NEWSLETTER - tanja-p.schools.nsw.gov.au_6_April_2020.pdf · Monday 5th April . Learning from home continues . Thursday 9th April . Students last day of term 1 – Enjoy the break

Tanja Public School

N E W S L E T T E R Phone: 02 6494 0122 Fax: 02 6494 0245 Email: [email protected]

Week 11, Term 1 April 6th 2020

Tanja PS Last Week Last week Tanja Staff continued to work each day while practising social distancing and maintaining hygiene through hand washing and disinfecting surfaces. Sam was in prepping the vegie garden for its permaculture transformation. The garden beds were removed for our planned no-dig beds (to be installed next term). The garden bed edging removed was then used by Sam to neaten up the school grounds.

What’s happening?

Monday 5th April Learning from home

continues

Thursday 9th April Students last day of term 1 –

Enjoy the break and stay safe!

Monday 27th April Staff Development Day

----------- Collect student tote trays

from classrooms

Tuesday 28th April Student home learning for

term 2 begins

Principal’s Calendar All face-to-face Professional Learning and meetings have

been cancelled for term 1 and 2.

2

Term 2 Home Learning Learning from home will continue next term, if it is to last for the whole 90 days then that will take us almost to the end of the term. Considering all feedback, we will have tote trays ready for pick-up on the 27th April with a two-week timetable and learning grid with additional learning activities. The trays will contain workbooks, library books, technology devices and loan agreements, and hands on learning resources (particularly for K-2).

After careful consideration of learning needs and wanting to find and use technology that is age appropriate we have decided to use Seesaw as an online platform to post video lessons or communications. A place where students can seek advice or upload their own learning. The app version has been put onto the iPads (it can also be accessed on a computer), those students using their own please download the app, we will have a welcome video uploaded by the end of the week (emailed details out Thursday).

Unfortunately, Seesaw does not allow a live video chat with students so we have been exploring our options and test driving a couple. Department of Education guidelines did not initially approve Zoom for students as people outside of the department were able to access meetings, last week they were able to work with Zoom to ensure privacy of meetings. Microsoft Teams is apparently best suited to year 5 and above so we decided it wasn’t an option for us as we wanted an app that we could use K-6. We got very excited about Google Hangout Meets after testing it out and then read it is currently blocked for students as it has similar privacy issues that Zoom had. Zoom or Google Hangout (if DoE solve the privacy issue with Google), we will confirm.

We have kept the reliance on online learning minimal but it does mean families will need to come to school every second Monday to collect the next tote tray of learning materials and timetable. The benefit of this is that we can keep adapting the resources to meet everyone’s needs. We pay for three

online programs (Mathletics, Reading Eggs which includes Reading Eggspress and Mathseeds, and Inquisitive) that we encourage students to use as they are curriculum linked and when used correctly can help teachers assess where students needs are in areas of Mathematics, English, Science and Geography (particularly years 3-6).

Term 2 attendance, as with the end of this term, students are marked as F – for flexible timetable. Next term we will need to have students check in daily using the Seesaw app as evidence of school attendance. I do hope this is a little clearer about what term 2 learning might look like, we will all be learning together to make learning happen and to make it fun. There will still be a lot of flexibility as we are all doing what we can under different and similar circumstances.

Enjoy a safe and happy break from school!