Please take the time to access the link below where you will find a vast amount of information and support from DET on ‘Learning from home’.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/parents/learning/Pages/home-learning.aspx

Learning from home is a new concept for children, teachers, and parents. Whilst we hope that parents will be able to support their child if they are struggling with their learning, we understand that many parents will have multiple children, and/or work commitments to keep on top of as well.

As teachers, we will do our best to provide clear instructions, and achievable activities for all students. If you, or your child feel that the work is too hard, too easy, too little, or too much, please contact your child's teacher.

Our main concern is the health and wellbeing of the children and their families. We aim to ensure the children are engaged in some kind of learning each day, and we will do our best to keep them motivated and engaged.

General communication between parents and teachers will happen through SeeSaw for all levels. In Grade 5/6, teachers can communicate directly with students through Google Classroom. DPS will still utilise Compass for general announcements.

Teachers will communicate anything specific with parents, when and as necessary. The frequency and detail of these communications will be determined on a needs basis. We ask parents to remember that teachers may be communicating with many other families at the same time and that, while they love to hear from you, communications should be essential, succinct, and self-aware.

Teaching hours remain between 8:45am and 3:45pm. Where possible, aim to keep your communication during these times. If you need to contact a teacher outside of these hours, be aware that you may not get a response until the next teaching period. Teachers will endeavour to respond to communcation within a 24 hour period.

Remind your children to be polite, respectful, and appropriate in their communications and to represent your family’s values in their interactions with others. Help your child maintain contact with friends when circumstances permit.

Ensure you are aware of when and how your child is using their device, and that there are firm boundaries in place to protect their safety. There are many parental control features on iPads, if you would like more information about this, please contact your child's teacher.

We recommend that, during school hours, children use only SeeSaw or Google Classroom to communicate with their peers. Many students like to use group chats and/or FaceTime, and these can be highly distracting. Students are not permitted to use this kind of communication when they are at school, so we highly recommend the same at home.

We do not expect students to complete learning at home if they are unwell. Please contact your child's teacher to let them know that your child will not be completing any learning for the duration of their illness.

Privacy

When supporting your child’s education at home, keep their privacy in mind, and help them establish and maintain good privacy practices.

Privacy is about protecting your child’s identity. This may be their name, age, email, home address or password. It can also be more sensitive information, such as their health, wellbeing or family circumstances.

Read the Schools’ Privacy Policy to understand how schools handle information, and apply similar principles at home.

Here are some practical tips to help you and your child maintain good privacy practices:

· Ensure your child’s passwords to any systems they access are secure. Do not have them written down near the computer or device or save them in a document that can be accessed by others.

· If your child is using a shared computer or device at home (e.g. a household computer or tablet), ensure that they log out of all school systems at the end of each session or day.

· Your child may sometimes need to share sensitive information with their teacher or other school staff—for example, about their health or wellbeing. Make sure they can do so without being disturbed, and any sensitive documents they create, or share are stored somewhere secure, such as a password-protected folder.

· Your child’s teacher will advise what collaboration platforms or applications your child may be asked to use to support learning from home. This will include advice on how to set them up to ensure your child’s safety and privacy. It is very important that you follow your school’s guidance. This will help ensure that the strongest privacy protections are in place at home.

· If your school is using video conferencing, ensure your child understands how the software works. If possible, your child should participate in videoconferencing in an open place within your home, rather than alone in a private space such as in their bedroom.

· Be cautious about downloading educational software except what the school has recommended:

o If software requires your child’s personal information to be entered, make sure you read the company’s privacy policy first to find out how that information is stored, and who it is shared with. If you’re unsure, you can ring the school (PH: 9842 3373) to check.

o Be wary of companies and products that:

o don’t have a privacy policy

o ask for more detailed personal information than seems necessary in order to use their product

o share user information with third parties for marketing purposes

o store your child’s information in countries whose privacy legislation is substantially different to Australia’s.

Safety

When using the provided equipment, including dongles, devices and laptops, please ensure that these are used for educational purposes only, to help ensure your child’s safety and security.

Protecting your child and supporting them to stay safe online is a priority for parents and carers. The National eSafety Commissioner has developed a range of resources to support parents and carers to ensure their child’s safety and privacy online, including:

·

parent webinars,

· tips on how to report cyberbullying and

· online safety kit for parents and carers.

Copyright

Here are some practical tips to help you and your child maintain good copyright practices:

Use existing free sources of content

· The Department provides access to a wide range of learning materials available from the FUSE website.

· There are many free online streaming content services where students can access content without having to download or make a copy of it. Examples include ABC iView, ABC Education and YouTube Kids.

· The Department of Education and Training has purchased a licence which provides all Victorian Government teachers and students with access to ClickView, a platform that hosts thousands of educational video resources and learning activities. Your child’s teacher will provide your child a ClickView login to enable them to watch material hosted on ClickView at no cost.

Link to content, rather than download it, where possible

· If your children need to access or share internet content, advise them to use links rather than a downloaded copy where possible.

· If you don’t have internet access at home or limited access, please let your child’s teacher and they can organise providing you with copies of materials.

Access school subscriptions from home

· The Department provides access to a range of software from the FUSE website that schools can use to support teaching and learning, including Webex, ClickView, Stile Education (for students in years 7-10), G Suite for Education, Microsoft O365 and Minecraft: Education Edition. Your child’s teacher will advise you on what software your child will use to support their learning from home.

· Students often already have access to school-provided subscriptions that are useful for supporting learning from home, for example Reading Eggs, Mathseeds and HOTmaths. Check what is already available from your school before signing up to anything new.

Security

· Make sure you have anti-virus software installed on your computers or devices at home and this software is up to date.

· Download and install any updates for other software on your computers or devices at home. These updates often include ‘patches’ that fix security vulnerabilities and other bugs.

· Unsolicited technical support is a key method for scammers to gain access to your computer and your confidential information. Do not install any software at the request of someone posing as a representative of a company where you have not actively requested support, whether you are contacted by phone or by e-mail.

· When online, ensure that any links you or your child click on are genuine. ‘Phishing’ is when someone sends you a link that looks ok but is actually sending you somewhere dangerous or inappropriate. These links may look like they come from your school, a software provider, the bank, the government or from apps your child uses. More tips can be found on the ScamWatch website or from the eSafety Commissioner website.

Advice for parents and carers of children with additional needs

If you child has additional needs, you should talk to their teacher about an individual education plan. This will help guide their learning from home.

The parents’ page of the DET website (www.education.vic.gov.au/parents) has several resources to help parents and carers support learning from home.

For parents and carers of children with learning difficulties, a comprehensive resource Understanding learning difficulties for parents: a practical guide can be downloaded from www.uldforparents.com.

This guide provides parents and carers with practical advice about learning difficulties as well as a list of recommended apps.

Literacy and numeracy resources and tips

In addition to the resources and materials that your school will provide, you could use the following resources to support your child as they learn from home:

Literacy and numeracy:

Tips for parents and carers to build their child's literacy and numeracy skills can be downloaded from the www.education.vic.gov.au. Search: get involved in literacy and numeracy

Premiers’ Reading Challenge:

The challenge encourages children and students from birth to Year 10 to read a set number of books over the year and record their efforts online. Register at www.education.vic.gov.au. Search: premiers reading challenge

Mathematics and numeracy at home:

Parents and carers play an important role in helping develop their child’s numeracy skills. Advice and resources for families can be downloaded from www.education.vic.gov.au. Search: mathematics and numeracy at home

© State of Victoria (Department of Education and Training) 2020. Except where otherwise noted, material in this document is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Please check the full copyright notice