Dear Parents and Carers, it is great to see our remote learning taking effect this week. It has certainly been a challenge. At the start of the year, our staff certainly didn’t expect to have to implement this system in such a short period of time. I can only imagine the stress that this is placing on you all.

We are hearing some helpful constructive feedback from parents, we hear you, and are responding to keep improving things. Please keep talking to us about how you are going as a parent. We are all in uncharted territory.

Despite the unexpected challenge, both teachers and students seem to be adapting well to this new mode of teaching. It is evident around the College that the delivery of teaching material online is being embraced by our students and teachers, and we hope to share these stories more and more through social media and blogs on our website. Hopefully, this will encourage all of us to keep practicing resilience.

One of these great stories is evidence of our students improving their digital technology skills. Kindergarten has amazed us with their video skills, some of which you can see below, in response to Mrs Mackenzie’s morning message about finding things that begin with the letter “T”. Imagine how competent they will be when they enter the workforce!

Images from KM (clockwise): Kindergarten letter recognition work; Mrs Mackenzie sharing her morning message, “Today is Terrific Tuesday. What can you find that begins with...”; Al writing Camera words with his sibling. Peter sharing the tie he found. Charlie making a turtle shell. Thomas sharing many things that start with ‘t’;

Our teachers are continuing to work very hard in uploading and delivering lesson content for each student whether working remotely or here at the College campus. We encourage all families to empower their children to be responsible for their learning and communication with their class teacher.

The College expects that children will be responsible for their learning while at home, not their parents. Learning material is uploaded daily to Seesaw and Canvas so that our students have all they need for their school day. The assistance they need from you is support, motivation and encouragement to problem-solve for themselves. Often deep and rich learning happens in difficult tasks. If they are unsure of any content then we encourage them to be responsible for their learning and ask their teacher themselves rather than disturbing you. If they don’t get a response quickly, they can move onto another task and come back later. This is a great lesson in patience and time management.

If you are unsure how to use Canvas or Seesaw, we encourage you to ask your children for a tutorial as they have been practicing using these platforms for the last 2 weeks. They will be able to show you where they find their work for the day and how they have the role marked to show they are present.

If your child is having difficulty logging into Canvas or Seesaw or has trouble with any links that the teacher has provided, we encourage them to email their teacher directly for assistance - remembering that there will be a delay in the response, as the teacher may be helping other students or preparing the lessons for the next day. This helps them to engage with their learning and continue with their normal student-teacher relationship.

Over the next week, for the wellbeing of our whole community, I am hoping to transition more of the teaching team to working remotely. I am aware of the long term impact that the pandemic may have on our community and want to ensure that we all, students, parents/carers and staff have the reserves to stay the course. As a result, we will prioritise onsite supervision for essential service workers. If you can have your child at home while teachers work remotely, please keep them at home.

Word for today

"When my busy thoughts were out of control, the soothing comfort of your presence calmed me down and overwhelmed me with delight" Psalm 94:19

Kind Regards