Head of Secondary School

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COVID-19 Update

These are certainly unprecedented times for our community. Some of you will have greater concerns for your child’s health and the health of family members and loved ones, and we understand that these concerns should be paramount for you and your families at this time.

This is a rapidly evolving situation and senior leaders are meeting regularly (now via video link) to assess all of the information and advice as it comes to hand before making decisions for the best of our community. We are aiming to communicate as quickly, clearly and efficiently as possible so that staff, students and parents have the necessary information at hand. Again, please refer to the School’s COVID-19 Information Page for the latest updates, and any queries should be addressed to feedback@redlands.nsw.edu.au.

We also realise that this can be a particularly difficult time for the students in our care who may be concerned about their health or the health of loved ones or are worried about falling behind in their academic studies and disappointed that many of the activities they love and in which they flourish have had to be cancelled or postponed. These are all understandable reactions and we are committed to reassuring, supporting and comforting students during this time.

When we have been through challenging times in the Secondary School I have been privileged to see the best in us shine through. As I have said in times before, “our community is our strength” and I have certainly seen some of the “best” in our community this week.

Whether it was our Sports department thinking creatively with Sports training cancelled and refitting our Fitness Centre into a mini television studio to live cast fitness sessions for staff and students to participate in remotely, starting Friday morning (Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda – watch out!).

Whether it was some of our Yr 12 leaders reaching out to me with some ideas about how they, as student leaders, could lift school spirt and organising a live streamed Grease sing along in Tutor period today (and it wasn’t just the students joining in!). Click here to view video.

Whether it was feedback from a member of the community earlier this week who witnessed a “random act of kindness” by some of our senior students who came to the assistance of an elderly lady who had fallen down in a crowd outside of Woolworths.

Our community is our strength.

I wanted to once again briefly outline some of the measures we have been putting in place this week.

Remote Teaching and Learning

As you are aware, Friday we will be conducting a full school trial of our remote teaching and learning platforms. While more detailed information can be found on the Secondary School page of Pulse, some key information is below:

• Students should follow their timetable of classes for the day, commencing with Period 1 at 8.20am.
• If a student is “absent” tomorrow and will be unable to participate in the remote learning classes, then parents should send an absent notification as per usual to ssabsence@redlands.nsw.edu.au.
• Teachers will use Zoom video conferencing software at the beginning of the lesson to check in with students and complete the roll. If the student is unable to connect with the teacher in this manner, they will be able do so via one of the collaborative tools that has been set up in iLearn (eg – Google Docs, a Discussion, etc.) or via a direct email to the teacher. Teachers will determine to what extent Zoom is used for the rest of the lesson, depending on the activities set out.
• Each lesson, with associated learning activities, resources and assignments, will be available for students to work through remotely on their individual iLearn Class pages.
• Students will check in with Tutors via Zoom and their Tutor Group iLearn pages during the scheduled Tutor period.
• Students should wear PE uniform for the day.
• Students are required to have an appropriate virtual or actual background any time they are using Zoom to video conference into a lesson (eg. a plain wall as background).
• Students are expected to follow appropriate online behaviour as outlined in the Responsible User Guidelines in the Student Planner.

Social Distancing Measures

We have been putting in place a number of social distancing measures in the Secondary School, including:

• Cancelling all assemblies, Year Group meetings, Chapels and other associated large organised gatherings of students until further notice.
• Cancelling, postponing or altering cocurricular, Service activities and excursions.
• Limiting the number of students using the Library at any time and cancelling the before school and after school Study Centre until further notice.
• Altering some of the practices in the Canteen to limit student use at any one time.
• Spreading out students in classrooms as much as possible and moving outside for some lessons in this beautiful weather.

Wellbeing Measures

We realise the current situation can be challenging for students and we want to ensure they are emotionally supported by our Pastoral team during this time. It is important to know that students can contact their Tutor, Year Advisors and/or Counsellors if they need any additional support during this time. They can still do so in person when on site. If they are off-site, they should use a number of the other communication channels to make contact.

It is important that all of us provide calm and reasoned support during this time for the young people under our care as many of the sources of information which they might consume can lead to unhealthy worry and panic. Now more than ever, it is important to have those family conversations around the dinner table to provide them with further understanding and reassurance. Remind them it is still okay to laugh, have fun and enjoy life – even if it is a bit different for them at the moment – as the live streamed Yr 12 Grease medley in Tutor period illustrated. And finally, in this time of social distancing, it is important that we provide greater “emotional connectedness” with our children and all the people in our community. I am confident we will all come together to support each other during this time.

Parent Navigation Guide for Redlands Information Systems

This guide has been developed to help parents navigate the School’s three major information systems: Redlands Pulse, Engage and iLearn (Canvas). It can also be found in the Useful Links section of Redlands Pulse.

Uniform Update – Shorts

Please note that shorts for Secondary School boys have arrived in the Uniform Shop. These can be purchased from Friday for boys to wear as part of the summer uniform in Terms 1 and 4. Please note boys will also need to wear the long grey socks with shorts as part of this uniform.

Mr Sean Corcoran
Head of Secondary School
scorcoran@redlands.nsw.edu.au
9968 9870