This week I would like to introduce you all to our new French teacher. Mr Phil Carpen will be joining the Melton campus full-time to teach French from this week. Phil has been teaching for nine years and is a native French speaker from Mauritius. We are very excited to have him on our team. Welcome Phil.
While remote learning hasn’t been what anyone expected for the year of 2020, I wondered this week, are there things that the children will miss about remote learning and how will this impact our teaching as we move forward into 2021. Some of the children have said some of things that are helping them are:
- more teachers helping online;
- special things that happen like the School Captains going into the Year 7 homeroom today - they did a really great job reminding the students that we can grow in this time and that God has a plan for them, even in these difficult times;
- there is less distraction when it is just you and a computer.
Still, while the children are plodding on remarkably with all of this, they overwhelmingly just want to revert to normal and have a new appreciation of school as it was before COVID.
Remote learning, however, has propelled us forward with IT skills for the children, navigation skills in CANVAS and our blended learning opportunities years ahead of where we may have been otherwise. So while we are all hoping that Term 4 will bring a new normal, we have much to be thankful for. Below is an excerpt from a one of our students who is experiencing remote learning both at home and on-campus:
“Remote learning has been an odd and unusual but fun way to do school work. The positives about remote learning are that I can stay home and be with my dog, the positives about going to school in remote learning are that I get to see my friends and work in a classroom. The difference is that the work is harder without teachers in person. But overall it has been a fun time in remote learning.” – Jye
This week we had the opportunity of taking some time with our children and watching Colin Buchanan sing and perform for us in a Father’s Day special. Colin is a famous children’s entertainer and we sing many of his songs in our weekly assemblies.
To all of the Fathers and special male role models out there, we hope you have a wonderful day on Sunday. May God show you how special you all are.