Principals Report
I hope everyone has had a good holiday break, our students mostly came back in the first week with a few exceptions still at home, and this number has improved since. We are looking forward to the term and steadily getting back to the core programs we run that had been disrupted by the attendance fluctuations associated with the present pandemic. Teachers had developed their programs at the end of last term and have continued to adapt them to the changing situation – a lot of work has gone into these preparations and I thank them for these enormous efforts that they have put in.
We welcome two staff to our school this term. Jacqui Schulz has arrived to take on Indonesian and Performing Arts. She will be teaching Indonesian from a cultural perspective with some language input as well. Jacqui is also teaching Performing Arts with a focus on Dance and Drama to our F – 2, Year 3 – 5 and Year 6 – 9 classes. With our production of the Lion King to hopefully occur this year, (which now is looking more likely with the changing COVID situation) more of the curriculum time here will go into this production as the year goes on. Our other new teacher is Kate Retelsdorf, who is teaching Instrumental Music on Mondays. Kate’s area of teaching will be with the flute, clarinet and saxophone, with an ensemble lesson also every three weeks for our students.
The significance for students and staff is that the features of Office 365 and Teams are now well within our reach, at school and at home. At the end of last term and the start of this one, students have become familiar with this environment and other software also and with further professional learning staff will have the opportunity to assist our students to use these apps even further. These apps are also available to
students at home on any computer. By logging into Office.com students can install the complete Office 2019 suite on any computer, iPad, tablet, laptop, desktop or mobile phone. This will allow for increased flexibility for students to go into their work at home or simply to share what they are doing at school with their parents. The apps in the Office 365 suite will provide students with tools in a wide range of areas, from basic word processing, working with data and spreadsheets, audio visual presentations, video editing, collaboration and sharing activities, website construction and video conferencing.
For any student who does not have the latest Office suite on their computer at home, all they need to do is to login to Office.com with their Learnlink username and password (no www. required!) and click on the Install Office option shown above. I would encourage this to happen where possible, each student in fact has the capacity to install this suite on five different devices.
As always I can be contacted at the school on 86484003 or by my email daren.oneill253@schools.sa.edu.au .