Dear Parents,

As a school we are very aware that our students have had varying degrees of success or engagement with the recent remote learning. We acknowledge that everyone has done their best with learning at home, though some of you may be worried about whether your child has fallen ‘behind’ or will not be at their stage appropriate standard. Rather than think about average, above or behind I would like to encourage you to think in terms of positive and negative impacts.

For some students, remote learning will have had limited impact, negative or positive, on their academic achievement. Others may have found it harder (or easier) to learn in a ‘non-school’ environment. As a school, we are strongly committed to increasing the ‘positive impacts’ for our students. We have a highly professional team of teachers who are skilled at identifying individual learning needs and implementing interventions, where needed, to help each student be their best. Our first steps over these past two weeks of return to full time face-to-face teaching have been to ensure that the children’s return to school, and learning, is a supportive and positive experience.

We are very interested in hearing the parent voice regarding your children’s home learning experiences. For this reason, we invited you to complete ‘Insights’ via the Compass App.  As a community, we value the responses from parents, as we will use them when looking at how our school can continue to grow and develop.  To this point in time, we have had only a small number of people complete the reflection.  Please take the time over the weekend to do so as we are very interested in hearing your thoughts and receiving your insights.  For more information and instructions on how to complete the Insights please access Compass or read the attached documents. Remember, when you are entering your insights you need to open the browser.

Your children’s readjustment to returning to school and ‘normal’ times can be further supported by the re-establishment of routines at home.  We hope you find the following suggestions useful

Re-establishing routines

As our children are returning to their normal school routines, their emotions and fatigue levels may escalate.  The school environment is a busy place with lots of stimulus around. This may be quite different to what you and your children were experiencing over the COVID-19 lockdown time. 

Some focus areas which may help to 'keep the calm' in re-establishing day to day routines include:

• Recognising the importance of sleep
• Keeping communication open
• Establishing some family downtime / fun times

Recognising the importance of Sleep

The amount of sleep we need varies from person to person.  Typically however, meeting our sleep needs impacts significantly on our ability to positively function to our potential in the school and work environment. 

For a student to reach their learning potential on a day to day basis in the social and academic environments, they require their sleep patterns to be of an adequate timeframe, regular and as routine as possible.  

Listed below is the average amount of sleep a child requires.  Obviously this changes from person to person but generally:

• 1-3 year olds require between 12 to 14 hours per day. 
• 3-6 year olds require between 10 and 12 hours per day.
• 7 to 12 year olds require between 10 and 11 hours per day.
• 12 to 18 year olds require between 8 and 9 hours per day.  During adolescent growth spurts, sometimes more.

Having a bedtime routine will help your child’s body learn the triggers which mean sleep time is approaching.  

Try establishing or re-establishing a set routine in the activities leading up to their bedtime where bedtime routines may not be clear.

Keeping the sleep environment calm, quiet and a place to relax, is imperative for our bodies to settle into a sleep mode. The light, air flow and activities available all impact on our ability to relax. 

Keeping Communication Open

We have been through a lot of change and there are some confusing messages out there.  Some of which your children may have heard or processed in different ways. They may be feeling worried, confused or excited about why they weren’t been able to attend school and / or why they are now allowed to return to their normal learning methods, but with changes to some school practices. They are certainly very excited about seeing their friends once more. 

By having regular conversations with our children, we give them opportunities to feel comfortable in talking about their feelings.  Whether they love to play, draw, chat or write, as parents, we can use these opportunities to connect with our children and help them process their emotions. 

During this time, meltdowns may be more prevalent for no apparent reason. Fatigue, over excitement, frustrations and feeling overwhelmed are some of the emotions connected to a person's meltdown. Keeping calm and giving children their own space during their times of emotional outbursts can help them return to a comfortable state sooner.  When they are more comfortable and the emotional outburst is over, they may be more interested in communicating with others about their feelings. Don’t try to deal with the meltdown at the height of it as you will only end up feeling like you are going to meltdown!

Re-establishing usual family downtime / fun times

Over recent months, families have spent significant time together.  It's one of the biggest benefits to come out of our COVID-19 experience. When speaking to both children and parents it is one of the most highly commented upon, and one of the most popular, changes to their lives.  Your children may crave this when their everyday routines return.  Re-establishing how to continue to fit family times into your busy schedules will be important.  Whether it be board games or park play, PlayStation or cooking in the kitchen, bike rides or craft activities, keep doing everyday activities together, remembering how good doing these types of things together makes you all feel.

External Providers

Many of our children are fortunate enough to engage with external providers here at the school to learn music, singing and Mandarin. A number of children also receive support from external occupational therapists and speech and language therapists.  At the moment, all these providers are still unable to come into the school to provide these services. We are hoping on our return to school in Term 3 this will change and the children will be able to resume their sessions with these providers.  The only external providers that are able to enter our schools at the moment are those who deliver part of the formal curriculum. This, however, does not apply to any of our providers.

Home-School Communication

We have been reflecting on our home-school communication throughout this term, particularly as we experienced a different type of communication happening with the use of OneNote Collaboration Spaces throughout the home learning period this term. It has been suggested that the fortnightly newsletter is a little obsolete in the current format as the ‘news’ can now be shared much more efficiently via Compass on an as needs basis. To help us review our communication practices please take some time to think about what you would find beneficial and what you would access and read, and we will share an online survey next week to seek your thoughts. 

Some things to consider: 

Do we continue to have fortnightly newsletters as is or do we change to perhaps two newsletters per term with photos of the children and information from each class about what they have been doing?

Do we send announcements or requests etc once a week via Compass or as the need arises?

Do you prefer to read letters attached as PDF’s in Compass or would you rather read the letter straight from the News Feed on Compass, even if it is a lengthy letter?

Would you like to see the Parents’ OneNote Collaboration Page be used to connect the parents and teachers?

Do you have any other thoughts on what you would like to read about in our home school communication, the frequency or format of it etc.?

2021 Enrolments

All families who have returned their 2021 enrolment forms should now have received a letter explaining what is happening regarding our enrolment practices for next year’s Kindergarten.  If you have not, please contact the office. 

If you know of any families who have a school ready child for next year, please encourage them to contact our school for an enrolment pack. We plan on offering our 2021 places to families by the end of this term. We also have new school brochures available for anyone who would like one, or if you know of some families who may be interested or even if you would like some to leave in a central place. Please contact the office to arrange collection.

Continue to stay safe and enjoy your family time,

Karen