With being placed into Blended Learning at home once again, students and teachers have made the transition to online learning really smoothly.
With a few small tweaks to attendance procedures now in place, there is a real focus on quality learning activities and connection with the College through PC groups and Year Meetings. We have encouraged students involved in Zoom sessions with their teachers to have their camera flicked on, to try to replicate the classroom in small doses throughout the day and normalise the process somewhat through being able to respond and interact with one another in a virtual format. You have no doubt seen your children having these quasi classroom experiences. I have been regularly meeting with my Year 9 Maths class in this way and to be able to ask the group what questions they would like to run through from the assigned work and then go through it step by step on a virtual whiteboard has been as close to the real thing as you can get!
I have heard of the Year 12 Japanese class split up across zoom break-out rooms, simulating an HSC Japanese exam by taking turns asking each other questions in Japanese or receiving feedback from their teacher on their responses to past paper questions.
I have heard excellent reports about the Year 10 Music class, who are prepared and ready for their class Zooms, but are also effectively working via Google docs, where they can communicate with their teacher using the comment functionality.
I am aware of PC groups communicating and sharing in Kahoot trivia events hosted by their PC teacher, which is great for maintaining a positive connection with their College community.
It has been great to hear that students have taken the challenge set by our Director of Sport to find creative ways to get active and share them!
It certainly isn’t how we would like to be experiencing life at the moment, is it? We recognise how hard it can be to live, work and learn inside the family household, but we are committed to making the best of it and I want to thank College families and students for doing the same. We are also blessed to be able to rely on our faith through these testing times. A verse from Isaiah really resonated strongly with me this week and maybe it will with you also: "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.