SA schools reopen with high numbers of students in class
Early numbers indicate parents are voting with their children’s feet — sending them back to the classroom in line with health advice.
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Double the number of students attending school than had been expected is creating new pressures on teachers.
Statewide preliminary estimates from the Education Department found more than 58 per cent attendance on term two’s first day.
This compared to expectations a fortnight ago less than a third of students would be on campus.
“Anecdotally we’ve seen fantastic numbers in our schools today,” Premier Steven Marshall said.
Principals said a letter to parents last week from chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier encouraging parents to send students to school was the tipping point.
SA Primary Principals Association president Angela Falkenberg said several schools expecting as few as half the students on campus had 70 per cent attending.
“The first day has gone smoothly but there will need to be adjustments,” she said. A school might have two teachers in face-to-face classes and a third running online. Now, the two class teachers might struggle and ‘you can’t really cut a piece off that third one’, she said. “So leaders are talking about additional resources such as additional teaching time or relief teachers,” she said.
While secondary students could cope with online learning delivered simultaneously in class and at home, this was not possible at junior primary level, Ms Falkenberg said.
Education Minister John Gardner urged parents to be patient, amid Opposition claims of widespread reports of glitches in the online portal for home learning.
“The transition back to more kids being at school will be more complex at some schools than at others,” he said
SA Secondary Principals Association president Peter Mader said most were intending, “at least for the first week, to run a digital program”.
Australian Education Union SA president Lara Golding said schools faced complex operations juggling teaching online and in class and needed more resources.
Speaking during a visit to Westport Primary School in Semaphore Park, Mr Gardner said the transition back to face-to-face teaching “will look different from school to school”.
Westport Primary principal Rebecca Hardy said at the end of last term about half of the students were kept at home but attendance yesterday was about 90 per cent. Year 7 student and president of the school’s SRC, Mia Kuerschner, said it was “amazing” to be back.
Mr Gardner said the Education Department would continue to support parents keeping children at home.
“All schools will be offering a provision for remote learning and that will look a little bit different from school to school,” Mr Gardner said.
However, Opposition education spokeswoman Susan Close said there were numerous reports of the online portal not working and parents being distressed.
The Education Department said there had been problems with the Learnlink portal with some students and staff needing to make several attempts to log in. The portal allows access to emails and platforms such as Cisco WebEx and Microsoft Teams used for lessons.
“Once successfully logged in, staff and students have been able to access what they need,” the department said.
“We are not aware of any operational issues with key learning platforms.”
The department said intermittent problems were not uncommon but extra IT staff were at work now with higher demand on the system.
Walkerville Primary School teacher Kristan Gilbert said delivering lessons in the classroom and online was “a big job”. Ms Gilbert had 26 of 32 students in class compared to 13 at the end of last term.
She said Prof Spurrier’s letter had “helped parents make their minds up”.
“We were expecting empty classrooms and we were very prepared to go mainly online, but it’s reversed,” she said.
