Dear Parents/Carers,
What a super busy week this has been. David and I have spent the week in comprehensive conversation, handing over the important details about Parkhill. It has been a massive week sharing details of our school and community. David has been on-site meeting the staff and children who have been in and was part of our School Council meeting last night.
Thank you to those of you who have already contacted David to say hi and introduce yourselves - I feel confident more of you will do so next week.
The addition of live teaching to our platforms has been well received and I would like to thank those of you who have given positive feedback to the staff around this addition.
It was wonderful to hear that many of you engaged in our Three-Way Conferences on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you missed this and would like the chance to speak with your child’s class teacher please do contact them directly via email to arrange a time.
The restrictions continue to be the same going into next week. If you are a family who requires on-site supervision please contact David directly to discuss your needs. This needs to be updated weekly to accommodate changes in restrictions and guidelines.
On-site provision is limited and families must fit into one of the following categories:
Children where both parents and/or carers are considered authorised workers who cannot work from home, work for an essential provider and where no other supervision arrangements can be made;
Where there are two parents/carers, both must be essential workers, working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision;
For single parents/carers, the essential worker must be working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision;
Children experiencing vulnerability, including:
in out-of-home care
deemed vulnerable by a government agency, funded family or family violence service, and assessed as requiring education and care outside the family home
identified by a school or early childhood service as vulnerable, (including via referral from a government agency, or funded family or family violence service, homeless or youth justice service or mental health or other health service)
where a parent/carer indicates that a student with a disability is vulnerable because they cannot learn from home, and/or informs the school the student is vulnerable due to family stress, the school must provide on-site supervision for that student. This may apply to students enrolled in specialist schools and students with a disability enrolled in mainstream schools.
I guess we are starting to feel the pressure of home learning again and that juggle of your own work and the children’s learning never gets easier. There are a few tips, tricks, and tools you can try implementing to keep your kids motivated.
Here are three ways to get your children excited and motivated.
1. Motivate with goal setting. Goals are a critical component of learning. They motivate by letting children know exactly what it is they need to do for learning to happen.
2. Motivate with rewards and praise. We already know that praise and reward are better motivators than punishment.
3. Motivate with meaningful feedback. Timely and thoughtful feedback is a massive motivator! When your child has achieved their goal or made a step forward, take note! Give feedback about how well they have organised themselves and how proud you are of how they achieved it. You can comment on the strategy they have used or the progress they are making.
As parents you are uniquely placed to motivate your children at home. Carefully read the communication coming home from the class teacher and check your child’s learning tasks so that you are well placed to answer questions if they need help, or redirect them back to their class teacher for support. Set up a learning space in the home for your child, with pens, pencils and learning materials ready and accessible.
It is my plan to pop back into school to say goodbye to the children once the restrictions allow and I hope to see some of you on the playground then. In the meantime I hope you are all able to stay safe as we navigate our way through this lockdown.
Reminders:
If you receive a close contact SMS or a positive CoVID result please ensure you let the school know as soon as possible.
We continue to work with Helen at Huntingtower to secure dates later in the year to ensure that the children can complete their swimming program this year - information will follow. We are very happy that, although broken, we are able to offer the swimming program in 2021.
