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Throughout the past week, I have been in regular communication with principals from around our diocese, and it is clear that many parents and carers are feeling incredibly anxious and overwhelmed in regard to their children’s learning in the foreseeable future.
While teachers acknowledge that parents are the first and primary educators of their children, schools have a very important role in fostering the academic, social, emotional and spiritual needs of the children. Face-to-face teaching, which is the optimal way of doing this work, requires a level of personal interaction that cannot be replicated through technology. Online teaching can never replace classroom group learning because students learn from their peers as well as their teachers. The classroom offers students opportunities to assist one another to solve problems, and this is what helps to build children’s skills in collaboration and independence.
Over the next few weeks and possibly months, we will utilise video conferencing and online chats to facilitate peer-to-peer and peer-to-teacher interactions. I think that we will find it, at times, to be chaotic and distracting when large numbers are using it at the same time. It may, in fact, be necessary for parents to be present for the video conferences and chats to ensure that they run smoothly. Hence, this mode of delivery has the potential to place an even greater burden on parents. We are unfamiliar with this mode of teaching, so we will find out! In spite of this, our teachers remain committed to their students’ learning, and they are spending many hours developing and uploading content to Class Notebook or Class dojo (Kinder). This content is being trialled with most classes this week and will be regularly used by all classes at the beginning of Term 2.
The content that the teachers are currently developing for Term 2 will be delivered in three formats:
- Real-time, which will incorporate online chat and video conferencing.
- Private message between student and teacher. Students have the option of sending an email to their teacher, who will then contact the student either by video conference or chat between 9.00am and 3.00pm, Monday to Friday. Outside of those hours, the teachers will be preparing lessons and attending to administrative tasks. As teachers are strongly advised not to meet privately with an individual student at school, the same principle will apply to private online support . . . We will require the presence of a parent and/or carer throughout any one-to-one interaction between student and teacher.
- Independent tasks which will be uploaded to your child’s Class Notebook and/or Class Dojo. For some students, parental support will be required. Others may require only limited support.
Our learning support teacher, Simone Maloney, is also available to support the students in a variety of ways, e.g. individual daily schedules; individualised social stories; liaise with allied health professionals identify specific needs in collaboration with classroom teachers; etc. See the information below as to how Mrs Maloney is available to support families.
For some students, especially the younger ones, this will require a level of parent support. For parents with work commitments beyond the family, this may pose some problems, as they will be juggling the demands of their paid work, their children’s education, and their family responsibilities. Undoubtedly, these demands will place enormous pressure on some families. The advice that most schools are taking is not to add to these burdens. A recent letter writer to The Sydney Morning Herald expressed it well: “Parents battling their work demands in calls and emails trying to supervise two or three different grades of schoolwork, the reluctant student, the non-motivated student and sometimes a toddler, is a recipe for chaos.”
We are in unchartered territory, and I am unable to locate any research into the optimum amount of time that students should spend each day on their home learning programs. We are recommending 1.5-2.5hrs for students in the older grades but understand there will be some students who will want to put in more time than this. For younger students, the time spent per day will need to be negotiated with their parents, who are in a better position than teachers to make that call.
We often underestimate the importance of everyday tasks that children can undertake at home that are valuable learning experiences. This site offers many practical learning opportunities which children can undertake without any intervention from adults, and which also teach them practical skills. Many parents will feel overwhelmed in the next few months about the need to support their children’s learning, but these practical ideas should be considered just as important as the formal education that schools deliver.
If there are any further ideas that you – or any parents – have in regard to how we may support you and your children, please do not hesitate to email your children’s teachers. It might be worth taking a look at the eSafety Commisioner's advice for parents and carers regarding online learning.
Thank you for your patience as we navigate the many unknowns in this world of remote learning. Please contact me if you require clarification on any of these issues or if you have any further questions.
Looking to the future...2021 enrolments
It is important that we continue to prepare for the transition to school process for students coming into Kindergarten for 2021. We have a number of families with siblings that we know will enrol for 2021 but have not received their enrolment forms. If you have a child ready for school in 2021, please complete the enrolment form and email, post or drop it into school as soon as possible. We are concerned that if the school has to close at any point that the CSO won't allow us to have 2 classes for 2021 if we don't have the student enrolment forms. Thank you for getting onto this as quickly as possible. A link to the enrolment form can be found here.
Next week...
Across the state, schools are moving to an extended holiday period to allow teachers time to prepare for the full online learning program to be offered from the start of Term 2. At Holy Name, the following arrangements will be in place for Week 11:
- Teachers and students will be on Pupil Free days next week
- Some teachers will provide work for Week 11 because it was already prepared. Teachers will not necessarily provide feedback on this work until they return to work in Term 2.
- Parents/Carers who work during the school day or who are on night shift and need a break through the day can send their children to school. This includes any parents who are working from home and cannot manage their children while they do this.
