26 Jul 2021
It is an honour and privilege to take over the reigns of leading Strathfield Girls High School while our wonderful Principal, Angela Lyris is off doing great things in the Port Jackson network. She will be missed at our school and we wish her well over the next few weeks. The Executive Leadership Team at our school is ready to keep the school flag flying high.
From Sat 17 July and extended to Friday 30 July, NSW had updated health advice for Greater Sydney with stay at home orders. Although schools are open, parents must keep children – across primary and secondary school – at home unless they need to be at school.
NSW Health regularly updates its advice and all families are encouraged to monitor the NSW Government's latest COVID19 Updates, including locations where there may have been exposure to COVID-19. We urge our families to adhere to the advice as appropriate as nothing is more important than our collective response in keeping everyone in our communities healthy and safe. We will also provide additional updates as the current situation evolves.
Once again, I would like to commend our teachers and support staff for their commitment to maintaining the continuity of learning for all our students in a surreal remote learning environment. We have had another very successful teaching and learning week and our contact with parents and students has resulted in very positive and valued feedback. Over 1100 students and parents were contacted this week to determine the success of our delivery of lessons and to check on the wellbeing of our girls. Both students and parents were very appreciative of the phone calls and checks, not only by our office staff, but also, their teachers, Head Teachers, Year Advisers and Deputy Principals.
I encourage parents to continue to monitor and keep their daughters engaged in their learning, but also to ensure that they are not spending long hours after 3.30 pm on their devices.
In Week 3, remote online learning will continue for all students from Year 7 to Year 12. All students are expected to log on to their online platforms as per usual/normal timetable. I stress that this is very important for roll marking purposes (taken in the first 10 minutes of each period) and to enable contact with teachers, as well as engage with the learning material.
Year 7 has transitioned to normal lessons in English, Maths and Science this week as, with the lockdown continuing until 30 July, we decided it was very important to begin transitioning them to operating on their normal timetable. The school will continue with this model, supplementing Year 7 work with literacy and numeracy tasks, as well as their video reflection task.
The wellbeing of our girls during these challenging times is very important and I take this opportunity to remind you of our 100-Point Wellbeing Challenge, posted on Year Adviser platforms and Vitae online platforms. Please encourage your daughters to complete these activities to stay healthy, connected and engaged.
The school had planned to send out a timetable for students to collect items (textbooks, equipment, exam papers etc) from school, however, in the current stay-home COVID situation this cannot happen as scheduled in the next 2 weeks. We were very sorry to have had to cancel the Year 11 collection day this week.
Some parents have requested additional work for their daughters. Teachers are completing the required work for each 1 hour lesson that students would have completed in class. This entire remote learning situation in the backdrop of a very intense COVID 19 global pandemic is very stressful for young people and we are very mindful of the wellbeing of our students. I have pasted some guidelines from the Department of Education which outlines the time students need to be spending on learning while at home.
The school day is from 8.45 – 3.15 and thereafter, please ensure that your daughter is taking a complete break from devices and reading. Encourage her to take a walk, exercise or just relax. Teachers are also not expected to respond to student queries outside of these hours, however will get b ack to the student in working hours. I thank teachers for working beyond these expectations.
