by mindarieps | Apr 20, 2020 | | COVID
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
I do hope that you have had a peaceful week of school holidays with your children.
These are unprecedented times and therefore, we need to continue the approach that we have implemented in Term One over the coming weeks, to support the safety and well being of your children and our staff.
I understand that this is an uncertain and difficult period for you and your family.
Today, the School Administration team met to discuss the statements and advice that the State Government provided on Friday the 17th of April 2020.
As you are aware from previous updates, we have already in place a plan for supported ‘Distance Learning’ and well prepared lessons that can be done at home to support you. At this point in time, this is our preferred approach, however, we fully understand that some families may not be in a position to provide supervision for ‘Distance Learning’ at home. Students who attend school on site during term two will engage with the Learning Packs in an alternative classroom setting. This will most likely not be with their own classroom teacher.
‘Distance Learning’ HELP Package Pickup
- For your information, and to assist you with your preparation the Week 1-2 ‘Distance Learning’ HELP package will be available online through the Mindarie Primary School ‘Learning’ page for parents to access on Friday the 24th of April. Password is MPS2020
- Printed HELP packages will be available for collection from volunteer staff members at Mindarie Primary School on Monday the 27th of April (ANZAC Day Public Holiday) from 10:00am-12:00pm. Socially distant queues will be established at the front of the school. The staff car park will be open and available for access. Please ensure that you practice good social distancing when at school. Only one person per family please.
We are expecting further details from the Department of Education this week and will provide another update to you on Friday the 24th April with greater details of the required actions.
This week we will also release the Mindarie Primary School virtual ANZAC service. This will be posted through all outlets as usual.
Please stay safe.
Kind regards
Barbara Bromley
20 April 2020
by mindarieps | Apr 7, 2020 | | COVID
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
Once again, on behalf of the staff at Mindarie, thank you for your continued support, we acknowledge that these are difficult and highly unusual times, however, by us all working together we will be able to ensure that the whole of Western Australia and our most venerable people stay safe. The part you are playing, by keeping your children home, is highly valuable.
Teachers have been meeting this week to consolidate the planning that we commenced last week. You will have access to this planning, in a hard copy form, from the school tomorrow. You will also be able to access this planning, via our website. The document is called the Distance Learning Parent Guide. This guide outlines how Mindarie Primary is approaching Distance Learning. Please, if you have online access to the guide, familiarize yourself. If you do not have on line access, do not worry, we have provided every family with a printed copy.
The password to access this new school resource is: MPS2020
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The printed copy is part of your Home Learning Resource Bag. Our amazing Education Assistants have been working hard to pull together the resources in this bag. Each family will receive ONE family bag. In the bag you will find the following;
- Distant Learning Parent Guide. This is in the envelope labeled Very Important Read First.
- Seesaw Student Log In Codes. These are student specific and will be in the labelled envelope.
- Laminated blank paper to be used as a white board at home.
- Laminated year level appropriate lined writing paper.
- Laminated graph paper.
- Generic language based materials.
- Year level specific mathematics materials.
- A pack of playing cards.
- Dice and counters for mathematics activities.
- A writing journal suitable to each year level.
- In addition, Kindergarten and Pre-Primary students will have basic stationary and also some manipulative materials.
- Children’s iMaths books, if they were not sent home previously.
- Children’s pencil cases, if they were not sent home previously.
Bag collection will be from 10.00am on Wednesday 8/4 to 2.45 pm and from 9.00am to 2.45pm on Thursday 9/4. The bags can be collected from the rooms shown below.
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To recap the above table:All Other Suburbs: Library Block
Quinns Residents: Block 2 Wet Area
Clarkson Residents: Block 1 Wet Area
Mindarie Residents: Staff Room
To ensure we abide by physical distancing requirements:
- Only have one family member attend the school to collect your family bag.
- Do not arrive prior to 10.00am on Wednesday and prior to 9.00am on Thursday.
- Abide by the social distancing requirements, 1.5 meters apart at all times.
- Abide by directions of staff in relation to how many people can be in the collection area at any given time.
- Only remain on the school grounds for as long as it takes you to collect the bag.
This week teachers have been working on ‘Must Do’ lessons and preparing a ‘Can Do’ activity pack. These are explained in the Distant Learning Parent Guide.
The ‘Must Do’ lessons are year level specific. During their planning, teachers have been ensuring that they are planning for differentiation so that students who require more support can access the learning at their level. They have likewise planned for students who require extension to also be able to do this. The teacher, at this point, have planned for two weeks of Distant Learning and once we commence delivering this, we will be reviewing how the program is progressing. We envisage that we will be modifying the program and delivery over the period that we stay delivering Distant Learning.
