Shalom! Peace Greetings! We are praying for the peace and protection that only God can provide during these challenging times.
The situation
As you all know, the COVID-19 global pandemic along with several health and safety precautions implemented by the government have greatly impacted school activities. This, however, allowed us the opportunity to explore alternative means to education.
The private schools in the division of Pasig City, under the leadership of our Department of Education (DepEd) Division superintendent, together with supervisors from the School Governance and Operations Division had a zoom meeting last Tuesday, 26 May 2020 in order to discuss some of the more pressing issues that schools might face as this pandemic continues as well as our way-forward steps in ensuring the ongoing delivery of education.
Our Response
Since the onset of the pandemic, we have been seeking possible platforms, attending various webinars, and focusing our efforts to ensure the best possible adoption of online distance learning approaches. This approach, while appropriate for our present circumstance, presents us with new challenges. Since our philosophy advocates interactive and experiential learning through socialization in order to maximize a student’s potential and limit the use of electronic gadgets as the overall learning tool, we found ourselves conflicted. However, our desire to provide our students with a safe learning environment as well as our dedication to continuous learning have allowed us to consider this online medium, if not momentarily.
Online Classes
Recently, we have had several meetings related to online learning. We will be adopting an online distance learning approach for as long as this pandemic poses a threat to the health and safety of our students. Through the use of pre-recorded videos with supplementary worksheets, online assessments, and video conferencing tools we have begun to adjust our lessons to better accommodate this “new normal” we find ourselves in. The decision to go with a “learn at your own pace” model was to make sure that our students will not spend long hours in front of the screen. We shall also have a regular schedule for students to interact with the teachers and help address any learning challenges they may be facing through video conferencing platforms such as Zoom.
Parents Training and Class Size changes
To ensure that the individual needs of every student are met, we will only be assigning eight (8) students per teacher. Our lessons shall also require the participation of the parents to reinforce learning. In order to do that, each lesson shall contain a section where instructions shall be given to the parents in order supplement the learning objectives. We are also preparing a training video to help parents understand their role in helping us educate their child.
Communication
Communication is very important, even more so for online learning. We shall be providing our parents with updates as often as we can through text message. We shall also be posting majority of our announcements and notices on our official social media pages so please follow us on social media and turn on notifications. We shall also be sending text blasts to make sure you are notified when we make an announcement.
Safety precautions
Once it is declared safe for students to continue learning within the four corners of the classroom, we have prepared a comprehensive disinfection and environmental safety procedure and we will ensure our classroom and facilities shall observe proper social distancing measures.
Education never stops, it evolves
In light of all of this, we are proud to open our Online Enrollment for S.Y. 2020-2021 from 1 June 2020 until 31 July 2020.
We will also schedule our Online Parents Orientation on Friday, 14 August 2020followed by the Online Learning Training Session on Saturday, 15 August 2020.
We are praying for your support and trust as we continue to partner with each other in the continued development and education of your children. We hope that this message helped shed some light on the direction of the school and assured you of our dedication in giving not only you, but also your children the best we can offer.
For inquiries feel free to contact us through telephone at 02 7964-5327 (from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Monday to Friday only) or mobile phone: 0917-513-8601 (Globe). You can also reach us through any of our official social media pages.
We are very excited to share this experience with you. We also have a lot of improvements coming soon, so we hope you are just as excited as we are.
Together, let us keep shining for Jesus!