Dear Parents,
We pray that everyone is keeping safe and warm on this cold day. We would like to keep everyone updated around the opening of the school during the lockdown levels.
Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga announced last week that the country’s public schools would reopen for Grade 7 and Grade 12 students on 1 June 2020. We feel that the lives of our children and parents matter and schools should open only once it truly is safe for them. Until the world’s scientists come up with a plausible solution, we must treat the virus with absolute care. The number of infections will increase exponentially in the coming weeks and our region is considered a hot spot for COVID-19 infections.
As we are very fortunate to be able to operate on a syllabus which allows our students to be able to work successfully from home with teacher presence from online tools, we will not be reopening the school the 1st of June as we have limited student numbers in Grade 7 and Grade 12 at this time.
Our online medium has proved very successful and the students who are using this system is benefitting greatly as they are achieving their goals, and in some cases exceeding them.
We have also had numerous requests from concerned parents to keep operating in this manner at home until COVID-19 is curbed, thus we shall remain to work online with all the full complement of staff on duty. As the need arises, we will make arrangements to meet at the school premises to collect school-related material and stationery so that student can continue undisturbed. In some cases, we will also be available to deliver PACE books that were ordered, to your home address.
We encourage and appeal to students who are not yet using the online platform to contact us so that we can ensure that no precious time is lost any further. We have made available to our students the Microsoft Office 365 platform to use. This includes all of the applications available on Microsoft Office, including the Teams app that is available on all smart devices. Microsoft Teams have proven very efficient in the way we communicate with our students and is available to download for free on the app stores. It does not require a lot of data and I’m sure most, if not all students, have access to a smart device or cellphone.
If you need the login and password to your Microsoft credentials again, please let us know so that we can assist you in logging in as soon as possible.
We are able to order new PACE book when and as required, and with the help of our teachers, we are able to track the progress that the students are making and which books will be required to continue with schooling. Parents’ ongoing assistance with making sure that students maintain a high quality of work and honesty around tests has also been very valuable.
We will keep you abreast of any developments relating to changes in the COVID-19 situation.
Please contact us should you have any concerns or queries as we are available continuously during this period for schooling activities.
Regards,
Dirk Vermeulen
Principal
