Dear CSPS families and carers,
With one week of the holidays completed, I hope you have managed well with your family time at home, albeit family time with a bit of a difference. As much as I enjoy spending time at home and had planned on spending significant time these holidays doing some sorting out, I have found it’s quite a different matter when you are actually compelled to stay home as this takes away the autonomy and the distractions that we’re so used to having. I do hope you have managed to get your heads around this necessity and found some creative ways to manage as a family. I know this will present challenges for many, especially where there are some other stressful circumstances for some of our families at this time. I send my very best wishes to all and I know the staff join me in those wishes.
I have been thinking about the magnitude of this situation and the significant implications it will have for this period in history. I’d like to put out some ideas and challenges for our children so that when we return to school, we will create some special whole school memories in the form of a photographic, artistic, written and/or video tribute of this time when we all needed to be resilient.
So my challenge for our children is to record some of their feelings, thoughts, understandings and/or activities from this holiday period through to when we return to school.
Children may think about documenting activities when they demonstrated or symbolised some of the following:
Kindness/caring
Perseverance/commitment
Creativity
Confidence
Curiosity/inquiry
Appreciation or generosity
Empathy
Enthusiasm
Cooperation/assistance/teamwork
Mindfulness/thoughtfulness
Calmness/tranquility
Tolerance
Self-control
Health/fitness
I’m sure our children will be able to think of many other attitudes and character traits that could be written about or shown in artwork, photos or videos. This is by no means an expectation but for those who can and wish to contribute, we will put something together after this is all over.
Another challenge is for those who are learning to play an instrument to practise hard so that we may have a very special, high quality soiree when we return to school. Perhaps record the current standard and after additional practice, at the time of returning to school, record again to see the difference in skill and presentation.
The Internet does have some terrific ideas for activities for children now that we’re all stuck at home which I hope has been helpful.
I also hope the next week holds some enjoyable time for everyone as we get used to being creative and active home bodies and again, I send good wishes and luck to those whose circumstances are more trying at this time.The school email is being monitored if there is a need for contact during this extraordinary time.
I’ll send another message to everyone when I hear any information from the department, further to the current information that school resumes for children on Wednesday 15th April either at school or remotely.
Warm regards,
Gayle, Bianca and the CSPS staff