We think it is really important that, during these chaotic times, we keep in touch with our important school traditions, as such Miss Szczygiel has been working hard to produce a digital ANZAC Service. This will be available on our website on Thursday afternoon, which is of course when we would have held our service. Mrs MacLean is keen for our Senior Choir students to be part of this digital service, and has emailed, via Connect, all of these students. Parents, can you please encourage your children to read this email and to get involved. I’m sure that you will find the service very moving and that in future years it will become part of the ‘history’ that this time has brought to us all.
Please stay safe.
Kind regards
Barbara Bromley
07 April 2020
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by mindarieps | Apr 2, 2020 | | COVID, Latest news
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
Once again, on behalf of the staff at Mindarie Primary School, I thank you for the support that you are continuing to provide to our school and staff. Teachers and Education Assistants are really appreciating the emails that they are receiving. Please be assured that we are all working really hard to make sure that we can provide you with effective Distant Learning from the commencement of Term Two on April 28, 2020.
Essential Resource Packs
As we posted on Facebook yesterday, the Education Assistants are currently creating Essentials Packs for you to use with your children at home. In these packs you will find tools to help you, such as laminated paper to use as a white board (don’t worry, your children know how to use these), dice, counters and cards for mathematics activities, your child’s pencil case (if it was left at school) and so on. We hope to have these packs ready by mid-way through next week and we will be communicating with you regarding how you can collect these packs. As you will appreciate, these packs are taking time to put together so please be patient and wait to be contacted.
Playgrounds
Unfortunately, as of tomorrow, students will no longer be able to use the school playgrounds; senior, junior, early childhood and nature. We will be blocking off these areas. Students in years three through to six will be playing on the grassed area of the senior play area. Pre-Primary to year two students will be playing in the lower yard of the Early childhood area.
End of Term One
Tomorrow is the last official day of Term 1, as Monday to Thursday next week are designated School Development Days. During these days, the staff will be preparing curriculum content for each year level and learning how to deliver this digitally.
As per direction from the Premier of Western Australia, parents and carers are required to keep their children at home from the end of the day on April 3. The school holidays will therefore commence on April 6 and run until April 28.
As Mr Morrison announced today, the federal Government is providing financial support to the Child Care sector. This is to ensure that parents who would normally access vacation care or child care can still do so. The Government is doing this to ensure that this extremely important area is supported. Your normal child care provider will be able to provide you with more information in relation to this.
The Premier and Prime Minister were also very clear around essential workers still being able to access care for their children, and they stressed that if the normal practice was for children to be cared for by Grandparents/ carers that fall into the age group of 60 years old and above, and that these cares were self-isolating, schools would provide supervision for these children.
If you find yourself in this situation please advise the school of this, so that we have some clarity of around the ages and number of children we can expect at school next week.
Parents working from home are expected to have their children at home.
Children attending school from April 6 to 9 are required to wear their school uniform. This is so that we can distinguish them from students attending Keiki.
All gates around the school will be closed next week. Children attending will need to enter via the front gates of the school.
Distance Learning
The digital platform we will be using to support our Distance Learning model is Seesaw. We have purchased licenses to allow teachers to use the full suite of options available on Seesaw. If you are not familiar with Seesaw, instructions will be provided next week.
Teachers will also be linking in with their classes using Zoom. We will provide more detail in relation to this in future postings. The feedback teachers have been receiving, via the phone calls that they are making, is that students are missing seeing their class mates, teacher and whole class. Zoom will facilitate this contact.
Students who need to attend school (according to the guidelines outlined above) from the commencement of Term 2, will be using Seesaw in the same way students will be at home to ensure equity across the student population. Teachers will not be teaching these students. The expectation for teachers is that they deliver in one way only.
As previously mentioned, provisions will be made for those families who do not have access to the appropriate technology at home. Mr Gould is currently creating the Mindarie Primary Distance Learning Parent Guidelines. We expect these to be available to parents and families mid-way through next week. In addition, Mr Gould is creating a dedicated section on our website that will be a go to point for all Distance Learning.
Teachers are currently contacting families and they are appreciating this contact and also the information you are providing. This will continue to guide our planning for term two.
With each day, the COVID-19 pandemic is changing our world and how we operate, in ways that we are all finding very confronting, unsettling and unprecedented. As a school, we continue to act upon the regular updates and advice provided by the Federal and State Governments, and the Education and Health Departments. We will continue to keep you informed as things progress.
Once again, thank you so much for your ongoing support during this extraordinary time.
Kind regards
Kind regards,
Barbara Bromley
April 2 2020
by mindarieps | Mar 31, 2020 | | Uncategorized
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
First and foremost, thank you to all of you who are supporting our school and our staff by heading the Premier’s request to keep your children home, unless it is absolutely essential that they attend school so you can attend work.
