24 Mar 2020
AFTERNOON MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL:
Dear Parents and Carers,
I said this morning that I had complete confidence in my staff’s ability not only to manage this situation but to shine in their delivery of this new educational model for our school. Well, like always they have not let me or the school community down. The following is an update of what we have achieved today:
Supervision
Staff have worked on a rotational basis to provide supervision to those students who are attending school at this time. As I mentioned yesterday, all children regardless of whether they are at school or at home are receiving the same work. Here at school we are providing no additional lessons other than the work that has been posted online for those students who are away from school. This model of educational delivery is supported by the state government and provides equity for all students during this time. So as we have said before, we are providing supervision for students whose parents are required to work daily in essential services. We ask that if this is not the case for your family that you follow the encouragement coming from our Premier this week to keep your children safe at home and to access the online learning that we are providing.
Contact
Staff have worked on a rotational basis to make contact with every family in the school. This required them to collate all of the online survey responses from yesterday as well as make phone calls to parents that we had not heard from to this point. Our question to parent’s is whether they have access to technology at home and how we can support them if they don’t. We will try to complete this part of our job tomorrow so that by Thursday we can put things in place for all families to begin their online learning next week. If you know of anyone who might need help with this can you mention to them to give the school a call so we can assist them.
Learning Programs
Staff have worked on a rotational basis to develop stage based learning programs for next week. Unlike this week’s work that was not developed by the staff at BRPS, next week’s work is based on the teaching and learning strategies that we deliver daily at our school and that the children will be familiar with. In addition to this, my staff have been developing resources that will complement the program as well as recording instructional videos that you will be able to access and that will help you guide your child’s learning.
SeeSaw
We will be using SeeSaw as the online platform where our students can post their work, receive timely feedback, ask for direction and maintain a connection with the teachers at BRPS. Over the next two days we will ensure that families are connected to SeeSaw to begin the online learning next week.
Two more things…
If your child is attending school tomorrow we are asking parents to drop them at the gate in the morning. This will ensure that we have the least amount of people on site which will support the social distancing procedures that we are all so familiar with. Please remember, school teachers are still at work and as such do not have the luxury of self-isolating throughout the day to protect our own health and safety. In the afternoon we ask that parents enter the school grounds no earlier that 2.50pm
Lastly, a massive shout out to our office staff who have been inundated with phone calls, requests, concerns and questions, the phones have not stopped ringing. These fabulous ladies have taken everything that is happening in their stride and do it with the upmost respect, care and consideration for our families and the greater community. If you get a chance to talk to one of them over the coming days please tell them what an amazing job they are doing.
That’s it from me today. Stay safe and continue to support each other. I will talk to you tomorrow.
Glen
