Q&A: All your questions about Term 2 answered

As nervous teachers, parents and students prepare for a school term like no other, we’ve tried to find the answers to all the questions you have about how the whole thing will work.

SCHOOLS are rapidly preparing for the unexpected as they deliver Term 2 online amid the turbulent shake up the global COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon education systems around the world.

WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE FOR THE KIDS WHO HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL

TEACHERS TOLD TO HOLD CLASSES OUTDOORS

From Monday, schools will resume but in a format that has been turned on its head by the risk of spreading the deadly coronavirus.

Students remotely schooling from home will be required to learn online with teachers, use hard-copy learning activities and other home-schooling tasks while parents grapple with full-time work and keeping their kids on track.

Meanwhile, the children of essential workers, who are allowed to physically attend school, will have to be separated by 4sq m from one another, with only 12 students in one classroom, supervised by teacher aides and learning on the same virtual classrooms and paper packages their peers at home will.

Parents have been warned against gathering at school drop-off and pick-up, while tuckshops will be closed, ball games banned and strict social distancing and hygiene in place to protect staff and students on-site.

Empty classrooms will be normal in Term 2.

YOUR TERM 2 QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q: Will any public schools be live-streaming lessons, as happens in many private schools?

A: Yes, many schools will use the department’s range of learning and virtual classroom platforms to livestream lessons. State schools can design their own approach to home-based learning, which they can adapt to suit the ages, learning needs, existing levels of skill/familiarity, and resources that are available to their students in their homes.

Q: If lessons only last for two or three hours a day, what will kids be doing in class for

the rest of the day?

A: Schools and classroom teachers have discretion around the duration of lessons, providing they meet minimum requirements around delivery of Australian Curriculum content areas. During the rest of the day students will be able to complete independent activities, projects, reading, physical activities, or might watch the learning@home television show or materials from the department’s Learning Place. 

Q: Which students can attend schools? How will schools check this?

A: Schools remain open for the children of essential workers — that is workers who are required in their workplace; and vulnerable children. Determination of this is a school-based decision. Principals are trusted to consider what is appropriate in these circumstances and no evidence from parents is required.

From the start of Term 2 until 22 May 2020 inclusive, all students will be learning from home, except for students in the following categories:

• Children of essential workers on days when they are not able to be supervised at home and no other arrangements can be made. Essential worker means any worker who must continue to attend their workplace for essential business during this time.
  
  
• Vulnerable children include children identified by schools or who:
  – are currently receiving services from Child Safety, including children who are subject to a child protection order
– are subject to a youth justice order

• Children in designated Indigenous communities.

Q: Will any children be turned away if they are not deemed to be vulnerable or the child

of an essential worker?

A: Parents and carers are encouraged to discuss their child’s requirement to physically attend school with the school. Supervision should be provided for all children who attend school.

It is important that students who attend school feel welcomed and supported as they complete the same curriculum activities as those learning at home. It is also important that school communities adhere to the description of essential workers provided in the Guidelines.

Q: What provisions have been made for teachers? Are older teachers or those with underlying health conditions, or who are pregnant, allowed to do non-classroom teaching activities?

A: Vulnerable employees, or employees who live with a vulnerable person, should not attend the workplace. Schools will work with vulnerable employees regarding their work arrangements including working from home.

Q: What social distancing arrangements will be in place in schools?

A: Schools will apply social distancing principles wherever practicable. Schools will be alert to increasing air circulation and ventilation in classrooms, using larger spaces, spreading staff and students out across campuses and facilities and messaging social distancing reminders.

Q: Will lunch breaks be staggered?

A: Schools will use a range of strategies to meet local needs. This may include spacing out lunch breaks and lesson times to minimize student numbers in areas around the school. Principals are best placed to make these decisions at the local level depending the number of students in attendance.

Q: What will Term 2 look like?

A: On-site supervision, with access to the school’s home-based learning materials, will be available at all schools for students in the categories listed above.

Students who attend school during this period will receive support to participate in the same learning program that is being delivered by their classroom teachers to students who are learning at home.

Schools will advise parents/carers if uniforms are to be worn and any other arrangements in place locally for onsite and online learning.

Q: How will schools mark attendance?

A: Recording student participation in home-based or on-site learning for Term 2, 2020, will be done manually in OneSchool. Schools have been asked to report daily attendance figures to the Department of Education through a school attendance survey by 10am each day.

Q: How much involvement will parents have to have in their student's learning? Especially primary students?

A: Parents and carers will be responsible for supervising their children at home and facilitating their access to the learning activities set by their classroom teacher/s.

The level of involvement parents will need to have will vary based on a number of factors including student age and learning area.

Parents and carers are not expected to be their child’s teacher — teachers will continue to teach.

Parents and carers can support both their child and their teacher by providing an environment conducive to learning, offering supervision, and supporting their child’s engagement with the learning program offered by their school.

Q: Will teachers be teaching the same students?

A: Where possible, yes. Schools will make site-based arrangements for the supervision of

students. Unless a child’s class teacher is unwell, they will continue to be responsible for

setting the learning program.   

Q: How will schools manage social distancing?

A: The government’s temporary increase in cleaning time for state schools announced in Term 1 will continue for at least the first five weeks of Term 2. This will allow schools to maintain greater attention and frequency to cleaning activity, particularly high touch points around schools and amenities blocks etc.
Schools should continue to strictly follow health advice and ensure that supplies of soap, sanitiser and cleaning products are maintained to meet local needs.

Social distancing will be implemented in classrooms. To maintain appropriate social distancing, student numbers should be limited to accord with the size of the learning space.

For example, in a General Learning Area of 52m² there should be no more than 12 students and one staff member.

All persons entering and leaving the school grounds should maintain a distance of 1.5 metres from each other.