Dressed for success, Sirius College kids celebrate 100 days of learning
Foundation (Prep) students donned their best golden oldie get-ups as a symbol of their wisdom, having completed 100 days of learning.
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A cornerstone of the curriculum, Foundation teacher Tracy Jaap signalled the occasion as a red-letter day in what has been a challenging, COVID-19 interrupted school year.
“This is just to celebrate the students are all 100 days smarter,” she said.
“I am really proud of the students here, the growth and development I’ve seen in that time, particularly in spite of the challenging time this year with COVID-19.
“They have seemed to rise above it.”
It could have been a case of one, two, skip a few, 99-100.
But Mrs Jaap was not prepared to drop the ball.
Set a task with two Zoom sessions a day during remote learning, students soldiered on to ensure no progress was lost during COVID-19 lockdown.
“I must admit I worked really hard on the positive relationships that I still have with the students when we were in remote learning time, knowing that could have been a big issue.
“But you wouldn’t have known, the kids came back and took off from where we were before.”
As expected, the little learners thrived with the hands-on aspects of their education.
Artistic activities and obstacle courses, paired with a new phonics program, proved a great way to engage the children, according to Mrs Jaap.
“They enjoyed a lot of the specialist subjects. With math we are quite hands on, using counters and bead frames,” she said.
“We’ve brought in a PMP (perceptual motor program), where they’re learning concepts such as over-under and through-around; they really love the sporting type things,” she said.
“The idea of the PMP is looking at the gross motor development for the kids; hand-eye coordination, balance, even eye tracking to do with focusing on things as well.”
Though challenging, Mrs Jaap was immensely proud of students and parents alike for pushing through on their march to the milestone.
“I couldn’t praise the parents and the community enough for the effort they put in with the students.
“Most of the parents were there with the kids through those Zoom sessions, asking questions and obviously working with the students to get all their learning tasks done.
“I was really so proud of community there, the parents just stepped up and did what they had to do to support their children which is wonderful.”
Since the News visited Sirius College last week, all Victorian school children have returned to remote learning under stage three coronavirus restrictions imposed on regional Victoria.