Dear colleagues,
Welcome to the first full week. Once again, we would like to congratulate you all on making the first couple of days of school run smoothly and making learning meaningful in class. What struck us at one point, was that we haven’t really had school in operation for over six months. We may be experiencing a certain level of shock to our system and mind, which is truly understandable. I was able to drop into a few classes during the virtual listening conferences and observed very professional, warm, and positive relationship building. This week starts with day 3 and on Wednesday we will look ahead to plan for Extended Learning and our virtual BTSN.
By the way, the duty roster is still under review and will be announced this week. Hence, we need some help with everyone until further notice.
After receiving many great ideas and questions for clarification, we felt that we could try out many of the suggestions and clarify some practices starting tomorrow, Monday 24 August onwards.
New practices:
Trying the ELAC MPR for snacks and lunch and two additional tables will be placed in the room.
Gr 1 - 5 Switching snack and recess
10:15 Snack- supervised by classroom teachers
10:30 Recess supervised by faculty on duty
Gr 4 will use the west side door for entering the building after recesses and utilize the hand sanitizer at the door.
Lunch/snack containers are left in the grade level baskets by Gr 3, 4, and 5 to avoid going upstairs before recesses. Grades 1 and 2 will maintain their current practice, i.e. bringing their lunch boxes to their bags/classroom
Shoe relief - it is not compulsory for students to change shoes, however, students must have appropriate shoes for PE, and students should be allowed to change shoes if they wish so. Students must have clean shoes when entering classrooms/learning spaces.
Water bottles must be with students at all times as the water fountains can be only used for filling up bottles.
Both teachers and students must wear masks at all times particularly when moving in the cafeteria and when entering the building from recesses. Naturally, when eating and drinking masks can be removed.
Everyone must use hand sanitizers at entry and exit learning spaces, and the playground. Using the hand sanitizers during the lessons/playtime is optional and with teacher discretion.
It has been great to have plenty of extra hands in the mornings, we would imagine that gradually, this week, we can move to the original plan:
Nurse: for Entry Card (blue card) and follow-up temperature checks at each of the entrances
LSI/LSA checking thermometer camera at each of the entrances
ES Leadership Team member at each of the entrances
Students who do not have the Entry Card (blue card), maybe late for class. They will have to wait until 8:30 when the nurse can check their temperature and then make a phone call to a parent to go through the information questioned on the Entry Card.
For later consideration we are looking for further data and guidance:
Grade 5 entry after lunch - depending on the cleaning staff’s schedule
Teaching with mask and giving brief instructions (like phonetic sounds) without a mask (i.e. protected by the acrylic divider and keeping distance)
How to systematically sanitize and recycle material to prevent spreading virus via material
Let’s have a great week!
Riana, Trevor, and Heikki
Duties
This Week's Schedule: Master Schedule 20-21
Professional Learning:
Please note that in order to qualify for Professional Development, you must always apply through the CA PD
application form found on KissFlow. Applications must be submitted no later than 10 days before the registration deadline. For further information on 'How to apply for PD - click here'.
IB PD 19-20: Here is the IB PD booklet. Here is their search to find the workshops.
Check emails from Renee for other online PD opportunities
N.B. All PD information posted on Blogger is by default 'Personal PD' unless otherwise noted.
