Virtual Schooling was a very unique part of education at Parramatta Marist High. The year 10 cohort had all our subjects, from maths to english to science, some refined lessons such as the pastoral care lessons and a virtual wellbeing program which also commenced during virtual schooling. For the first 4 weeks of term 2, as well as the end of term 1, year 10 as a cohort portrayed consistent effort into their classwork and assignments, and were able to keep up with the effort that the teachers were putting to educate the students at home.
Many new concepts were introduced to year 10 during virtual schooling. Problem Based Learning was one of these ideas, where us as students would work in groups to present an answer to complex real-world problems, which promotes student learning of concepts and principles as opposed to normal google slides presentation, full of information. This style of learning will be much more common once we become senior students at the school.
Another new concept was the Virtual Wellbeing program. The aim of the pastoral care program was for the cohort to utilize our time by doing something productive to enhance the wellbeing of each and every one of us. The three streams of the Virtual Wellbeing program were:
Virtual Health and Fitness;
Give it a term! (Learn a new skill);
Positive Projects (Creative Arts).
Throughout this wellbeing course I chose the Give it a term! stream, where I would be able to learn how to cook, a skill that I was always interested in. Throughout the wellbeing course I made two different foods, one was a Lebanese salad, Tabouli, and I used a barbecue to cook kafta sticks, chicken sticks, lahm sticks and chicken wings. It was delicious and I was glad to be a part of this well-done program.
Overall, Virtual Schooling was a one of a kind experience full of zoom meetings, and the year 10 cohort was able to familiarise themselves with new concepts from the Virtual Wellbeing program, Problem Based Learning and more. Virtual Schooling at Parramatta Marist High was a success, and every student and teacher was able to put in the required effort to enhance their learning and teaching, through a computer screen.
Jonathan Roukos Yr 10
Learning from home was both a challenging and enjoyable experience. Being able to stay at home and learn felt like a dream come true to us, we enjoyed every moment. In the first couple of days that is. As the hours we spent at home turned into days then into weeks, we felt bored and a bit lonely. Learning at home was quite easy for me, all you had to do was hop on zoom whenever you had class. For some it might have been a challenge, due to the immense ruckus their families may be having in the background. Learning at home had it pros and cons. Some of the pros include we were allowed to go to the bathroom whenever we wanted. Some con was that we had to write a lot of emails when we had questions. If we didn't ask them during the zoom, then we had to write emails to our teachers and we all know how tedious that is. There were a few surprises during the whole quarantine. For example we got to see old classmates and pets of our peers or teachers. Now towards the end of the quarantine, we all wanted to get back to school, we wanted to actually socialise face to face. I personally prefer to be back at school then home. In a way it feels more natural and it brings out the best of us academically.
Richard Imbun Year 11
Overall learning from home was a unique experience and certainly one that no student would forget, we had so many jokes and funny moments, plenty of misbehaving and lots of confusion that turned what should've been a smooth experience into one of the most bumpy online rides ever. Learning at home started off well but overtime we began to miss coming to school and being able to laugh at and with each other along with other teachers, there were no hellos or yelling to people walking by our classroom because well, there were no classrooms. Recess and lunch would just be gaming or ordering food and don't get us started on what we actually did during the lessons because I wouldn't be able to tell you. Quarantine really did prove quite a challenge for some of us as it was hard to constantly wait for responses because the internet would cut out, cameras that “didn’t work” and multiple cases of “who said that” “who was that speaking sorry?” from teachers and it got very tedious. It was fun though talking about weird topics halfway through our lessons and ending zoom calls with more than half the lesson remaining to do our work. The custom background feature was the highlight of the whole quarantine zoom calls, there were images on nearly everyone's background, sometimes even people putting an image of themself and leaving the room .
Learning from home was an experience that nobody will forget but in my opinion I feel it made us appreciate coming to physical school a lot more than we did before, although the benefits of shortened periods and not having to ask for permission to go to the bathroom were incredibly enjoyable, physically being taught feels much better than being taught online.
Brodie Bechara Year 11
The year 2019 ended with the curiosity of a new virus that was brought into our world. No one knew what it was, where it had come from and how deadly it could be. 2020 came along at a speed like no other but then slowly stopped as the economy and world started to shut down. Many people lost their jobs having no idea on how they are to support their families. The Australian government has spent $130 billion dollars in keeping people from starving and homeless, with another $66 billion dollars in keeping for pension and free health care. Many people such as mums, dads, children and grandchildren have lost someone special in their lives due to this pandemic and we keep those families in mind. Australia has got it really easy compared to the rest of the world with 98 deaths and on the other hand America with 83,000 deaths. This year has been challenging for many people and especially the children as they are suffering from disturbed education, struggling parents and diverse perceptions from the influence of the media.
