Dear RSC Community,

Please find below a link to a video message from me regarding our return to onsite learning.

Student Return Info - Video Link

We are really looking forward to seeing our students back here on May 26 (for our Year 11 and 12 students) and June 9 for Years 7-10. We are really proud of how well the college community transitioned to remote learning and the support from families.

We understand that there will be a range of emotions attached to coming back, just like when we return from summer holidays. Some people are a bit nervous, others are really excited.

What we have learnt about ourselves and our community over the past 2 months is that we are resilient, we are adaptable and we are able to focus on learning, whatever form that takes.

We are working hard to make the transition back to school easier and safe, so we have had to put a range of things in place. If a student or parent is feeling unwell, we ask that they do not attend school. This is the same arrangement with our staff.

• Here are some things that students need to know to be ready to come back to school.

  • We will be back in full school uniform including hair, piercings etc

  • We need students to be mindful of social distancing, especially around lockers and classroom entrances

  • Student will need to bring a water bottle because the drink taps will be turned off

  • House kitchens and the Year 12 study centre will be closed during long and short break. We will look at this again for the start of Term 3

  • The canteen will be open

  • We are being asked to minimise adults on campus, so we will be holding parent meetings via Google Meet (as we have done this term)

  • Parents in reception will be limited to one at a time and we ask you to practice social distancing

  • Uniform Shop will be by appointment only

  • Buses are running as normal

We will be reviewing all of these steps regularly and following the Health Officer’s and DET advice and instructions at all times.

Again, I thank the entire community for their support of the college and our students.

Lisa Holt

Principal

Return to School Arrangements

Dear parents and carers,

Thank you for all your support during these past few weeks of remote and flexible learning.

Following advice from the Chief Health Officer, the Victorian Government has advised that schools can begin a phased return to on-site schooling.

In the first stage, senior secondary (Year 11 and 12 VCAL and VCE) students will return to school from Tuesday 26 May.

Year 10 students undertaking VCE studies, including VCE VET studies, should also attend school for those classes where practicable. If this is not possible for your child/children, our teachers will make sure the work provided to students attending at school is also provided to your child/children.

To support all school staff to prepare for this transition, Monday 25 May will be a pupil-free day. The college had already commenced planning for Friday May 22 to be a ‘screen free’ day with a focus on health and wellbeing activities. More information about this will be shared in the coming days.

In the second stage of our return to on-site schooling, all other year levels will return to school from Tuesday 9 June.

For those students who cannot be supervised at home and vulnerable children, the existing model of on-site schooling will remain in place during the two-week period from Tuesday 26 May to Tuesday 9 June. The current process that we are using to enable parents and carers to indicate the days or part-days for which on-site schooling is required will continue for this two-week period.

All other students in these grades and year levels will continue learning from home until Tuesday 9 June.

Once a year level has returned, all students will be expected to attend school as normal. This means if you choose to keep your child/children home after their year level has returned to on-site schooling, we can no longer support their learning from home.

This does not apply to children who need to be absent for health or medical reasons. For those families, please contact us so we can make an appropriate plan.

This same approach is being taken by all government schools in Victoria.

To support the health and wellbeing of all our students and staff, our school will continue an enhanced cleaning routine and will encourage frequent hand washing.

If your child is ill or is feeling unwell, they must not attend school. They must remain home and seek medical advice.

While the Chief Health Officer has advised that students will not be required to maintain physical distancing at school, we will be making some changes to our school operations, consistent with health advice to all schools. This will apply until further notice. I will provide more detail about our local school context as soon as possible, but it is important to note that changes will include:

· restrictions on access to the school site for anyone other than immediate school staff and students;

· the way we conduct parent-teacher meetings and interviews

We understand that some families may feel anxious about this move back to classroom teaching and learning. I can assure you that this decision has been taken on the basis of the best health advice available to our state.

Our remote learning curriculum for Weeks 7&8 will be made available as per our usual method via Compass and the Remote Learning Website on Friday May 22nd.

More information about the return to school and coronavirus (COVID-19) can be found on the Department’s website, which will continue to be updated:

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/department/Pages/coronavirus.aspx

Thank you for your continued support and patience during this time. We look forward to welcoming our students back to the classroom.

Yours sincerely,

Lisa Holt

Principal

Dear RSC Community,

Please find below the links to our curriculum for Week 5 - 6. This can also be accessed via our Remote Learning Website. A reminder that learning information is also placed on Compass for each lesson.As you would be aware, reports are now available on Compass. We encourage you to discuss these with your daughter/son and seek clarification from teachers if you are unsure about anything.

