It has been so good to see classes in their classrooms, with their class teachers this week. We worked extremely hard at the start of the year to build a community of learners focusing on positive behaviours, attitudes and relationships.

Having this strong foundation has allowed us over the last few weeks to focus on our approach of connection, calmness and consistency. 

Connection

It has been important to connect with each child. Everyone has their own story to tell. Everyone has their own feelings, their own thoughts, their own fears and worries. It has been important for us to hear those and to also to model, picking ourselves up when we get knocked down and focusing on the positive connections we have at our school. To build resilience. A place where every child (and family) belongs. 

Calmness

This is always an important focus for me as a leader. Whilst I might be stressed and having a bad day, it is important to remain calm. A sense of calm can ripple through a school quickly. Nothing is so big that we can't find a solution or talk about it. St Michael's is a place of calm, and that is more important than ever before. 

Consistency

We strive to be as consistent at school as possible. We are well organised and prepared, which allows for flexibility when needed. We have worked hard to create structure and routine to each day. Having a predictable learning environment at the moment is of high importance. If students know what is ahead of them each day, they tend to relax into the learning which increases engagement. 

I would like to thank everybody for your positive comments and feedback relating to my leadership. This means a lot to know that I was responsive to the needs of the school community. 

We also appreciated the feedback of what we could do better next time (hopefully there isn't any next time). The difficulty is catering for the whole school community. For example, some feedback relating to the Learning Plans during Remote Learning were the pre-recorded lessons were too slow for some, and too fast for others. Some people wanted to keep pre-recorded lessons, others wanted live lessons. We hope that what we provided enough scope for parents to make decisions regarding what their child was learning and focusing on. Overall though, everyone was thankful for what learning we provided and for the overall support. Very affirming for us all. 

Easing of Community Health Restrictions

Whilst restrictions are lifting across the NSW & the ACT, we will continue to maintain, for the time being, the drop off and pick up arrangements currently in place. We will also maintain adults refraining from entering the school building (with the exception of the office and hall). This is to ensure we maintain the safest possible environment for our students and staff and limiting an additional administrative/operational task that a staff member would have to take on to manage additional visitors at this time. 

World Environment Day

The theme for World Environment Day, 5 June 2020 is biodiversity — a call to action to combat the accelerating species loss and degradation of the natural world. One million plant and animal species risk extinction, largely due to human activities.

Hosted by Colombia, in partnership with Germany, World Environment Day urges us to rethink how our economic systems have evolved and the impact they have on the environment. These are issues the world cannot lose sight of even as we tackle the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis.

Colombia has one of the highest diversities of species in the world, boasting among many others, 3500 types of orchids and 19 per cent of the world’s bird types. The government has made biodiversity preservation a national priority.

The World Environment Day https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/ website provides latest updates on registration, online events, the agenda and live feeds.

Classes will focus on this day during the week. 

Family Sabbath Week

Next week is Week 7, which means it is Family Sabbath Week. This week we try to keep as quiet and low key as possible. Meaning no homework, no meetings etc. We encourage staff, along with our school families, to take time to reconnect with family and friends and do something that brings you joy. Perhaps a bushwalk as a family, cooking something new, playing board games or some gardening. Whatever it is, do as a family. Enjoy!

Homework

This is to advise, that for the remainder of Term 2, we will not be setting any formal homework. This has been an extremely busy time for staff, preparing and planning both remote learning and face-to-face teaching. Whilst we acknowledge homework is a connection between the learning occurring between home and school, we feel that the last two months of remote learning has provided that, in a much richer way. We feel it is important for parents to ease back on the learning at home, leave the fair share of that to the school for the next few weeks, and just enjoy time with your children.

We of course would still encourage every child to read every night, this would be the most important task to do at home every night. Also, for the little ones go over sounds learnt and sight words (high frequency words), older grades keep practicing timetables, finish off any projects you may have, write for enjoyment, construct, design and investigate something of interest.

Starting from Term 3, Homework will recommence and we will be providing this through the Remote Learning Site, which will be changed to Home Learning. This will be the place where teachers will place home learning tasks, assignments they are working on etc. We will also be utilising Seesaw as a way of handing in homework. More information will come out about this at the start of next term.

TQI Highly Accomplished & Lead Teacher Training

Over the last few weeks, I have been training to become a Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher (HALT) Assessor for the ACT. This has involved a significant amount of hours of professional learning which will mean that I would be in a position to visit other schools and assess teachers who have applied to be a HALT. 

I am currently one, of only a handful of certified Lead Teachers in the ACT. I am currently the only Principal who is a certified Lead Teacher. 

Participating in the Assessor Training has provided me the lens from the other side, which will provide me greater clarity and knowledge to support staff at St Michael's, as well as the broader system. 

Feast of the Trinity

Sunday is the Feast of the Holy Trinity, a day we remember that we live, move, and have our being in the Blessed Trinity.

We pray to the Holy Trinity offering ourselves, joys and sorrows, concerns and thanksgivings in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 

The Feast of the Holy Trinity is the feast of God’s life and love united with ours.

Morning Drop Off - Late arrivals

Just a reminder that school starts at 8.50am. We understand that we are all getting back into the swing of things, but this morning we had 39 students arrive late, after 8.50am. This is heading close to a quarter of the school. This becomes quite disruptive for not only the child arriving late (as they miss the morning introduction and plan for the day) but also for the rest of the class and the teacher as they need to be individually filled in on what is happening when they arrive. 

A reminder that the sliding doors are now being locked just after bell time (8.50am), which means parents will need to park on the basketball court and walk children into the Front Office and check them in with Lisa. Please do not drop children off after 8.50am and drive off. Parents must park and walk any late children into the front office. 

Enjoy the week ahead.

Take care. 

Pat Ellis