Colo High School logo

Colo High School

Colo High School

Striving for Excellence

Telephone02 45712011

Emailcolo-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Principal's update: May 2020

Update from the Principal

Update from the Principal 

Good afternoon Colo High community,

As we begin to move towards a return to face-to-face learning for students from Monday 11 May, it is time for another update.

There are a few questions I have been asked about what this return will look like. This post attempts to respond to as many of these concerns as possible at this time.

Next Monday 11 May:
- Represents a movement to Phase 1 of a return to normal learning. It is a small but important step. There will be a total of 5 phases, with Phase 5 being a full return to all classes and no concerns about social distancing or infection control. We are still some way from Phase 5, but need to take the first steps in order to get there.
- Instruction for junior students will continue to be delivered online, as it is very difficult to deliver 'normal' lessons with class sizes limited to 10 students. Although at first this does not seem greatly different to working from home, we are encouraging ALL students to attend. The social interaction with their peers, the wellbeing support at school as well as the capacity to ask real time questions and receive support from a teacher are things that cannot be readily done from home.
- Senior students will attend two full days per week and lessons will be face-to-face instruction towards the HSC. We have allocated these classes to the larger rooms in the school to allow for full classes to gather and social distancing to be maintained. We would prefer that ALL students attend at this time, but teachers are, in the whole, making provision to include the capacity to join the class 'live' and remotely. Year 12 students in extension classes and with practical tasks to complete will have extra learning scheduled beyond these two days.
- Our normal buses will be operating and following the regular published timetable.
- The canteen will be open. Students will be able to go to the canteen window and purchase pre-packaged food items during breaks in learning. There will be hot and made items available however, students will need to order these items from the canteen when they arrive at school in the morning.
- Please be assured that there will be safeguards in place to minimise infection risk. Every classroom will have hand sanitiser available at the entrance to the room. Staff will sanitise using the sanitiser provided to them in staff rooms. Toilets will still have liquid soap and hand drying facilities. If student movement is necessary, the desks will be cleaned before the next group enters. Staff will remind students of social distancing requirements during less structured times such as recess and lunchtime.
- Students in the Years 7/8 stage class should, for now, choose to attend on the day their year group is attending.
- Siblings of students scheduled to attend are able to (but not required to) attend school on the same day. This is to help assist with any issues around available supervision at home and to minimise any possible risk associated with family members attending school on different days across the week.

We will evaluate the supervision requirements and look for opportunities to enable Year 12 students to return to school for additional face-to-face learning the quickest way possible.

Timetables will be posted on our website, as well as emailed to each student no later than tomorrow. This will allow students to commence planning for their at school learning and bring the appropriate items/equipment.

Students who are absent will be sent the usual text to explain their absence. Parents are asked to indicate if their child is learning from home - and in such instances we will record the absence accordingly.

Over the coming days, Learning Support Officers and other staff will be reaching out to parents whose children have not, or have had limited engagement with their learning to see if there is anything the school can do to assist in this regard.

This is a difficult and unprecedented time for us and we ask for your continued support and patience as we move slowly towards a new 'normal'. 

I understand that, for now, some parents will not feel comfortable returning their children to school. This is one of the reasons that we are continuing (at the moment) with online learning as the main platform for learning for junior students.

I do need to be clear that although we do not know when we will return to face-to-face instruction as the main method of learning, it is also this time, where we will no longer serve out remote lessons to those students who choose to remain at home.

In the meantime, we encourage all students to attend on their scheduled days. 

I am sure you will agree that home learning is hard and attendance at school brings more benefits than just formal learning being completed.

Thank you to the amazing Colo staff that continues to make the impossible possible. Thanks to our parents for their unwavering support and kudos to our students, who are proving even more resilient than we believed possible.

Together we will get through this.

Warm Regards

Mark Sargeant
Principal

*** students attending school should, wherever possible, bring their own device for learning***