It has been fantastic seeing how resilient our children are, from the littlest in Kindergarten through to our senior students.
Please be assured that staff have been working together to ensure that we have a whole of school approach to our Distance Learning. Currently we are creating materials to support you at home. Staff have been extremely proactive in this area.
Our primary focus is to support you. We do not want you or your children to feel overwhelmed so our first key focus is on keeping it simple. For you and for your child or children. Our second key focus is around ensuring what we provide allows for flexibility. We know that not everyone is going to be ready to start their learning at the same time and that we need for you to be able to deliver distant learning in a manner that works for your family.
We don’t expect you to be your child’s teacher, more their guide or touch point. What we provide you with will be manageable and not in our teacher speak.
I did share some thinking from a former teacher who home schools her children. How she closed her post was particularly pertinent. She said, “At the end of this our kids won’t remember everything we did during this time, but they will remember how they felt.” We hope that they feel connected, safe, healthy and happy.
On being connected, over the next week you will receive a phone call from one of your children’s teachers. In the case of families who only have one child at school, it will be from your child’s teacher. We don’t want to inundate you with phone calls, as we do understand many of you are working from home and juggling other things. We just want to maintain the connection between your children, their teachers and their school. We also want to check in on what we can add in or consider when moving forward with our planning.
Next week, Monday the 6th of April, teachers will cease teaching students at school and will be focusing on deep planning for next term. Only students who must attend school during the day will be cared for by other staff.
Moving into term two, all students who must attend school will be supervised in their learning by Education Assistants. Teachers will be teaching all children via Distant Learning.
Moving forward from today, I will not be providing daily updates but will provide updates as significant things change.
Once again thank you for being so supportive. Please continue to make sure that you keep continue to stress to your children the importance of personal distancing.
Kind regards,
Barbara Bromley
March 31 2020
by mindarieps | Mar 26, 2020 | | COVID, Latest news
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
Critical Update
The Premier of Western Australia and the Minister of Education of Western Australia today announced the following:
From Monday 30 March (Week 9), schools will remain open. However, we encourage all families to keep your children at home. The school will remain open for children of parents or guardians who are essential service workers or who do not have alternative care arrangements. Please keep up to date with the programs that have been added to the Mindarie Primary School ‘Learning‘ page on our website.
From Monday 6 April (Week 10), schools will officially close and teachers will cease teaching. The Minster of Education has advised schools to provide childcare, if needed, to children of parents or guardians who are essential service workers or who do not have alternative care arrangements. This will not be teaching time. They will be supervised by Education Assistants, under the direction of Teaching Staff. This care will cease at 2:45pm on Thursday 9 April.
During Week 10, the Minister of Education has advised us that staff are to be preparing a plan for our distance learning model for Term 2 and beyond. What this looks like at this point in time, is still in planning.
Moving forward, I acknowledge that this a scary and difficult time. We are all in this together. Thank you.
Thank you for your dedication to our students. Thank you for the compassion that you have shown to our teachers, our administrators, support staff and office staff.
School Drop Off and Pick Up – Essential Students Only
Thank you for managing this mornings transition to a social distance model of drop off. I will leave this in todays update for reference.
- All school gates will be now opened at 8:25am and locked at 8:45am.
- No parents will be permitted to enter school grounds to drop off or pick up students.
- Children will be met at all school gates by a staff member and asked to go to their classes.
- Kindy and PP students are to enter and exit via the stairs near the basketball courts where they will be met by teachers who will take children to classes.
- Parents/ Caregivers of students in other year levels are to arrange with their child the specific gate that they are to enter and exit – reinforce this when you drop off your children.
- Please allow safe social distancing of 1.5m while you are dropping off and picking up.
iMaths Books & School Photos
- iMaths books belonging to students who are not returning to school will be left on tables outside the front office in year groups. Please come and collect at any time between 9:00am and 2:00pm daily. Please practice good social distancing during this time.
Library Books/ Home Readers
- Please return these to the boxes outside the front office gates.
Other Updates on COVID-19 for Today:
Emergency SMS System
Yesterday, we sent out an SMS from the school servers. These messages will be sent in critical update situations.
Distance Learning at Mindarie Primary School
We know that families are in the process of setting up learning spaces for children at home – its going to be a journey for you all!
What we have learned over the last few years is that students love the flexible learning opportunities that we provide at school. This means that it could look very different from family to family, and very different from when we were all at school. Share your learning environments with us at school and we will update our Learning Page with pictures of these spaces.
Kind regards,
Barbara Bromley
Principal
March 26 2020
