Interesting title given Covid-19, but in Perth the impact has been comparably minor to other cities. Currently sitting here with no voice after some boisterous lessons to finish the year, as a teacher it's not unusual to get sick straight after school finishes and the adreniline wears off.
The year ended with classes known, classlists making sense and reports able to be explained. Students were now able to be ranked and streams able to be examined and modified as required.
New programmes are being rolled out to teach and assess Number and Algebra throughout the year, rather than just in Semester 1, a significant difference on existing programmes.
Pathways are now able to be communicated to parents, now that grades provide the reasoning for moving students. If you are a C/D student in Pathway 2, this leads to Essentials in Year 11 and TAFE or employment after school. If you wish to change this, seek promotion by talking through what this means to your teacher. Although promotional points have been moved to twice yearly (more than the four time yearly done this year and possibly beyond any "inspired" period able to be maintained by a student), it is able to be communicated to parents.
Using Connect to do this on day one will be great, with letters already written and approved by Admin.
I've watched teachers start to understand what has been done so far, how it connects with the business plan and an evidence based approach and the path forward. Progress in a school is glacial and requires patience, outside of young staff it is rare to find colleagues that do change well.
Given that much of this was done in the last four weeks while wrapping up classes, it's not that surprising I'm a bit rundown. Bring on the holidays and the rejuvenation to do the planning required to support SEN classes with large numbers of students on the NCCD list, create the videos required to support a new push in Year 10 to raise the ATAR participation rate and ensure that students that start Methods 11 navigate Semester 1 hell of a packed course and get into Calculus in Semester 2.
Get stuffed 2020, bring on 2021.