On the advice of the Victorian Chief Health Officer, the CECV advises that all Victorian Catholic schools are required to transition to remote and flexible learning arrangements for Term 2.

This means that, from the start of Term 2, all students who can learn from home must learn at home.

Exceptions to this will include students in the following categories:

Children who are not able to be supervised at home and on days when no other arrangements can be made. This includes children of parents who cannot work from home, and vulnerable children, such as:

• children in out-of-home care
• children deemed by Child Protection and/or Family Services to be at risk of harm
• children identified by the school as vulnerable (including via referral from a family violence agency, homelessness or youth justice service, mental health or other health service, and children with a disability).

Provision for Students Learning Onsite at St John’s Regional College (SJRC)

The learning program delivered onsite will be the same as the learning program delivered to students undertaking remote learning.

Students attending onsite will be required to wear school uniform and be supervised by staff with either a current Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registration or Education Support Officers with a Working with Children Check.

Physical distancing will be implemented in each classroom applying a ratio of 1 supervisor to 8 students.

Note: Unwell students will be excluded from attending.

Provision of Student Learning at Home

Parents or carers are responsible for students’ general safety at home or elsewhere.

Teaching and support staff will be available to Parents, Guardians and Students via direct messaging on SEQTA from 8.50am to 3.20pm. Staff will not be available beyond these hours and will respond to all messages received during the working week within 48 hours.

Students will receive an Online Learning Guide that will include instructions for how to access their learning in SEQTA and will provide an outline of expectations.

Parents and Guardians will be provided with an outline of our SEQTA Online Learning Program this week, detailing student access to learning materials, calendar of expected work tasks and processes for teacher’s feedback.

As a guide for parents the Catholic Education Commission has provided the following overview of a minimum daily program for Year 7 – 10 secondary school students:

• literacy: 45–60
• minutes o numeracy: 30–45 minutes
• physical activities: 30 minutes
• additional curriculum areas: 90 minutes

For students in the senior secondary years, teachers will provide learning resources and tasks that enable students to develop and demonstrate the learning outcomes defined in the relevant VCE study designs and VCAL strands.

I advise all students, parents and guardians to become familiar with our schools e-safety policies and procedures found on SEQTA.

Access to teaching and learning resources for students at home

St John’s Regional College is responding to each family directly that indicated that their children do not have access to digital technologies at home. The CECV is examining with Telstra ways to provide network access for students who may not be able to connect at home. Where it is not possible for students to have any digital access or in the event of an internet outage, we will provide hard copies of learning resources. Please contact St John’s Administration on 8793 2000 when this situation arises.

Schools Buses

I advise our families that the St John’s School Bus Charter will not run during Term 2. Bus services operated by Public Transport Victoria will continue to run. For more information go to https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/

The transition to online learning for Term 2 is a new experience for us all and we are going to learn a lot over the coming weeks. I ask that you take the time to engage with our SEQTA Learning Management System where all student learning, assessment and teacher feedback will be located. Particularly take advantage of the Direct Messaging process which will allow you to contact each teacher directly in regards to student progress.

If you have any queries or concerns, please contact the College directly on 8793 2000.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hogan
Principal