Latest COVID-19 Updates
* Education Department COVID-19 Page
* Another DET link for tips to help teachers engage students learning at home
Helpful resources from the ABC
ABC Online has created some very useful resources for parents struggling to deal with COVID-19 and its impact on their children - and themselves.
From well-known parenting educator and author Maggie Dent:
- Facebook Video: Talking to kids about coronavirus
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Podcast: How to talk to kids about coronavirus and guide your family through it
'Short & Curly' kids ethics podcast
- Bonus episode all about COVID-19. Hosts Carl Smith and Matt Beard talk about the importance of cooperation during the pandemic, how social isolation is doing something for the greater good and looking at fun things you can do if you are home from school.
'Mindfully' podcast
- Mindfully, The ABC's mindfulness podcast is re-packaging some of the meditations they've released from previous series as part of a special series they're calling Corona Calm. The meditations cover everything from dealing with anxiety to one specifically for children. They're releasing one per week for the next 8 weeks. Here's the first one.
Update for VCE and VCAL students
The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has updated its advice for VCE and VCAL students.
The most recent update (24 March) update covers School-Assessed Coursework (SACs) and School-Assessed Tasks (SATs)
See the VCAA website for updates.
Learning from home resources
The Education Department now has a "Learning from home" web page with advice, tips and resources to help parents and carers support their child’s continuity of learning from home.
The page includes:
- How to support your child
- Student responsibilities during remote learning
- Setting up a learning environment
- Establishing routines and expectations
- Communicating with your child
- Advice for parents of children with additional needs
- Literacy and numeracy resources and tips
- Managing screen time and online safety
Update 26 March:
FUSE website
FUSE has been set up to support school and early childhood leaders, teachers, students, children and parents to access digital resources that can be used to support learning at home.
Resources include sets of self-directed learning activities that can be provided to students in the form of a Word document or as a printed workbook, and activities parents can do with younger children.
Go to FUSE "Learning from home" page.
School care and supervision programs
The Education Department has advised schools that they have a responsibility to provide care and supervision programs for certain groups of students for the rest of this week.
Those groups are:
- Primary school students and all students in specialist schools who are the children (or under the care) of essential services workers. Examples of essential services may include health, police, corrections and emergency services workers.
- Primary and secondary school students who are vulnerable, including children in out-of-home care, children deemed by Child Protection and/or Family Services to be at risk of harm or children identified by the school as vulnerable, including via referral from outside agencies
The Department has also advised schools to ask parents who are essential service workers if they require holiday program places for their children over the Term 1 holidays due to the State of Emergency, and to work with vulnerable children and their families/carers to establish if they will require a care and supervision program over the Term 1 holiday.
If you are a parent/carer of a student in one of those groups and you haven't been advised of care and supervision arrangements, contact your school.
If you're not able to get the information you need from the school, contact the Education Department or Parents Victoria.
See article in the Herald-Sun with comment from PV Executive Officer Gail McHardy.
School holidays start Tue 24 March
Today (23 March) is now the last day of Term 1. School holidays will start tomorrow. DET advises that school staff will use the next four days for planning and preparation for the likely transition to flexible and remote learning.
Speaking to The Age, PV Executive Officer Gail McHardy said school communities would need to ‘‘rise to the occasion and support each other’’.
See the official notification to schools from DET.
Read the article from The Age with PV comments.
Statement from the Victorian Premier
Media Release
Statement includes - "I will also inform National Cabinet that school holidays will be brought forward in Victoria, starting on Tuesday 24 March."
COVID-19 and schools
Two important updates have been released recently that parents might find useful:
- Statement from the Victorian Chief Health Officer (19 March) about why the decision has been made to keep schools open.
- Memo to schools (20 March) from Dr David Howes,Deputy Secretary, Schools and Regional Services. The memo covers attendance and social distancing at school. (The memo refers to an ‘earlier email’, which contained the communication from the Chief Health Officer mentioned above.)
Check the DET website for the latest updates
Coronavirus updates
The Department of Education and Training is updating its coronavirus advice frequently.
Check the latest on the DET website
Other useful information for parents
- Health Information & Resources - DHHS website
- Impact on VCE students - VCAA website
- School Sports - School Sport Victoria website
- Learning from Home - A learning portal is on the way.
If you are self-isolating you can use the Fuse website. - International Travel and School Excursions - Victoria’s Chief Health Officer has issued advice that overseas school excursions should cease, except to New Zealand and Canada.Based on this advice, any overseas school excursions should not proceed until further notice, except to New Zealand and Canada.
Why is the government not closing schools?
Why are most schools still open, when there are so many restrictions on gatherings in other places?
This article in today's Age goes through the arguments for and against, and explains why Australia's federal and state governments unanimously agree that schools should remain open for now.
