16 July 2020

From the Principal

Article by Mr Michael Exton

From the Principal

Dear Parents & Friends of St Ignatius College Geelong,

I hope those of you who were on holidays, and in particular, our students found time for some relaxation and quality family time over the last two weeks. I also hope you and your family are well.

I am so pleased we are all back at school and was delighted with the many cheerful greetings I received from the students I met as I walked around the College before classes commenced on Tuesday.

Hopefully, we won’t see a return to remote learning, and we don’t experience the impact of the pandemic that Melbourne schools are.

School operations

While we may not know of anyone with COVID-19, as I am sure you have heard before, we need to be careful we don’t become complacent.

With the new term and as some time has elapsed since students and staff were together, I ask for parents to please reinforce and support the following the key messages:

  • If unwell with COVID-19 symptoms, stay home and get tested;
  • If a member of your household has COVID-19 symptoms they will obviously need to be tested, and you will need to please stay home and get tested too;
  • We need to maintain at least 1.5m distance between each of us where possible;
  • We need to be diligent about washing our hands and not touching our faces; and
  • We need to insist our students practice basic hygiene practices.

On Tuesday all teachers were given a list of expectations for students. Homeroom Teachers went through these with their students, so everyone started the new term ‘on the same page’ in regards to ensuring everyone knows what is expected of them to protect everyone’s health and safety during the pandemic. Hopefully, we will maintain onsite teaching and learning.

Temperature checks

Based on guidance from Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, to support community awareness of the symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19) and to help identify students displaying symptoms, all schools located in metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire will commence temperature screening of students while they stay at home restrictions are in place.

For schools like ours, outside metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, the routine use of temperature screening is not required. However, temperature screening is being undertaken for a few students who reside in metropolitan Melbourne and travel to our College each day.

Face masks

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has confirmed that the use of face masks or coverings by adults or children is not recommended in schools at this time.

Unlike many public spaces and community settings, including public transport and supermarkets, schools are controlled settings where entry is restricted to only students, staff and those delivering essential school services and operations, and transmission reduction measures can be fully supported and reinforced, such as:

  • exclusion of unwell staff and students
  • regular hand hygiene practice and provision of hygiene supplies
  • restricted visitors and reduced mixing between groups
  • clear protocols in place to support rapid closure, case tracing and containment.

As has always been the case, staff or students who wish to wear face masks in school and when going to and from school may do so.

Camps, excursions and other off-campus activities

For the next three weeks, we will not be conducting these activities. We will assess the situation after a couple of weeks and advise parents if we decide to recommence such activities again.

Change to Semester Reports to parents

Saint Ignatius has been implementing a move from summative reporting to online continuous reporting this semester.

Traditionally we have provided an end of semester report with comments. From now on, a briefer ‘Statement of Results’ will be issued instead.

Previous year’s summative reports at the end of each semester showed what the student had achieved in that semester’s assessments. This method of reporting may not have provided very constructive feedback and usually came at a time when it’s too late for a student to improve.

In contrast, continuous reporting provides students with meaningful feedback about how they can improve in addition to receiving assessment results regularly throughout the semester, rather than just at the end.

Students will become more motivated to improve their performance if they have full transparency over their achievements and areas for improvement as they keep moving through the semester. Not only does it allow students to constantly reflect on their progress and make improvements as they go, but parents can also be more involved in their daughters/son’s educational journey as they receive frequent updates of their progress.

So, a continuous report is one that is built throughout the semester and provides students and parents with an ongoing overview of how they’re progressing.

Through the College’s online Learning Management System “Canvas,” parents can access, via an online login, up to date records of their daughter or son’s assessments.

At any time during the year, through Canvas, they can see the assessment task, the date due, the criteria for marking and the achieved result and associated teacher feedback after marking is finished.

By checking the criteria for marking and reading the feedback, both the parent and the student can see where the student needs to improve and take action so that the following assessments show an improvement.

This system helps our students improve in all areas of learning by providing:

  • greater accountability of students’ work habits;
  • timely feedback enabling the student and the parent to identify, intervene and improve;
  • no “surprise” negative results coming home at the end of a semester;
  • notification to parents of a problem when it arises; and
  • access online anywhere, anytime via a secure web-based program

I encourage parents if you haven’t already done so, to ask your daughter/son to give you a tour of Canvas and in particular to show you where the feedback and results can be found.

Semester One Statements of Results will be available via the parent portal as follows:

  • Yrs 7-9 on Friday 17th July; and
  • Yrs 10-12 on Friday 24th July.

Teacher change

We welcomed Ms Elana Cole back from parental leave this week. I thank on behalf of the College, Ms Alithea Anderton, who covered Ms Cole’s Yr 7 RE, English & Humanities and Yr 8 English classes for the first half of this year.

Thank you for your ongoing support of our College.

Michael Exton   Principal

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