With COVID-19 restrictions placed on schools, we were unable to hold our annual Open Night for prospective families. To assist Grade 6 families in thinking about secondary schooling, we had a group of our students record their own reflections about life at RSC for our Virtual Open Night website.

We have sent this website to our local primary schools and will be posting it on our social media in coming days. We are more than happy for you to share it with any families you know who are thinking about secondary school. I am extremely grateful and proud of these young people, and I encourage you to take a look and enjoy what they have to say about our college.

Finally, I continue to be extremely grateful to our community for the way we are working together to ensure our students continue to focus on learning. We appreciate the unusual situation parents and carers find themselves in, and I congratulate you for your role in the positive way we are working through this together. Many of you will be waiting to see what announcements the Premier makes in the coming days. At this stage we continue to plan for remote learning for the entirety of Term 2 and will make adjustments if there is a change of advice from the Chief Medical Officer. I assure you that we will communicate with you when we receive any official direction and not merely media speculation.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you require assistance, support, or have any questions.

Take care

Lisa Holt

Principal

April 24 - Curriculum for Remote Learning - Weeks 3&4

Dear RSC Community,

Please find below the links to our curriculum for Weeks 3&4. This can also be accessed via our Remote Learning Website. A reminder that learning information is also placed on Compass for each lesson.

Lisa Holt - Principal

April 21 - Thank you

Dear Parents and Carers, please see the link below for a brief message of thanks.

https://youtu.be/u2xINftOBJQ

Please note that our curriculum for Weeks 3 & 4 will be posted on the Remote Learning Website this Friday April 24.

Attendance Records During Remote Learning

We have received notification from DET regarding their expectations for recording attendance during this term. In a nutshell: we record attendance at least once a day, that we especially code attendance for students at school, or at home with remote learning.

Either: (the preferred option and endorsed from parent comments today):

• Period 1 teachers commence the lesson with a Google Meet – using that attendance for roll marking. The added benefit of this method is that the student gets to see a human connection at the start of each day in isolation.

Or:

• Period 1 teachers will create a Goggle Chat for their classes – a separate one for each of their classes.

• The Chat requests the students to respond with a “thumbs up” emoji that they are logged in for remote learning. That list of responses is used to mark the period 1 roll.

From there, HSO’s will run an attendance report at midday. Those students who come up as 0% attendance will have an email sent to parents, similar to previous absence notifications.

For the students who fail to engage – not logging in to Google Meets, nor responding to a Chat, culminating in no work submitted - teachers will make a Compass Red Alert to that end and also make contact to parents. House Leaders ultimately will become involved with parents in order to resolve underlying issues.

We remind all senior students that maintaining 90% (or higher) attendance remains essential.

Thank you to everyone involved for making the first day in this new mode, really successful.

April 14 - Curriculum for Remote Learning

Dear RSC Community,

Please find below some important information regarding our transition to Remote Learning.

We have developed a Remote Learning Website to provide a one stop communication hub. We hope that this will make it easier for parents and students to access the key information that you will need during this term. When you click on the link you will see tabs in the top right corner, including Curriculum, Communication, VCE VET and VCAL, House Information, and Wellbeing. I encourage you to take a look at the site and familiarise yourself with it.

I have included a direct link from this website to the Week 1 & 2 curriculum for Years 7-10.

Tomorrow we start our remote learning online as per student timetables.

In terms of remote learning at RSC, you can expect:

1. Students to work as per their normal Compass timetable.

2. Learning tasks will be prepared each week for students to complete and will be posted in Compass lessons

3. Year 7-10 curriculum documentation to be emailed fortnightly and made available on Compass

4. Students in Year 7-10 having a minimum of one live lesson per subject each week

5. All Year 11 & 12 classes to be taught ‘live’ via Google Meet

6. Year 11 & 12 assessments to continue under new guidelines - Information about VCE Assessment - written

7. Staff to respond to communication from both students and parents in a timely manner. Please note that ‘working from home’ does not mean staff will be available 24/7

8. Wellbeing programs to be delivered online, including counselling

9. Careers counselling to continue online

10. Assemblies to still occur

11. Short break House check-ins to be available

12. Rolls to be taken and attendance to be monitored

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, either on our social media or our school email address rosebud.sc@education.vic.gov.au.

