Principal's Message
Welcome to Term Two
Welcome to a highly unusual and unprecedented start to the term. While things are very different, we are managing to navigate the uncertainty as best we can, and I believe all members of this community have risen to the challenge in an extraordinary way. Our students have been flexible, resilient and incredibly supportive of the processes we have put in place, and our teachers have modelled what it means to be true learners – looking for ways to ensure our students continue to be engaged and connected to their learning and to the College. They too have shown an incredible amount of resiliency. The College support staff have been tremendous in their quiet support, in the background and on the fringes, but we know that much of our work would be far more difficult (if not impossible) without them. I would also like to acknowledge the support we have received from our parent community – you have been patient and understanding of our efforts, and this makes an enormous difference to our work. We should all be very proud of the way that we have pulled together as a community.
I can’t help thinking about how we will emerge from this crisis, about what we will learn about ourselves, our communities, and our nation because of our collective and individual experience through this crisis. I remain hopeful that what we are learning will be transformative, a resurrection if you will, from selfishness to generosity, from individualism to a focus on the common good, from the ongoing pursuit of having more, to a recognition of the riches we have in our lives through our families and friends. That there is hovering at the boundaries, the promise of something, that many of us recognise as the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Home Learning Expectations
Thanks again to all the families who are supporting the learning from home arrangements. I would like to remind students and parents/legal guardians of a few key expectations:
- Please follow the Remote Learning Guidelines. These were shared with all students again on Tuesday via email, and can be found in the COVID-19 folder on PAM.
- Acknowledging that each family’s living circumstances will be unique, we expect all students to be participating in home learning from a central shared space in the family home, and not from their bedrooms. We understand that this can be difficult, but we need to ensure that we follow our Professional Boundaries Policy, as one element of our Child Protection Program.
- We are aware that learning from home may be difficult in some family circumstances, for example, when there are young siblings at home. We strongly encourage students to access their regular lessons and complete required work as they are able to at home.
- We also strongly encourage students to take their regular breaks, to get up and move around. This not only assists with physical wellbeing but also assists with maintaining strong mental health. Building in screen free time regularly throughout the day is also very important.
- It is important that links to Google Meets shared by a teacher with their class are not then shared by St Columba’s College students with other students who do not attend St Columba’s College. We have had a couple of instances of this occurring this week.
We continue to be learners in this space, and we will do our best to respond in a timely manner to issues as they emerge.