UJEB’S CORONAVIRUS UPDATE AND POLICY
The health & safety of our students, staff and their families remains UJEB’s number 1 priority. The situation regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to develop rapidly and with some complexity, so we wanted to provide you with this latest update.
ELearning – Teaching will be Zooming forward in term 2:
UJEB is ready for Term 2! In the event that UJEB is not permitted to run classes at schools, UJEB is ready to commence the delivery of student learning via online platforms in Term 2.
Now, more than ever, we need to show our children what is important and what we value. We need to teach our children that we value Jewish Education and that this is important. We need to continue a commitment to community and culture. In these unsettling times children will benefit from routine and be comforted by continuing to learn and to connect with their teachers and friends.
Start Date for UJEB classes in term 2:
All UJEB classes will start in the week beginning Monday April 20. This is the 2nd week of the school term. We are unable to start in the 1st week as there is too much disruption scheduled due to the alignment of the Jewish and Australian calendars; Monday (10 April) is a public holiday and Wednesday and Thursday (12&13 April) are Jewish holidays for the final days of Pesach.
Exceptions
Lunchtime classes are cancelled until further notice. Our lunchtime students will be given the option of joining our before school Zoom classes with students from another school. Further information will be sent to Lunchtime parents.
For Prep students, classes that are due to start in Term 2 (CSPS and GPS only) will be postponed to Term 3. All Prep registrations will be transferred to Term 3.
E-learning
We will be continuing classes using Zoom, an online conferencing platform now widely used for remote teaching. Zoom allows us to continue teaching in the style the students are used to and with the least amount of set-up required by parents. It has some simple features that will be helpful in our teaching, namely the sharing of a whiteboard and screens so the teacher can model and demonstrate, while teaching. HIP Gardenvale has already successfully piloted Zoom lessons and we are looking forward to spending the school holidays upskilling all UJEB teachers to be ready to teach using the Zoom online platform.
To prevent interference with schools’ online teaching, all UJEB classes will maintain their current schedule and timetables.
More information will be communicated prior to the commencement of Term 2.
Emotional Wellbeing:
Further to the UNICEF guide we sent earlier on how to talk to kids about COVID-19, here are some further resources to help children and families;
https://www.health.gov.au/resources/collections/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-resources
https://parentsvictoria.asn.au/m.au/resources/supporting-children-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/
https://childmind.org/article/talking-to-kids-about-the-coronavirus/
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/guide/a31898899/how-to-talk-to-children-about-coronavirus/
Contacts:
- Call the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Health Information Line if you seek information on novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week 1800 020 080
- Call the Healthdirect Hotline to speak to a registered nurse about your health concerns, 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week 1800 022 222
We will continue to provide additional updates if and when any further changes come to hand.