This week I would like to share how Girls Grammar is dealing with your daughter’s curriculum needs with the return of students into the Prep to Year 12 classrooms. Effectively, this means the end of our Learning@Home program which we have been operating in either full or mixed mode since the start of term. Teachers will no longer be producing video lesson content (P-10) or delivering both face to face and online at the same time. The school executive would like to acknowledge the exceptional job of our teachers in maintaining your daughter’s learning during COVID-19.
There are, however, several students not returning this week who want to. They are prevented from doing so for a variety of reasons. With the return of teachers to classrooms, we are not able to continue to provide live online lessons. Instead we are supporting students by providing lesson materials through OneNote and/or Teams. Teachers are continuing to monitor student work and are providing feedback as they do for all students. In Years 11 and 12, where appropriate, lessons are being recorded to be accessed via the Teams platform. All students can continue to contact teachers via email. Where boarders live in rural or remote regions with limited or unreliable internet access, learning packs will be posted to the students. In the lower primary years, learning packs can be arranged to be collected from reception or posted home.
Most students returning have continued with their learning as expected. However, it is of course possible that there are students who have not coped as well as we would have hoped. Teachers do not make assumptions about why girls have not either engaged or learnt as much as we might have expected. We recognise that our students have varied home lives. We don’t expect that all students have been able to access Learning@Home equally. For those students behind in their academic progress, we also don’t expect that it is reasonable to have them caught up by end of Term 2. Our expectation is that teachers and students continue to work together to fulfil curriculum by the end of the year. If a P-10 student has missed assessment beyond their control, we do not expect that they make it up.
Regardless of year level, it is important to remember that reporting grades can only be assigned based upon available evidence. Prep to Year 10 Semester 1 reports as always, will be an account of a student’s progress towards an achievement standard. For Years 11 and 12, results will be reported on completed summative assessment.
Dr John Fry
Deputy Principal - Studies
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