As we did last year, Glen Park provided ‘learning packs’ for individual students during lockdowns.
These packs were all self-contained and included reading, writing, maths, and arts/humanities activities usually for 1-2 weeks. They would be collected by parents and changed over as required.
Every pack had all the work, learning tools, books and consumables needed as well as detailed instructions for the learning material provided. In this way we replicated the learning we would be doing at school as close as possible, and it also minimised the amount of time children needed to spend online.
Students took home their iPads which were loaded up with all of the apps they needed as well as the books and videos they might require.
Some children were able to attend school (children of essential workers or children accessing our tutoring program) and learned much as they would have done normally just with fewer students around.
Our open space and room to move both inside and in our school, grounds has been a bonus during these times. We plan to enhance that by constructing a dedicated outdoor learning space which we plan to have in place early in 2022.
The only major disappointment this year has been that we have had to cancel our excursion program. Hopefully we can have a bigger and better one in 2022.
Our students seem to have adjusted well. They are real experts at off-site learning now. They were early in their uptake of mask wearing, long before it was mandatory. All our staff are fully immunised, and everyone is looking forward to an under 12 vaccines from January 10th 2022. After 2 years of lockdowns, we are all looking forward to a safe and busy year next year.
