Return to School

The Roadmap to Recovery for Schools guidelines, as stipulated by the State Government, is that:

• Kinder & Year 1 return Monday, 18 October
• Year 2 & Year 6 return Monday, 25 October
• Years 3, 4 & 5 return Monday, 1 November

Face-to-face teaching will commence on the above dates, up to that point students will continue to be engaged via remote learning. Parents are asked to continue their great support by keeping children at home until their designated return.

Social Emotional Wellbeing

A key factor in the return to school will be the Social Emotional Wellbeing of students - students will not learn if they don’t feel that they belong and are safe. At St Therese, we have been very fortunate to have had Mrs Carol Hiscox leading Social Emotional Learning (SEL) across all grades from the beginning of this year. SEL is not a subject and while Carol has provided a 30min lesson for all classes each week, this has been just a springboard for class teachers to then build on every day. During remote learning, Carol has provided a wealth of resources for teachers to access and implement via SeeSaw or Google Classroom.

Over the rest of this term, staff will work hard at getting the balance right in supporting students’ wellbeing and pushing ahead with their learning. Initially, this may involve reducing the amount of content being covered and focus more on building a sense of belonging, student relationships and settling back in familiar routines and rituals. Recovery from such an extended period of lockdown is not a linear road and it is not going to be the same for all students. We are planning on maintaining a strong presence of Social Emotional Wellbeing in the school well into 2022.

Over the course of the last term, I have heard of many instances where teachers have reached out to individual students and families to support them during tough times especially where student mental health is being impacted. They do this due to ther love and care they have for each individual. If your child is having a difficult time in coming to terms with the return to school, please talk to their teacher in the first instance and we will do whatever we can to support families.