From the Head of the Preparatory School
It has been a busy week of remote learning at the Prep School. I am sure I am not alone, but the ongoing nature of remote learning continues to play with my head, given the concept of primary education has been such a consistent reality for me since I was 5. Despite this, I have been amazed at the way our community has adjusted and managed to re-create the key elements of primary school in a remote context.
Primary schools are places where relationships matter, where learning balances the development of foundational skills and understandings with creative thinking and action, where school life lifts students’ awareness beyond themselves, and where students are encouraged to find balance in their holistic development. Whilst remote learning has created a completely different learning context for students, teachers, and parents alike, these elements of primary school remain as important as ever. We continue to shape our remote learning offering on these elements and it has been wonderful to see evidence of each of them over this past week.
Teachers and students have become more and more creative in the way they have used daily check-ins to promote relationships, promote creativity and to have some fun!
Together the students have creatively explored a range of concepts related to their current units of work in English, Maths and UOI.
Boys are also taking the opportunity to develop their skills in some of the Specialist areas of the curriculum.
Chapel and Daily Devotions
One aspect of school life that I am keen to encourage the students to continue to prioritise is engagement in Chapel. This term’s chapel series reflects on themes from the Olympics and considers parallels with messages in the Bible. This week Mr Smith has prepared a Chapel that encourages the students to consider what it means to be part of God’s team. I also want to encourage the boys to engage in the Daily Devotions that Mr Kelly is preparing and sharing via the Time For More section in Seesaw and Canvas.
Jump Rope for Heart
There has been growing momentum this week with our school-wide Jump Rope for Heart initiative. It has been great to see evidence of the boys taking on the daily challenges through the uploaded photos and videos. Parents are welcome to join the challenge too!
Our Year 5 students have committed to creating a daily demonstration video to encourage the other boys with their skipping. These videos can be found in the Time for More section of Seesaw and Canvas.
In coming weeks we anticipate setting each class the challenge of videoing a class-based skipping routine to see who our most capable and creative skippers are.
The Olympics
I am not sure about you, but I love the Olympics! One of the silver linings of the current lockdown is the alignment with the 2020 (2021) Olympics. Whilst I want to urge the importance of the students prioritising class and specialist learning, I also hope they take the chance to engage in the Olympics; the events and the importance that the event plays in connecting and unifying people across the world.
Living the Olympic Dream is a light-hearted series that aims to entertain (that might be wishful thinking) and draw the students’ attention to different aspects of the Olympics. It has been great to see students engaging with the challenges and questions presented in each episode. I was particularly impressed with the flag bearer videos uploaded by James and Jeremiah in Year 6 which have been featured in the Episode 3.
All of the episodes can be found in the Time for More section of Seesaw and Canvas or at this link.
It seems that Living the Olympic Dream has been seen by some other well-known sports commentators, one of whom has sent a message of encouragement that will feature in Episode 4.
Llandilo Development
Unfortunately works associated with Llandilo Development have ceased for the time being in line with the NSW Government’s shutdown of the building industry. Positively, the works are ahead of schedule so there is still considerable optimism that the works will be completed in time for the Year 5 and 6 students to begin using the new learning spaces at the beginning of Term 4.
Remote Learning communication
Parents are reminded that any ongoing issues can be raised through the following email addresses:
Parents are reminded that any ongoing issues can be raised through the following email addresses:
prepschoolpastoral@trinity.nsw.edu.au
prepschoollearning@trinity.nsw.edu.au
‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.’
James 1:22
