Dear Parents and Boys,

Online Learning for Prep and Senior Boys commencing Monday June 1^st

The Vice Principal has coordinated and prepared with Heads of School our online schooling for the month of June preceding our anticipated re-opening on Thursday August 6^th. All learning material will be available in Google Classroom from Monday June 1^st, access to which requires each boy to have a Gmail address registered via the Portal. Invitations to join Google Classroom will be sent to these addresses over the next few days. Our approach to this in general will be to combine pre-recorded lectures or lessons with supportive materials and working tasks, along with a once a week online face-to-face classroom session. This approach demands a high degree of maturity and organisation on the part of boys to get the best from the program. The online phase of schooling will continue up to Friday July 3. Admissions take place shortly thereafter and teachers will need time to fully prepare for the 2020-21 academic year, taking into account that many have had ample tasks already in establishing assessed grades. We are also cognizant of the fact that boys have been working for some time since the closure. More information regarding junior boys will be posted shortly.

Google Classroom will be used by all three schools to share pre-recorded lessons on a weekly basis to introduce topics, explain new concepts and provide guidance regarding the work set. PowerPoint slides, notes, worksheets, solutions, quizzes, links and other material will continue to be uploaded.

Boys in the Prep and Senior Schools will be expected to complete tests and assignments, and submit them via Google Classroom. They will also be able to submit written questions that their teachers will answer online directly and as part of weekly live sessions.

Each subject in the Prep and Senior Schools will conduct a one hour live session each week on Google Meet. Access to these sessions will also require a registered Gmail address. The typical format for these sessions will be ten to fifteen minutes for the teacher to respond to the previous week’s queries from students, ten to fifteen minutes for a presentation and twenty minutes for questions and answers. Boys must conduct themselves according to the rules available on the Portal, and those who fail to do so will not be allowed to participate further. Please read these rules. Only students are permitted in the online classroom.

Instructions regarding participation in Google Classroom and Google Meet together with timetables for the live sessions will be available on the Portal. These will also be shared via registered Gmail addresses. Our Academic office and Heads of School will be monitoring for quality control in the delivery of lessons and all academic tasks.

No system can match the quality of a school classroom and natural interaction, but we must now begin to prepare boys for the next phase of schooling before their anticipated return to campus. I will be advising parents shortly about procedures to be put in place to maximise health and safety before boys return.

Warm wishes,

Michael Thomson M.A., Dip. Ed., M.A.C.E
Principal