The following pages have been adapted from articles sent home through the schools newsletter ‘Informer’ and provide some tips for you and your child to not just survive, but thrive in this new on-line learning environment.

What should online learning look like? 

Online learning should use consistent pedagogy and programs as your face-to-face classroom delivery, where possible. The best way we can support our students and parents is by aiming to continue utilising what they are already familiar with; albeit modified to suit an online environment. 

Queensland University of Technology expert on home education, Rebecca English, said one of the most important things for people to get their head around was how much home education differed from classroom education.

“At home, it’s really different from being at school. It doesn’t look like school, it doesn’t act like school,” she said. “And that’s because so much of school teaching involves big groups of students.”  Dr English said there would be struggles adjusting to the idea of home as a place for schooling.  “We’re all really used to outsourcing our learning for our children to schools,” she said.  “It’s a real mind shift to come home and think, ‘OK, we are learning at home now’.”

St John’s teachers will start the day with a video chat.  It will either be live (using an application called ‘Zoom’) or posted to each student using Seesaw.  They will provide (by email or Teams) an outline of the day’s activities, with the goals, instructions and assessment tasks clearly listed as well as suggested times for lessons, but as already mentioned, teachers plan for bigger classes, so try to get your child to do their best work not rush through it to get it finished. Remember in a one on one situation, your child may finish their work much more quickly.  Many of our parents have said that their children’s work is finished by lunchtime.  That’s OK!  They/you can help with farm or other work in the afternoon!

One tip to keep in mind is that keeping a routine is important.  Waking up, having breakfast and getting ready for school will be the same.  If putting on the school uniform helps your child get in the mindset of school, then do it.  Don’t let them stay in their pyjamas all day, remember it is a school day!  Having breaks for recess and lunchtime should be adhered to.  Recess and lunchtimes are good opportunities to go to the toilet, have a stretch and a bit of exercise so they can have a bit of a ‘brain break’.  Don’t let them watch tv.  They wouldn’t do this at school in their recess and lunch breaks. Instead, let them have a run around outside if at all possible. 

Sample Daily Schedule

Suggested Free Resources

LEXILES – Students now can access Lexile books online through

https://slz04.scholasticlearningzone.com/slz-portal/#/login2/AUS/en

Type the Code (37FW) and continue the same way as they access lexile quizzes.  They should know their username and password.

Students will now see 2 icons –

Literacy Pro Library has lexile books and quizzes for each student on the program as allocated by their classroom teacher.  After selecting and reading a book, students can then take their online quiz.

SA Government: 

www.education.sa.gov.au/our-learning-sa

• iMaths – Suitable for ALL students
• Investigation pintables and weblinks
• For Foundation to Year 3 students there are printable student pages for each topic
• Printable pages for mental computation strategies
• Short videos and accompanied student pages for 10 different problem solving strategies (could set one per week)
• Selection of online learning games

Epic! 

• Suitable for ALL year levels in particular students who have completed PM readers
• As we will not be allowing students to borrow books from the school library, it is important that we encourage all students to continue reading. This is a platform that will enable us to do this. 
• Online library of thousands of popular children’s books and novels
• Sign up for free teacher account
• Allow students to select their own books to read or assign a book to students or whole class
• Includes comics, read-to-me books, videos and audiobooks
• Create quizzes for students to complete as they read the book
• Epic are offering remote access free for all students free until June. Requires sending an invite to parent email and having them sign up on their child’s behalf

Inquisitive 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• All teachers have a paid subscription
• Features interactive units of work linked to HASS
• Useful for continued teaching of current and new units of inquiry 

SPELD

Families can access SPELD readers here: https://speld-sa.org.au/services/phonic-books.html

free access and they are not just for little ones

Primary Maths Association

Your membership number is PMA2276.

We also have a number of resources online which are available ONLY to members. There are usually items that are useful to teachers and leaders in their daily work. To access these, please go to the website primarymathematicssa.com and click on the Resources Tab. Enter the member password which is 2020MathsSAPub

Teach Starter 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• Access to over 140,000 teaching resources across all curriculum areas
• Currently offering all teachers free access to a ‘teach starter plus’ account providing one month free access. Valid until 31^st
• Learning from Home – school closure packs for each year level. PDF files with 80-100 pages of resources covering all curriculum areas. 
• Mindfulness resource packs.

Twinkl 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• Access to over 500,000 teaching resources across all curriculum areas
• Currently offering all teachers free access to a ‘twinkl ultimate account providing one month free access. Go to twinkl.co.uk and use code AUSTRCODE.
• Learning from home packs for each year level.

BTN – Behind the News 

• Suitable for Year 4-6
• Accessed online
• Each week they release a new episode of ‘kid friendly news’ with associated teaching resources (questions and tasks for students to complete)
• Short feature articles posted regularly 

Little Scribe 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• Offering free access for all teachers to their range of resources, specifically for teaching reading and writing
• Includes writing prompts, online student response and teacher feedback, videos, activities and PDF resources
• Author studies featuring popular Australian authors
• Create free account 

Read, Think, Write 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• Website created by National Literacy Association with range of free resources for teachers
• Literacy unit plans and activities 

Scholastic Teachables 

• Register for free access
• Range of articles and activities for students to complete

Common Lit 

• Suitable for Years 3-6
• Sign up for free access
• Free collection of reading passages in all literary and non-fiction genres for grades 3-12. 
• Passages come with text-dependent questions which help you track student progress.

Common Sense Education 

• Suitable for ALL year levels
• Lessons and online games/activities for teaching Digital Citizenship
• Library of teacher created lesson plans with ideas for integrating technology and app based learning

Jumpstart 

• Suitable for Years F-5
• Pintables and great ideas for hands on learning activities

Storyline Online 

• Suitable for Years F-3
• Features videos of guest authors reading aloud with accompanying teacher notes/activities