But now we are back at school. Many people think that a second wave is going to come but we have been doing really well and need to keep it that way. Online schooling was an experience like no other and it had its moments. The positives consisted of sleeping in (which was nice), eating whatever you want without a schedule (with the consequence of putting a few kilograms), playing games without being interrupted, more free time to get more time to do other things, and for teachers...the dream come true of being able to mute students with a touch of a button.
Virtual schooling though had its ups and downs. It got a bit infuriating at times due to the constant viewing of the same four walls and there were also some internet tissues due to the majority of Australians' population being on the internet. Furthermore, for sanitary purposes, many of us boys have missed the jokes that are chucked around in class and just, in general, each other...from the conversations that we have on the playground to the conversations that are conducted with our teachers.
Probably the hardest part in quarantine would be the getting back into routine and dreading the sharp cold air, and the shiver that you receive early in the tiring mornings at school. It wasn’t too hard to get into a routine as we were quite used to it, but the hard parts were getting back to waking up on your alarm instead of snoozing it 5000 times and carrying those dreadful bags which weigh a tonne. Finally, for parents, students and teachers the rush in the mornings were the most challenging as everything that we need to do was on a time limit and then arriving and waiting in the very long line just to get in and out of the school.
Well, what can we say….Back to reality.
We are now at school, and the sun is shining and the skies are blue because not every second word is COVID-19 anymore. The media are still on the lookout for another dramatic story to scare everyone, but we are happy to be back in a routine and carry on with our days. Us boys working to be men at Parramatta Marist are happy to be in the classroom with all of our mates and work hard for exams, projects and a lot of homework. Even the teachers are happy to see us back at school (If they really mean that...we don’t know) but face to face contact and learning is much better than a screen, but everyone has their own opinions. At the end of the day, as long as we have got through this tough time and we are still one strong community at PMH with Marcelin’s help as well as the students, teachers, parents, faith and our motto, Fortio Ito.
Jonathan Nemeh Year 9
Have you ever wondered what life would be like if we were able to do everything at home? That's what the boys at Parramatta Marist experienced. From the 26th of March to 25th of May, we were introduced to Zoom and Virtual lessons. What would happen on a school day is that we were to follow our usual timetables in our diaries. All the subjects would be stand-alone. I loved my experience of working from home, so here are the reasons why I think that virtual learning was so good:
Sleeping in - Since our online schooling starts at 8:30, most students and a minority of teachers were able to sleep in longer. Who doesn’t like sleeping in? I can remember one time when I exactly woke up at 8:30am.
Longer Due Dates - All of our due dates were on Friday week B 10:00pm. This gave the students the flexibility to prioritise their day. For example, they can do their chores first, help their parents or fulfil their enjoyment by playing games (NBA 2K20) or sports.
Music - The opportunity to listen to music 24/7 was just AMAZING! Students could listen to music before, during and after zoom lessons. I could remember one time when a teacher unmuted everyone, one of my classmates was listening to The Box, Roddy Ricch. After that, no one dared to listen to music during zoom lessons!
Throwing a Houdini at the teachers - If a student was talented enough to do this, they definitely should get some credit but also accept the consequences. If someone was brave enough to physically leave the zoom meeting and put a photo of themselves, they were able to have free periods everyday and do work at the last minute. However we Men of Marist don’t encourage this type of behaviour as the Marist Pillars are Presence and Family Spirit.
Eating Snacks - As long as students were able to hide what we were eating it would be fine as long as the teachers didn’t see you eating. This was the best during IST class as there was a lesson where we had to watch trailers as a class. I was eating sweet and salty popcorn while this was happening!
Carlson Perez Year 9
During the first five weeks of school in Virtual Learning, it was not so easy for most students. We had hardly got the opportunity to experience high school to the fullest and develop a new routine, we were all new to virtual schooling, leaving many students confused, frustrated and annoyed, having been unable to understand the work properly. It was quite difficult for teachers also to teach over online classes, and for students, this meant it was very easy to get distracted at home and it became hard to learn, especially with technological issues. However, through many classes online we started getting the hang of it and eventually came to the realisation that it was not that hard after all. In Mathematics, with the assistance of our teachers, we were able to successfully cover full units of learning on the surface area, perimeter, volume and area during virtual schooling.
Transition to Normal school:
During the next five weeks of physical school (what a relief!), the circumstances finally allowed us to get back to school. It was a much different experience of virtual schooling, but it was certainly a much better atmosphere, being able to communicate and interact with our classmates and teachers while learning face to face. We arrived back from virtual schooling and we continued working on the surface area, volume, area and perimeter, which we successfully finished the unit. It was a pleasurable experience to come back to school and be able to work normally with our peers, learn from each other and be able to ask for help when required.
Ovian Kantharuban and Daniel Pinto Year 7
