24 Mar 2020
Advice to parents and carers
Dear Parents and Carers,
I find it strange writing home to parents with a message endorsed by the government of NSW about your child and their education. The difficulties most parents are finding themselves with, will not change in the near future. The message from the government is:
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has asked parents to keep their children at home and not send them to school
As NSW recorded an increase of 136 novel coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the state's total count to 669.
Schools will remain open for any family that have no option but to send their children to school.
“The health advice has not changed,” Ms Berejiklian said on Monday morning. “However, For practical reasons in NSW we will be encouraging parents to keep their children at home.
"Already last week we had up to 30 per cent of parents who chose to keep their [children] at home, and we appreciate and anticipate that number will increase.”
All schools in NSW will provide online learning options for the remaining three weeks of term one.
The NSW school term ends on Thursday April 9, the day before Good Friday.
As a result, packs of work for students not coming to school will be available to collect along with links to on-line learning. Please advise the school on the following email link toongabwst-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au of your email address in order to receive updates and further links. These updates will also be available on the school website: toongabwst-p.schools.nsw.gov.au
Please include the class your child is in, their name and any issues you might have with technology links.
No child will be disadvantaged in their learning, the work being sent home will be the same as the work being completed in class:
The Premier said there will be one single unit of teaching for children at school and at home. The same lesson material will be used in both settings.
"There won't be a separate class for kids at home, there won't be a separate class for kids at school ... which makes it simple and practical," she said.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said schools will move to an online learning model.
"We’ve been preparing for this since the beginning of the year and we are ready to be able to transition," Ms Mitchell said. "We have a lot of material that is ready to go."
For those parents who need some ideas on home schooling, perhaps the following schedule may be of help:
9am: Home Economics – Learn how to make their parents a decent cup of coffee or tea.
9.30am: Do school work.
10am: Engineering – How to operate the vacuum cleaner and washing machine.
10.30am: Do school work.
11am: PE – carrying rubbish / recycling to the bins.
11.30am: Do school work.
12 noon: Lunch break.
1pm: Chemistry – how to bleach and disinfect the bathroom.
1.30pm: Do school work.
2pm: Geography – Lesson in where the items strewn across their bedroom floor ACTUALLY live.
2.30pm: Do school work.
3pm: Orienteering – how to find the wash basket
3.30pm: Horticulture – chopping vegetables
4.30pm: Science – Learn how hot water and detergent clean grease from cooking pans.
5pm: After school club: Go to your room with your remaining school work and remain quiet.