Dear Parents and Carers,
Re: SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAM - TERM 2 ARRANGEMENTS, WEEKS 1-5
The Queensland government has decided that in order to reinforce social distancing across the community and slow the spread of Covid-19, state school students will move to a home-based learning model from week 1 Monday 20 April 2020, until at least Week 5 Friday 22 May 2020. A decision regarding the second half of term 2 will be made by mid-May.
During this period, all students who are able to be supervised and learn from home are to stay at home, except for vulnerable students, children of essential workers and children in designated indigenous communities. All students will be learning from home, except for students in the following categories:
- Children of essential workers on days when they are not able to be supervised at home and no other arrangements can be made.
- Essential worker means any worker who must continue to attend their workplace for essential business during this time
- Vulnerable children including children identified by schools or who:
- Are currently receiving services from Child Safety, including children who are subject to a child protection order
- Are subject to a youth justice order
- Children in designated indigenous communities
Prior to the holidays, teachers worked very hard to prepare your child's learning@home resources for the first two weeks of Term 2 and these will be available from the school office on Monday 20 April. If you are unable to attend the school, we will make arrangements to deliver/collect learning@home packages.
The Department of Education requires teachers to check in with you on a daily basis in relation to marking the roll and to support you with learning from home. To try to reduce the number of calls you receive each day, we aim to have one staff member contact you to discuss some/all of the following:
- Check if your child will be learning at home or if s/he will be attending school
- Ensure that you have received the learning@home pack
- Check that you have all the support materials you require and feel confident in using them
- Discuss how we can best support you to use the materials with your child
- Provide you with support to use the materials
- Follow up on learning@home packs eg. collection of new materials and handing in completed work (Please note that you may submit your child's completed work (in an envelope with the child's name on it via the drop boxes located at IGA and the Post Office).
- Keeping your child's teacher, or myself, in mind as your number one contact in relation to learning from home.
A few tips to support the transition to learning@home:
- Follow the timetable included in your child's learning@home pack as a guide to build some structure for participating in learning time at home.
- Build wellbeing into your day with your child/children which will look different for each family. You may like to incorporate your own activities into the daily timetable eg. cooking, art, gardening or taking the learning outside and allowing personal time for yourself and your child to engage in activities of choice.
- Use the Daily Challenge Activities sheet as a means of introducing some short physical activities to help provide a break from desk work
- Use the Speech Language Calendar to complete one speech language goal daily to support your child's oral language skills.
- Maintain morning and afternoon/evening routines with your child/children
- Stay connected and maintain good communication channels with your family and friends and the school to help your child feel more emotionally safe during these uncertain times.
- Create a learning space for your child where possible and reduce the distractions which may impact learning, their behaviour, and increase anxiety. Eg. the amount of screen time including tv and access to commercial online games.
This is new for all of us and it will require everyone working together and supporting the best outcomes for our students at a very difficult time. Please stay connected with your teacher, to our school and to one another.
Please don't hesitate to send me an email if you required further clarification or have a question. Stay safe.
Kind Regards,
Lisa Wright Leanne Rayner
Head of Special Education Services Principal