St Aloysius Catholic College eNewsletter

ACTING PRINCIPAL'S UPDATE

The view from Kingston Beach taken by Damien, my mechanic. As I dropped my daughter's car off, we spoke for 10 minutes about what a wonderful morning it was. He told me about the photo he had of an early morning walk he had taken. I mentioned I’d woken up early to see it from my veranda.

Look for something positive in each day, even if some days you have to look a bit harder (or wake up a bit earlier)

AFFIRMATIONS

To the staff of St Aloysius Catholic College. As we met as an Executive on Thursday before the term began to plan for Term 2, one thing struck me more than anything: the collaborative nature of all our staff.

At a time when the stress of the situation could see us all “go our own way” and act as individuals, the staff that look after your children that you love so much did the opposite. As I walked around both campuses in the last two weeks of Term 1 I saw staff working together in good humour, getting on with the job at hand. I have thanked the staff for this.

Term 2, 2020, will be like no other in my 32 years of teaching, but St Aloysius Catholic College will be served well by the quality staff we have.

COVID-19

Each Friday the College Executive team meet to discuss where the College is at. As a result of these meetings I will be sending out information to families each Friday to keep all up to date of the operational decisions we make.

Based on this information the Executive team had at hand at the start of the term we created the following framework to order our thinking:

Controlled Variables	Uncontrolled Variables	Mitigation Strategies
Learning @ Home is the pedagogy we will be using in Term Two.	The Learning @ Home needs of families and staff.	For families we have helped with providing for their ICT needs, we have provided a flexible learning timetable, one source (FIDES or SeeSaw) for their learning and staff ringing home to make contact. For staff we have flexible work arrangements in place and setting up staff to work collaboratively.
Our college will remain open to families who cannot support or supervise their children learning at home.	How many students exactly come to school each day.	We have the Learning@Home framework for students to access their work either at home or at school. Campus Leadership Teams will assess the need each week and each day and respond to it.
We will continue to exercise the hygiene and self distancing requirements communicated to us from CET.	Responding to an outbreak at SACC.	Continue the self distancing and hygiene practices as directed at both sites. We ask all staff and students to follow any health advice they are given and to stay home if they are sick. We use SchoolStream for families and the bulletins for staff to be the points of information.
We will continue to “refine, adapt and develop” our arrangements as the term unfolds.	(Meet as an Executive each Friday morning to discuss arrangements)	Based on direction from CET the Executive the College Executive will clarify our arrangements via SchoolStream for families and the bulletins for staff.

A reminder that families are asked to advise of any student absences if not on site or learning@home via the normal channels i.e. email or phone.

Please keep in touch with college arrangements via SchoolStream and your child’s learning via Seesaw for Kingston Campus students and Fides for Huntingfield Campus students.

THERMOMETERS

Thanks to Catholic Education Tasmania we have four new “non-physical contact” thermometers at each of our Campus Offices. There is no requirement to measure temperatures of staff or students, but if you wish to have your child’s temperature taken when they are sent to the Front Office so it can inform your decision making to come and pick them up, this service is now open to you as guardians and parents.