Week 8

Dear Parents,
We have all (parents, students and teachers) worked very hard to make this lockdown time a happy and fruitful time for all our kids, as free from anxiety as possible.  But we are, as always, open to the possibility of doing something different.
As you are aware, we are trialing our face-to-face ‘live teaching sessions’ and we will be starting this on Thursday, 14th May and/or Friday 15th May.  The following week will be Three Way Conferences, we will not have ‘live teaching sessions during this week, but will resume our live teaching sessions during the week of 25th-29th May.  
The live teaching sessions will be an opportunity for students to interact with a teacher, where possible, in small groups.  Please do not confuse this letter with the Three Way Conferences. For the sessions, we will be using Google Meet, which most parents have used during their recent Virtual Care Calls.
So how will ‘live teaching sessions’ work?
Each division will send out sign-up times for the ‘live teaching’ sessions based on what we have been doing already, timings will look different depending on the division.
For Nursery and JKG we will have a 20 minute live singalong with the Music team on Thursday 14th May (an invite has been sent to parents).  On Friday 15th May, Nursery and JKG will have a ‘live teaching session’ with their point of contact teacher; please sign up for a time-slot; your point of contact teachers will send you the sign up sheet on Wednesday 13th May 2020  Children will be in small groups.
For SKG, we will have ‘live teaching sessions’ on both Thursday 14th and Friday 15th May.  Parents, please sign up for a time-slot; your point of contact teachers will send you the sign up sheet on Tuesday 12th May. Children will be in small groups.  On Thursday 14th, SKG children are also invited to a ‘singalong’ with the Music department from 12:00-12:20.
For Grades 1-3, we will have ‘live teaching sessions’ on both Thursday 14th and Friday 15th May.  Parents, please sign up for a time-slot; your home room teachers will send you the sign up sheet on Tuesday 12th May.  We will also schedule Hindi, Spanish and French during the week of 25th-29th May and these language sessions will involve the whole class.
 Our Grade 4 and 5 students have already had daily opportunities to connect with their teacher.  
For Grade 4, we have increased the amount of ‘live-teaching sessions’ and these will run on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday between 12:45 and 3pm.  Your child already has an assigned time and is expected to attend each of these sessions. We will also be adding a Spanish and Hindi slot for Grade 4 during the week of 25th-29th May. Your homeroom teachers will send you the times for Spanish and Hindi.
Our Grade 5 learners are deep into their inquiries for the PYP Virtual Exhibition, so we don’t want to take away too much time for their already planned interviews, sessions with the HRTs and sessions with their guide or mentor.  In addition to the many things that Grade 5 are exploring we have added a scheduled Spanish and Hindi session for the whole class.
Please be aware that, according to our official, Board-ratified, child safeguarding policy, children are not permitted to engage online in real time with an adult unless one of their parents is present.  During the entire session, the teacher must be able to see (hopefully in the background) one parent for every child present.
Because this is a trial, teachers will be measuring key variables to help us assess its viability. Parent feedback will also be valuable, so feel free to pass that along to either the teacher or Miss Lisa.
We recognise that some families have got into a routine or rhythm and are working on a flexible schedule and are happy to continue with an element of flexibility to their day, we are happy to support parents who wish to not join the live session; just let your teacher know.  
We will trial these sessions again during the week of May 25th-29th and parents will be sent invites or sign-up sheets before this week.  The session may be recorded, with parent permission an we will not be changing the times.
We ask that your child:

• is on time for your sessions
  
• is with an adult (in the vicinity of the call)
  
• does not bring food to the session and if water is needed place it far away from the device
  
• turn mics off and cameras on, until the teacher invites you to speak
  
• does not request the teacher to solve technical difficulties. If you have any technical difficulties, please email the tech team
  
• needs to raise their hand and the teacher will address you
  
• does not enable the captions tab on Google Meet.
  

Please be patient with us as we work through this period of change,

Your sincerely,

Miss Lisa