Dear Parents and Carers, 

Welcome back to Term 4! I hope that your Wellbeing Wednesday today has been a positive experience for your family. In the recent survey there was overwhelming support for its weekly inclusion.  

My thanks to the 43 families who responded to the survey from last week. 81% of respondents rate their child’s wellbeing as a 3 or more.  

84% rated the remote learning experience from 3 – 5. 21% rated the experience a 5 and 7% rated the remote learning experience a 1. 81% rated their child’s engagement in online learning as a 3 or more. 91% believe the inclusion of ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ is important to remote learning, with 60% rating it a 5. 86% believe the daily online meeting is important with 67% believing it is extremely important to their child’s engagement with remote learning and their peers. Likewise, 95% see the online small group meetings as vital. 

Comments for ‘Things going well for Remote Learning’ included but not limited to: 

• The planning and preparation for this round of online learning has been excellent 

• Communication and expectations have been clear 
• Any questions have been explained before too long 
• The daily encouragement and feedback on the work has made a real difference 
• We appreciate the opportunity the teacher takes to personally message our child  
• TEAMS meetings are great for daily connection  

• Very supported by St Benedict’s through online learning, including understanding when our child needed some time at school  
• Good under the circumstances  
• Work is well planned, easy set up and log in  
• The idea of Wellbeing Wednesdays is fabulous 
• It’s a fantastic effort from the school to keep parents onboard with regular notices and updates  

• Thanks to all the teachers for your care and hard work  
• Kids are happy and able to do most of the work  
• Support from the teachers is wonderful  
• Well-structured and delivered 

Comments for ‘Things that could be done differently in remote learning’ included but not limited to:  

• My child feels uncomfortable asking questions on Teams for fear of wasting time 
• Some feedbacks are great but some require more feedback on work 
• Maths lessons to be done face to face as we are not professional teachers and might get the children confused 

• The number of activities that must be completed on a daily basis 
• Complexity of the instructions (including multiple pages/slides) 
• Balancing work commitments with my child’s online learning  
• My child needs constant supervision 
• The ICT demand/management and device use is at times challenging 

• The formatting of google docs used to make them hard to fill them out  
• Daily workload is too high 
• Having to wait for someone to let you into Teams sessions. No one lets you in for ages. Just let us join the morning meetings when we want. 

The School Staff are working through the survey responses. There are some suggestions that are simply not possible – for example letting the students enter the Teams meetings without having to wait in the lobby – this is explicitly prohibited by Catholic Education. We are conscious that it will not be possible to provide learning that suits each individual student and unique family situation in a remote format. I acknowledge the challenge that remote learning is for our families – just one day at a time – one task at a time.  

We apologise for the confusion with the Fathers’ Day mass for some of our families. The mass was streamed on the day and a large percentage of our students and their families joined us for this celebration. In future we will ensure that all students and families have the correct link for our masses. 

Please remember that the school remains accessible for children of essential workers. The health advice is that, if possible, students should remain at home. We are proud that we can support the essential workers in our community. I know that parents who need to send their children to school are appreciative of this support.  

The advice remains that school will return from the 25th October, Week 4 of Term 4 for our Kindergarten, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 6 students. Our Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 students will return the following Monday 1st November, Week 5 of Term 4. Teachers will continue to plan and provide the remote learning material. As we move closer to the return date, we will provide more information as to how that will occur at St Benedict’s.  

Please do not hesitate to reach out via email if I can be of any assistance. 

Stay safe and healthy. 

God bless. 

Rachel Smith 
Principal