and posted and days where nothing seems to go right. On days when things are going somewhat pear shaped - be happy to say we gave it a go, but we are going to leave the remote learning now and go and do something else - plan and cook dinner, spend time in the garden while the weather is still reasonable, go for a bike ride.

We also recognise that for some of you there is a very real concern about your child’s progress and the worry that your child will go ‘backwards in their learning’ or that they will be 'below standard'. I share an article written by Professor John Hattie, a renowned and highly regarded education expert on his research findings regarding children’s learning following the Christchurch earthquake in 2011,  Keep in mind that these students did not have access to any remote learning at all following the earthquake.  Read John Hattie's article here. Very briefly he discovered that students’ results and growth did not suffer and their ‘performance actually went up'! 

Further, I recently listened to a parent on radio talkback expressing her thoughts about the then potential learning at home model. She expressed the hope that during this time her children would learn to be kind, creative and curious. This time away from school provides an opportunity for our students to further develop skills that potentially will set them up for life. Being prepared to have a go, persevering with a task, decision making, problem solving, being more responsible and tolerant beings, becoming more independent are all skills that are only truly learnt through experience. Such skills are life giving and this time has the potential to allow our children to develop life skills that are best learnt through real life experiences.

Take care,

Gabe