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Dear Parents/Carers,
I’m not sure it is appropriate to say “Welcome back to term 3 at St Pauls” with everything that has happened in the past month. I’m sure many of you have been somewhat overwhelmed with online learning kicking in again, in addition trying to satisfy your own work commitments from home as well as run a family household. Personally, I felt “locked up” during the holiday vacation and things just seemed to get worse as the lockdown restrictions tightened. That aside, I also experienced my son’s work life as he worked from home too. Might I say, I learnt how complex our world has become since COVID19 reared it’s horrible influence on us all. As can be seen from the start to this first newsletter for term 3, it is very easy to get into a negative mindset which doesn’t help things and I need to turn this around for the sake of the staff, children and my own wellbeing.
Try and encourage optimism with your children during this time. That was the key purpose behind Mr Reardon’s online assemblies (which will be back as soon as I can). Helping your children to look on the bright side is a significant skill to develop with them during this challenging time. When children think they can succeed they are more likely to give things a try. Some children are natural optimists. They are born with optimistic temperaments and have natural dispositions to deal with challenges and problems. Others expect the worst and tend to see catastrophes where really small challenges exist.
To promote optimism during the time at home you might need to remind yourself to focus on a few fundamental strategies:
- Model positive thinking and optimism to your children. Let your kids hear your positive self talk rather than just keeping it to yourself, which is what we normally do.
- Challenging negative or unrealistic appraisals. For instance: “Everyone hates me, I have no friends”can be challenged with “Sometimes it feels like we have no friends but you spent last weekend playing with __________.”
- Teach your child to positively track. Children should look for the good things they do and say them to themselves out loud. They can look for the good things in life, no matter how small and say them to themselves out loud.
- Teach your child to positively reframe their words. When something unpleasant happens or failure occurs they can look on the bright side. Eg. “I pranged my bike but atleast I wasn’t hurt.”
The weeks of remote learning is the perfect time to practice some of these strategies with your child. One of my own children needed such support during their primary years. The other one was so independent and didn’t want any fuss. You will need to judge the situation and your child’s temperament well to determine whether they actually need support in this way.
I hope the coming weeks of remote learning aren’t too overwhelming for everyone. Know we are here for you if things get too hard, we have tech support on site every day and can help you easily over the phone.
Go gently,
Michael Reardon
Principal
Online Learning
- Preparation for Online Learning
At St Paul’s, our philosophy in ensuring successful online learning is to have clear guidelines and protocols to ensure that classes and grades present the work and content in a consistent manner. It is important to remember that just as a classroom is full of students at different places in their learning and skill set, so too the teachers at St Paul’s are no different. Ensuring that the teachers are supported in the daunting task of taking their hands-on skills into an online environment is paramount. This could be likened to asking your dentist to send through instructions via video of how to give a family member a filling. Therefore this week has been a week of allowing both students and teachers time to re-acquaint themselves with Google Classroom and engage with new content for Word Study and Letters and Sounds whilst practising known content for English, Mathematics, Religion and one other Key Learning Area.
The work that is being delivered online is not meant to take up the entire day. Why? Because sitting in front of a screen is not healthy and the school is very mindful that on the other end of the device is a young person being supported by a family member who is probably working or caring for other children. Online learning will strategically progress and the content will start to include new learning. Do not feel anxious if your child does not complete all the set daily tasks. If you want your child to engage in more tasks, please feel free to supplement this.
- Earphones for online learning
Any students attending the site for online learning are required to have a working pair of headphones to assist them in engaging in their learning.
- Zoom Daily classroom catch up
As of Wednesday, 21 July 2021, students will have the opportunity to connect into a daily Zoom Classroom Catch Up with their classroom teacher at the following times each day.
|
Time (Daily) |
Class |
|
9:30am - 10:30am |
Kinder, Year 5 |
|
11:40am - 12:40pm |
Year 1 & 6 |
|
12:00pm - 1:00pm |
Year 2, 3, 4 |
The purpose of this daily Zoom ‘Daily Class Catch Up’ is to:
- Provide all students the opportunity to be able to connect with their classroom teacher in real time
- Allow students to ask clarifying questions in relation to learning
- Allow the class teacher to go through relevant learning for the day or past learning
The Zoom will remain open for 1 hour. After a short period of time of commencement of the Zoom, the teacher will turn off their camera so the students can work. If the student requires assistance they simply unmute their microphone and say ‘Excuse me Mrs /Mr…. Can you help me with) or press the hands up emoji and the teacher will appear on the screen to support the student. At the conclusion of 1 hour, the teacher will appear on the screen to gather any students on the Zoom to say goodbye.
The Zoom Daily Class Catch Up’s are optional for students to join, so parents are not to feel anxious if their child is unable to attend their class zoom on occasions. Grades have been allocated at particular times for the Zoom to support families that may have children in various grades or who may be sharing devices.
The link to join the Zoom will be located in your child’s Google Classroom, classwork tab under the topic: Daily Class Catch Up.
The school has strict protocols around using Zoom which are attached below.
Zoom Protocols
Working Apart Together,
Sheereen Brunetta
Assistant Principal
Congratulations to the following students who have recently received a Principal's Award.
Samuel Zammit, Mason Mura, Jessica Mikhail, Audrey Zammit, Bodhi Bowden, Julian Bussone
St Paul’s School Vision and Mission
Vision and Mission Statements give clarity and direction for a school. The Vision Statement provides the community with a brief but clear overview of the overall ethos of the school.
The Mission Statement explains how the school will achieve its vision. Writing an effective Vision and Mission Statement requires self-reflection as a community, and a lot of consultation with different stakeholders. Staff, students and parents have been involved in the process of revising the St Paul’s School Vision and Mission Statements. Such statements are more likely to be realised when there is a common understanding amongst the different stakeholders in the community.
In order to assist the students to have a clearer understanding of our vision, we have worked with the students to define what they believe is meant by our school motto. The following was the final result.
Last year our Student Leaders worked with each class to develop a deeper understanding of the School Motto amongst all of the students. This will happen again this year.
Maria Debrincat
Religious Education & Pastoral Care Coordinator