Term 1 Week 9 News Update

Dear Parents, Carers and Friends of MEPS,

Thank you to all parents who have been able to keep their children at home. It is making some positive differences to the social distancing measures we're able to take here at school.

As advised by the NSW Department of Education, from Monday 30 March, we will be implementing stronger social distancing measures for the staff of MEPS. There will be minimal staff at school, with teachers and support staff commencing flexible work arrangements for the rest of the term.

Therefore, from Monday 30 March, unless your child is unable to be appropriately supervised at home, parents and carers are strongly encouraged to keep their children at home.

The model of a single unit of work - the same for home and at school - will still apply. That means that the work will be the same regardless of whether it is delivered at home or at school.

Following is the model that we will be following here at MEPS for the rest of the term.

Each day there will be on average 2 teachers on-site and a member of the executive to ensure we can enforce the NSW Government's guidelines with regards to social distancing. The staff at school each day will be on a roster system and will conduct playground and classroom supervision.

All other staff will be working remotely to support our students who are learning at home - they will be working with students through online discussions, providing feedback online, and will also be talking to students over the phone if extra help is needed.

• In addition to online support through Google Classroom, every student will be provided with scheduled one-on-one contact with their classroom teacher over the phone, both in terms of learning and to check on their wellbeing.
• Our teachers who provide additional Learning and Support (eg Mrs Munro, Mrs Sutton and Mrs Rudge) will also be in contact on a rostered basis and provide regular one-on-one lessons/support with targeted students.
  
• Our amazing Student Learning Support Officers (SLSOs) will also check in each day with students who receive additional funding support, to coach them through learning tasks and provide extra support, especially in areas highlighted in their Student Learning Support Plan.
  
• Mr Hense will be looking at ways we can help students borrow books from the Library safely - he and I have already talked about how this might work, so stay tuned.
• While working remotely, in addition to contacting students and parents, teachers and staff will also be preparing teaching resources for future lessons and undertaking more professional development in distance learning and technology use.
• We are working on creating short videos to explain tasks to students so that they are able to work more independently of parents and carers while learning at home. The teachers are learning how to do this now; we'll have some out soon.
• Our Technology Team is working hard to ensure every student has access to a laptop - we have started to loan some devices to students from today. I will roll some more out on Monday.

Making Learning at Home easier - Other Information:

• Students are encouraged to wear their uniform each day between 8.30-3pm when learning at home - it gets them into the right mindset.
• Similarly - so they don't eat you out of house and home in the coming weeks, encourage them to prepare a lunchbox with food just as they would during an onsite school day - extra treats tied to some sort of process where they need to earn it, whether it's completed work or cleaning their room, or washing up after lunch.
• Have a timetable displayed clearly at home which children need to follow - keeps them in routine. If you aren't confident making one, we are happy to provide you with one - message your child's classroom teacher.
• Make sure you give your children (and yourself!) regular brain breaks and have some fun as a family - enjoy the time together, kids grow up really fast.
• Don't be too hard on yourself if you and your child become frustrated or unable to get through all of the work. As this has been a new thing for us too, there has been some overplanning. Talk with your child's class teacher and they will help adjust the program.

Just a few more things :)

• A number of our classes already have a Seesaw class set up, where students can submit work. I am looking at expanding this across the whole school to make it much easier for students to submit their work and get feedback on it. Google Classroom is a great way to distribute work to students - Seesaw is a much more efficient way to assess/collect finished work from students eg students can film themselves reading aloud, or show an artwork they've created, or photograph their writing work sample. We will send home more information soon.
• When sharing photos or videos of children's great work, please make sure your child (and any siblings in the background) is dressed appropriately eg wearing shirt and shorts. I know that children are at home and feeling comfortable, but it places our staff in a vulnerable and awkward position with regards to Child Protection if children are only wearing their undies or swimmers etc in photos/videos sent to the teacher (this is another great reason to dress your child in school uniform each day between 8.30-3pm). Thank you for your understanding with this.

If you have any questions or concerns, please send an email to your child’s teacher first, or to our school email address mayfielde-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au , and either myself or one of the Executive team (Mrs Horgan, Mrs Bailey, Ms Peterie or Miss Katen) will get in contact with you ASAP.

If you or your child needs to come to school for any reason and you or them are feeling sick, or displaying cold or flu symptoms - please do not come to the school. To keep everyone safe, you will be asked to leave. A better way is to contact us - by phone, email, through Seesaw or Google Classroom - and we will help you get the resources or what you need another way.

Thank you so much for your support in keeping our students, staff and community safe, I will continue to post on Facebook as well as here in our Smore communication platform - to ensure everyone is kept up-to-date.

Stay safe and take care,

Robyn Christie
Proud Principal of MEPS