As we find ourselves in a lock down period and learning through our Learn@Home program once more, I am hoping that it is a little easier this time around, as we are all familiar with using MS Teams, accessing the School Portal, and the See Saw Program.

Reports so far have been favourable, with teachers and parents feeling the girls are engaged and feeling confident when using MS Teams. This was very evident during the Essential Care Program when I was looking at the lessons the girls were doing. I saw wonderful lessons, highly animated teachers, plenty of smiles and thumbs up, as well as girls engaging, collaborating with partners and working on set tasks. It is what I see every day at school and it is good to know that it continues when we are Learning@Home.

We encourage everyone to consider the strategies they employed or routines they developed that assisted them through this period last time, and implement these strategies earlier.

The Year 3 girls recently completed an activity on strategies they used in the last Learn@Home period. One of the strategy plans is set out below.

I was reminded the other day by one of our parents how appropriate it is that gratitude is one of the values we are learning this year. It is very easy to see things that are negative, especially when you look for them. However, with a growth mindset we can believe that we can do this again, hopefully better than last time. In the meantime, it is important for all of us to be positive and look for things for which we can be grateful.

We are grateful that all of our students, families and staff in Barbreck continue to have good health, that we live in Australia where we have one of the best health care systems in the world, that we have knowledge on how to prevent its transmission, that we have an abundance of fresh produce, a wide variety of foods, clean air, beautiful landscapes and weather – these sunny Winter days are just glorious! Students have access to great teachers and wonderful resources and they can learn online using MS Teams so that progress can continue. And much, much more! There are many, many others that are less fortunate than we are.

We are here to help

The home-school partnership is highly valued and if there are ways in which we can better support parents helping students at home, please let us know. We know that teaching is a highly complex process with many considerations factored into the equation for any given learning episode. If you feel that greater support or guidance would be valuable, please contact us and we will endeavour to assist you in any way possible.

Essential Care

The Essential Care Program is currently operating in the Senior School Library (lower level). The Junior School Specialist teachers are supervising this Program, with the Deputy Head and Head of Junior School in attendance in offices located within the library. Please note that on days when they are supervising, live teaching segments may prove impractical and recorded segments may be used. We continue to aim to provide quality lessons to engage and promote student learning.

Parent-Teacher Interviews Postponed

Due to this lock down period, we have postponed the Parent-Teacher interviews until the end of term. Parents have recently received information through the End of Semester reports and we feel information at the end of term will provide additional information for parents and girls.

In the meantime, if at any stage you need to discuss your daughter’s report or progress, please feel welcome to contact your daughter’s teachers via email, and who would be happy to make an appointment time for you.