[avatar user=”Mark” size=”thumbnail” align=”right” /]
Dear Parents,
A few days into Home Learning and things are going reasonably well. We have had our glitches along the way (apologies for the email glitch on Wednesday that saw old unsent emails released when we resolved an ongoing issue). Our students are largely getting their work done and have generally been applying themselves in a commendable manner. Some observations:
- Schools – Opened or Closed? – At the moment Australia is performing very well in terms of ‘flattening the curve’. It has prompted chatter about what will happen in the near future in terms of schools starting to open up. Different States are doing different things on this front. This generally leads to confusion. The difficulty for Federal and State Governments at this time is that if they relax restrictions too quickly, the good work everyone has done to limit the virus’ spread could quickly be undone. We are constantly monitoring information coming from our Federal and State Governments and will continue to do so. If the situation changes, we will let you know.
- Primary – We’d like to congratulate the very large percentage (over 93%) of our Primary students who have submitted their work from the end of Term One. That work is currently being marked and feedback is going back to families over the course of the week. Our teachers are reaching out to families this week to try to ensure everyone knows what is expected and when it is expected. Our Learning Packs seem to be working fairly well and students seem to have enough work to be going on with.
- Secondary – Secondary students are increasingly using Google Classroom and other online tools to complete their work. Students in Years 7 to 9 have adapted to the new Maths Online program very well and results are flooding in indicating students are doing quite well with the Maths problems being set (on average). Students are still getting used to the Google Classroom structure – particularly in terms of submitting work. I know from the steady stream of emails I am receiving that work is being submitted and comments are being made in our various Google Classrooms. We are still trying to bring some of the classrooms online, but we are getting closer to having them all up and running. This has been an enormous challenge and has taken a lot of work on the part of our teachers. We thank them for their hard work and commitment to making this work.
- Submission of Work – A steady stream of parents are dropping off work to the drop box near Reception or are finding ways to get work to our teachers (particularly for Primary aged students). Our Secondary students are increasingly submitting their work correctly using the Google Classroom structures. Please keep it coming in and we will continue to endeavour to provide feedback.
- ANZAC Day Ceremony – Usually the College plays a large role in the Tynong ANZAC Day ceremony held each year. Sadly, we are not participating this year. To mark the event this year, those of us at the school gathered at 12:00 today to take a few moments to commemorate ANZAC Day. Our School Captains – Charlotte Stevenage and Edward de Castella were on hand to read ‘At The Going Down of the Sun’ and one of our Primary Captains – Charlotte Phillips – read ‘The Ode’. Our Captains then laid the College wreath at the foot of the main school flagpole. We then proceeded to the Tynong Cenotaph and placed the wreath there. I have attached photos at the end of this document.
- VCE Assessments – Over the course of the coming weeks we are going to need to bring our VCE students in to complete assessments. In general, our intention is for Year 11 standard VCE Units (ie subjects) to have assessments on Thursdays and for VCE Year 12 Units to have assessments on Wednesdays. (The Further Maths SAC held yesterday was an exception to this ‘rule’.) We are not completing all of our assessments at school, just key assessment tasks that cannot be run at home due to authentication concerns. The attached Calendar (see separate document) shows the assessment timetable for tasks to be completed at school (ONLY) for Year 12s and then Year 11s (lower down the document) for the coming Term. Keep in mind Year 11s doing Year 12 subjects will be expected to come on the Wednesday. Please also keep in mind the fact that this Calendar may be subject to change. SAC-Calendar-for Parents-T2-2020
- Students coming to School – some students have been coming to school this week. Generally this is because parents need the children to come because they are working, or have some other important reason. In some cases, we are targeting some students and asking them to come in as well. If you need your child/ren to come to school, we remind all parents to contact Reception and let us know whether your children will be coming to school at least before 2:00pm the school day before. It is assumed the child/ren will stay until 3:00pm unless you indicate otherwise. If you want them to leave earlier, please include that in your communication.
Thanks – as always – for your continued support. God bless and keep safe.
Mark Stanton
Deputy Principal