Lisa Holt

Principal

Dear RSC Community,

As you are aware, the situation regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to evolve. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support of each other and the college.

As I indicated early this week, the Victorian Government has now advised that all schools will move to remote and flexible learning when students return for Term 2 on Wednesday 15 April.

This means that all students who can learn at home must learn from home. This is a very clear directive by the Victorian Government based on the advice of the Chief Health Officer.

All students will be learning from home, except for students on days when they are not able to be supervised at home and no other arrangements can be made. If you believe that your circumstances are reflected in this statement then please contact the college on our email rosebud.sc@education.vic.gov.au.

Approval has also been given for schools to have small groups of VCE and VCAL students on-site to complete their learning requirements if this is necessary and cannot be undertaken at home. Further information about this will be provided by the school if these arrangements are necessary. All appropriate physical distancing and hygiene measures will be put in place.

This is not an action being taken lightly, and I understand it may cause you and your family concern and stress. Please know this step is being taken to slow the spread of the virus and ensure the health and safety of all Victorians.

Most of our teachers will also be working from home. All of them have been working hard to put curriculum plans in place to ensure continuity of learning and to support the wellbeing of all our students. Like yourselves, many of our staff have children who are also learning from home and they are navigating the balance between working and parenting.

Work is also underway to identify students who do not have access to digital technologies at home. Devices will be made available on loan to these students free-of-charge to ensure no student misses out. If you have equipment or internet access challenges, please contact the college (on the above email) and we will make contact with you regarding support.

This is clearly going to be a challenging time for all of us. It’s going to be critically important that we work very closely together to ensure that we provide the very best possible support for the ongoing wellbeing and learning of our students and your children.

We know that open dialogue about the challenges will help us work through them. We encourage you to make contact with us if you require support. At this stage the college email and phones will be monitored during normal school hours. The college social media pages are monitored regularly by our leadership team and we are happy to respond to questions in this manner.

In terms of remote learning at RSC, you can expect:

1. Students to work as per their normal Compass timetable.

2. Learning tasks will be prepared each week for students to complete and will be posted in Compass lessons

3. Year 7-10 curriculum documentation to be emailed fortnightly and made available on Compass *

4. Students in Year 7-10 having a minimum of one live lesson per subject each week

5. All Year 11 & 12 classes to be taught ‘live’ via Google Meet

6. Year 11 & 12 assessments to continue under new guidelines - Information about VCE Assessment - written

7. Staff to respond to communication from both students and parents in a timely manner. Please note that ‘working from home’ does not mean staff will be available 24/7

8. Wellbeing programs to be delivered online, including counselling

9. Careers counselling to continue online

10. Assemblies to still occur

11. Short break House check-ins to be available

12. Rolls to be taken and attendance to be monitored

*Please note that the first fortnight’s curriculum documentation will be uploaded to Compass on Tuesday 14 April.

Additional Support Materials

Learning from Home Parent Info Sheet

Wellbeing Resources

Remote Learning - Student Expectations Document

Lisa Holt

Principal

Dear RSC community, today it was announced that we will be transitioning to remote learning for all of Term 2. In the coming days (at the end of the holidays) we will provide further information about the curriculum provision and expectations on the college community during this time. Below is the Premier’s Press Release. I draw your attention to the following:

‘As we act to slow the spread of coronavirus, the message to students and parents of government schools is clear: all children who can learn at home must learn from home – with exceptions only in extremely limited circumstances.’

If you believe that your circumstances are reflected in this statement then please contact the college on our email rosebud.sc@education.vic.gov.au.

Much of the learning for Term Two will be facilitated through online platforms such as Compass and Google. The best way you can support your child’s learning is to ensure that you are regularly checking Compass with them. If you have equipment or internet access challenges, please contact the college (on the above email) and we will make contact with you regarding support.

As the Premier said, this is unprecedented and we know that various challenges will present themselves. It’s important that we work together to ensure that our students can continue their learning.

We encourage you to click on each of the following links:

Message from Lisa Holt Principal

Remote Learning - Information for Students

Wellbeing Resources

Information about VCE Assessment Video

Information about VCE Assessment - Written

Premier Press Conference

Premier Press Release

Lisa Holt

Principal

Dear VCE students and families, please see the links below for very important information about VCE assessment in coming weeks.

Click Here for video

Click Here for written format

Lisa Holt

Principal