Our hearts go out to the families, friends and colleagues of the four police officers killed in the line of duty on the Eastern Freeway a couple of days ago. We have a number of school parents who work for Victoria Police and we are thinking of you all during this devastating time. Our flags were lowered to half mast yesterday to show that you have our deepest respect.
Oh Almighty God, whose great power and eternal wisdom
embraces the universe.
Watch over all police and law enforcement officers.
Father in Heaven please give them the strength,
courage and perseverance to endure
The unjust condemnation, danger, and physical abuse
to which they are at times subjected.
We recommend them to your loving care because their duty is dangerous.
Dear God, grant these brave people your almighty protection,
Unite them safely with their families after duty has ended.
ANZAC DAY
Noah B's (4RM) dad (Shaun) is the leader of the 9th Caulfield Cub pack of which Noah, Barnaby and Henry are members - the Cubs plan to still 'attend' an Anzac Day dawn service by standing in their home driveways ('Driveway at Dawn') with some sort of light source like a torch or a phone as a sign of respect.
https://soldieron.org.au/commemorate/2020-virtual-anzac-day-services/
Let's all show our respect to those Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations" and "the contribution and suffering of all those who have served".
Home Learning Progress
As explained over the last few weeks, we have been supporting families to transition into the next stage of Home Learning - the daily planners. Our teachers have worked hard to prepare videos and resource packs to support the detailed daily plans uploaded onto the Home Learning pages of our Learning Community Site. Monday's plan will go up first, to give you time to digest the information. The Tuesday to Friday plans will be uploaded on Monday. Thereafter, we will upload the whole week every Friday for those parents who like to get prepared for the week in advance.
The times and breaks on the daily planner are a suggestion for families. It is up to each family how they manage the day and will vary according to your unique circumstances.
Liz Hills has prepared a 4 minute video to help explain some parts of the daily planner. I recommend that you watch the video to help familiarise yourself with the learning intentions, success criteria, enabling and extending prompts. Please email your teachers or Liz Hills with any further questions.
We understand that this is a challenging time for all of you, especially as you juggle young children, your own jobs and Home Learning. We will continue to do our best to support you and value your feedback.
We are truly blessed with a dedicated staff who, like yourselves, have had to drastically change the way that they work. The positive way they have taken on board the changes they have had to make is a credit to them. We all miss the face to face contact with our children and parents and look forward to when we will all be back at school together.
In the meantime, we will continue to revisit and review our practices to ensure we provide the best possible Home Learning programme for your children. Thank you again for your valued contribution.
Feedback
Some of our staff who are unable to come into school and are working from home are ringing all of you to check in with our families.
One message that came through clearly is that the children are missing the social connections with each other. We encourage you to Facetime or set up group chats and virtual playdates with other families to help alleviate the isolation.
Here are some messages from our parents:
Thank you so much for everything you all are doing to accommodate on site and off site learning. I know it helps us so much by being able to send our son to school since I work in essential services. Our son enjoys coming to school and learning in a very different environment but still wanting to come and learn.
We thank you all for doing an amazing job everyday.
In between teaching myself, I just wanted to pass on my thanks for the AWESOME job everyone is doing at St Patrick's to keep my son connected and engaged. It is a juggle, but I really appreciate the efforts of his teacher who is just so cool, calm and collected.
I really value the enormous amount of time and careful thought put into the daily teaching plan. The Zoom session are also a great way to start the day. The teacher is an expert on the 'mute' button!! Thank you so much also for the lovely phone call to see how things are going. I felt very valued and loved!
Message for the SRC
I have published a 2 minute video to share with the SRC students. If your child is part of the SRC, please share this video with them as we start to prepare to meet together each week via Zoom. There is a short activity for the children to do for me by Wednesday.
Welcome to this term's Visual Art Specialist Teacher Andria Arendze
We farewelled Miss Karin at the end of the year. Karin kindly stayed on and continued with teaching Visual Arts for Term 1. This term we welcome Andria Arendze to our staff. Andria has prepared an introduction video which will be uploaded onto the specialist teacher page on the Community Learning Site along with the planning for each week in Term 2. We look forward to the children sharing their art with us during the term.
DID YOU MISS LAST WEEK'S CYBER SAFETY WEBINAR?
We are pleased to let everyone know that the recording of last week's cyber safety webinar for parents is now available to watch until May 3rd.
This is what parents said about the session:
"Fantastic session. So valuable! Thank you so much"
"Terrific presentation. Thanks"
"Awesome content, really informative and great ideas. Thanks heaps :)"
"Congratulations! Only 30 minutes in and you have me hooked. I have done several eSafety Commission courses and although brilliant, this is a more comfortable presentation for parents. Important information!"
To watch the replay, as well as access to all of the slides, links and resources, visit:
Password: parents2020
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