iServi News | 8 May 2020 | Term 2, Week 2
We have had another excellent week at Servite as we continued to welcome students back to the school campus. Combined with our excellent remote learning programme, we continue to provide quality learning to students wherever they are located. We thank you for your support over the first two weeks of Term Two as we have worked to provide Christ-centred and student-focused education throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
As you would be well aware, the COVID-19 situation continues to evolve daily and Premier Mark McGowan has eased restrictions on gatherings and activities in the wider community. Given this, along with the pending CEWA review to our current learning modes across Catholic schools, we are further adjusting our programmes to support the continued return to school of all of our students across all year levels.
Schools are vibrant and alive places. They are empty environments without our students. We look forward to a return to our bustling, thriving Servite College community. It has been superb to see our senior students make a successful return to school and we have been pleased to welcome numbers of students in Year 7-10 as we begin shifting towards one mode of learning.
Aligned with Catholic Education Western Australia directives, we are now implementing further measures to facilitate the gradual transition of all students and staff back to our school campus while continuing to prioritise our community’s health.
In reflecting on our remote learning model as we continue to shift toward on campus delivery of our teaching and learning programmes, we need to pause to celebrate what has been achieved. Our staff have been incredible through the way that they have utilised our rich learning tools to creating quality learning opportunities for students at home. Their dedication and agility during very challenging times is to be applauded. We acknowledge too our students who have shown great resilience in their own learning at this unprecedented time. Their capacity to self-regulate and manage their own learning will stand them in very good stead for future learning in whatever capacity or pathway. Of course, our parents and caregivers need to be recognised for their great trust in us and their wonderful support during this most difficult of times.
As a community of learners, we have gained a lot thorough the design and delivery of our exceptional remote learning model. It has helped us to design creative and innovative ways to engage students and support personalised learning opportunities. The model has highlighted the benefits of online collaboration between students and encouraged the development of broad, rich tasks that support research and critical thinking. We look forward to taking our learnings and integrating them into our face to face teaching model.
Our new normal is a very exciting one as we aim to further encourage students to manage their own learning and to utilise their own personal skills to grow and develop.
We again hope that our community members are keeping safe and well during this most challenging of times. We are looking forward to the return of our bustling school environment full of energised students in the coming days.
We fully respect the decisions of families who choose for their child to continue learning from home and affirm those students will continue to be supported via Teams and SEQTA. Please rest assured that we are continuing to support COVID-19 related protocols and will communicate with families about our processes again next week.
Mr Jeff Allen
Principal