Dear Parents and Caregivers,

As we enter into our first week of Remote Learning, I wanted to provide you with some support information about helping the students stay safe online and how to talk to your children about what is happening in relation to the Covid 19 virus. 

The e-Safety Commissioner has produced a booklet called the Covid-19 Global online safety advice for parents and carers. “Even if you are at home together, it is not possible to monitor your child’s online activities every second of the day.It is important to talk to them about online safety issues to help develop their critical thinking and ability to make good choices.” e-Safety Commission.

This booklet covers important issues such checking the parental control on the devices being used by the students, designing a family friendly technology agreement,and ten tips to help keep your child safe online and much more. It can be downloaded at the following site:

https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/covid-19/advice-parents-carers

The Catholic Education Office Melbourne has provided some parent information, via the Wellbeing site, from School TV, both videos have been presented by Michael Carr Gregg Child and adolescent Psychologist. The first video provides 11 tips for talking to the students about the virus in a positive way. The video is to help parents assist their children to feel informed with evidence based information that will be more reassuring than what they may have heard from their friends and snippets from the news.

Site: https://schooltv.me/wellbeing_news/special-report-coronavirus

The second video is focussed on preparing for Remote Learning. We are all heading into uncharted territory and it is important to remember to just do your best to balance remote learning and daily work responsibilities. Taking time out to have a break is essential for everyone. Make the break times a chance for all the family to enjoy. Make a brain break jar where everyone gets to write down activities they would like to do for 5-10 minutes eg: dance to a video, do some Yoga, count how many star jumps everyone can do in 30 seconds. Each break time, take turns to pull an idea out of the jar and complete the task before returning to work. To watch the video head to the following site:

https://schooltv.me/wellbeing_news/special-report-preparing-homeschooling

School TV has various information videos that you might also find useful over the coming weeks. Please continue to take care of each other and let your child’s classroom teacher know how they are going, when they make contact over the next few weeks. It’s important that everyone feels supported in this uncertain time and that we look out for each other.

Kind regards,

Maree Hills