- Students will be cared for like they would if it were a Pupil Free day and they were attending OOSH. There will be no formal school lessons provided unless students are keen to get some of their online work completed.
- We ask parents to let us know via the admin email if they will be sending their child to school on any day next week so that we can organise supervision (admin@forster.catholic.edu.au).
- Students are to wear casual clothes.
- We will continue to provide technological support to families and to answer any questions regarding access to the online learning provided.
- Devices for loan will remain available next week via a request through your child's teacher.
I wish you all a happy and blessed Easter. Be kind to yourselves and enjoy the company of your beautiful children.
Brooke Stephens
A message from our P&F President - David Isbel
The Holy Name Parents and Friends Association would like to acknowledge the work of Mrs Stephens and all staff at Holy Name in the past few weeks.
Families have taken different approaches to the corona virus, and the teachers have accommodated all families by preparing both in-class and at-home work for students. This has greatly increased their workload meaning that, indirectly and quietly, teachers have done some of society’s ‘heavy-lifting’ in response to the crisis. We want them to know we appreciate this extra work for the benefit of our children.
The calm and measured tone adopted by the school throughout the crisis has contributed to a sense of confidence in the children, who are less panicked. At a time which could have seriously worried our children, Holy Name School has really helped them maintain a sense of calm and confidence.
The school’s recent announcement of fee help and bursaries are very welcome with many families facing a significant economic impact from the virus. Through this leadership from the school, the whole community stands ready to help these families.
It seems this crisis is likely to run for some time yet, but we pause to thank Mrs Stephens and all the staff – we do see the amount of work you have done for our children and value it highly. We will continue to work with you in the best interests of our children. Hopefully see you next term!
David
Thank you for your patience and adventurous spirit as we navigate the online space and develop programs for home learning. This week, we have found solutions to some of the problems regularly experienced by staff and families. We would like to share these with you in the hope it makes access to home learning a little easier.
Problem 1
Due to the number of people accessing the internet, Class Notebook Online has had a few troubles such as work not saving or taking a long time to load.
Solution 1
- Make sure you download Office365 on your device. All students enrolled in our school have access to Office365 for free using their student email address (firstname.lastname@mnstu.catholic.edu.au). The instructions to do this are attached to this news feed item.
- The next time you open Class Notebook, along the top bar, you will see an option to 'Open in App'. Students should work in the App each time they are completing work.
Problem 2
Families with more than one child are having problems switching between each child's account. The homepage returns to the student who originally logged on.
Solution 2
- You are able to switch easily between multiple accounts in Google Chrome. To set this up, follow the instructions attached to this News feed item.
Problem 3
Unable to enter text into the Class notebook
Solution 3
You must make sure you have selected your child's name in the tabs and not the 'content' library.
Home learning and the emotional imapct on COVID19 will be a challenge for many families. Our Learning Support team is eager to offer support in any way that will support your child’s wellbeing and learning at home.
Some ways we can support your child are as follows:
- Support parents by providing an individualised visual schedule for use at home:
- A daily schedule can help reduce anxiety in children, as it can provide a necessary structure for some children.
- Schedules can motivate children to develop independence.
- Visual schedules can support children who require extra processing time and to allow them to refocus on the task at hand.
- We can provide individualised social stories to explain change in routine, coronavirus, and why students are not at school.
- We will liaise with relevant allied health professionals to determine appropriate /relevant /high priority learning tasks, e.g. speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists.
- We can collaborate with your child’s class teacher to identify specific areas of learning that your child may be having difficulty in. I can offer resources, suggestions, and chats of support via, email, online chat or MS Teams’ Zoom function.
- We can offer to host virtual check-in and out with students and parents.
- We can suggest use of appropriate iPad applications and link them to personalised learning goals.
- We can offer suggestions and resources on incorporating exercise and movement breaks that support heavy work for gross motor, crossing midline activities, fine motor and executive functioning.
- We can offer support and resources to foster positive student and family wellbeing, including resources to support children experiencing anxiety.
If you have any questions or require support please email me at simone.maloney@mn.catholic.edu.au
Warm regards
Simone Maloney
Learning Support Teacher/Primary Coordinator
Prayer Resources for Individuals and Families
During this time of social isolation it is important that we pray and stay connected to our community. A range of online resources is available to support personal and family prayer at https://www.mn.catholic.org.au/church-mission/catholic-life/liturgy/covid-19-supplementary-prayer-resources/. Additionally, LiturgyHelp is offering free access to its range of prayer resources at https://liturgyhelp.com/aus/mn/pray.
St Clare's Aspire Creative Arts Workshops
Earlier this term our students particpated in a Creative Arts 2 day workshop at St Clare's with the team from Aspire. Students from Holy Name were fabulous in the perfomance at the end of the 2 days - quite amazing given the time frame. Thank you St Clare's and well done Holy Name students!
St Clare's Creative Arts Workshops - whole performance