Strongest indications yet of term four school return
Victoria’s students will likely be back in their classrooms next term but a potential date remains up in the air, while the pandemic inquiry has heard scathing evidence over the impact of remote learning on some children.
Education
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Victoria’s students will likely return to classrooms next term with decisions to be made within weeks.
Education Minister James Merlino and Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton have given their strongest indications yet that pupils would be back at schools in term four.
Mr Merlino told the pandemic response inquiry he was “confident that our schools will return to face-to-face teaching in term four”.
“I’m confident based on … the continuing downward trend in community transmission and the positive cases in the community,” he said.
But the date of a return would depend on advice from Prof Sutton.
“We’ll make decisions over the course of the next days and weeks as we head towards school holidays and then the resumption of term four in terms of what that means for our children and our education workforce,” Mr Merlino said.
Prof Sutton echoed the sentiment, saying “we are going in the right direction” for a return to school.
However, he flagged precautions such as staggered start times to remain in place long term.
Education figures gave evidence on the impact of remote learning at a Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) hearing evidence on Tuesday.
It heard scathing reports of the experience of students with disabilities and their families, including a case where a mother seeking school access for her son was threatened with a call to child protection.
AMAZE chief executive Fiona Sharkie said ministerial directions that a student with a disability living in extreme stress could access school was too subjective, and was applied without consistency.
“We had a parent that was told by their school the only reason her child could go to school was if he was unsafe to be with her and the school was quite happy to report that to child protection if that was the case,” said the boss of the organisation for people with autism.
Ms Sharkie said “the silence was deafening around the lack of specific curriculum (and) specific adjustments” for students with disabilities and there were “hairline cracks in a system that became cavernous under the earthquake that is COVID”.
“What we found (was) that COVID has really highlighted and reemphisised the general lack of successful inclusive practice for students with disabilities into schools,” she said.
Along with Association for Children with Disability chief executive Karen Dimmock, they called for a series of changes, including to enable education support staff into childrens’ homes, particularly those with the highest support need.
“Students at levels five and six funding — that’s the highest level of funding — they receive one-on-one support all day at school because that is what they require to access education,” Ms Dimmock said.
“That support actually needs to be provided in the home
“Some of those children will be among the last to return (to school) because they are medically vulnerable as well and that support cannot be replaced by something like Zoom.”
Meanwhile, principals’ association presidents confirmed they raised concerns with the Department of Education over contact tracing delays of up to two weeks in schools.
Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals Sue Bell said going into term four, “we have to know that we have some certainty that process will happen very quickly”.
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