ISHCMC Secondary Catch up - October 2022
Carry-over from September 2022
Teacher Demeanor
Teachers look defeated. Teachers do not project energy of trying. Students are commenting about boredom. [This came up repeatedly from parents after Teacher-Parent Conferences –
that teachers look/act tired.]
It has been a busy term, and one of the longest on the calendar, and one of the first full terms back from COVID and we have a lot of new staff who have a steep learning curve.
But I think that staff are actually doing great. I go into classes and see well planned lessons, teacher and students laughing and working hard. Teachers are still signing up to coach season 2 sports, run clubs, support production, taking extra classes for DP students, planning camps and field trips, and if they pour all their energy into their students, they will be tired at times, we all are.
We would like to invite PTO to do a tour and visit some classes, come to briefing and have a coffee with teachers at break.
Communication
Extremely poor.
Suggestion for middle school years (6,7,8) to ease in going completely student comms by copying parents for news about sports tryouts, ASAs, etc.
Communicate the latest about the operations mishaps from the first weeks of school (to the parents!)
In SEQTA engage where the student notices are, all the information is available to parents. All the ASA information is in there for parents to see.
Everything that students get.
I also put all the student sports in my weekly update.
Would parents like a session on how to stay engaged? If we sent e-mails for every event then parents would be getting overloaded. Improve communication to parents when code of conducts are issued.
- This is in progress
Sport game schedules are not well posted; if pick-up games happen, improve on communication (e.g., teachers vs students).
I put all the game schedules on my updates
They are all in student notices on SEQTA
They are also on the Rhino hub
Visibility of Leadership
More meet the (team) leadership – get out there more.
Another question: On duty every morning and every lunch and coordinators are teaching.
I am probably the least visible but still circulate regularly.
Free Dress Days
Parents Please ensure that your child is correctly dressed when they leave
home.
Correct school uniform
Correct theme or school uniform for theme days
Appropriate no revealing or offensive clothing for free dress days
Ensure PE uniform is always brought for use in PE
Phone Usage
Agree upon a plan and communicate.
Agree on what the first, second, third/final offenses and consequences are.
In order to focus on teaching and learning, we can enforce the phone policy in classrooms.
Outside of classrooms we need a partnership with parents:
We need to also agree as a community on if we allow parents to send phones in with their children?
Are parents as purchases responsible for setting screen time restrictions?
If a parent calls their child at school what can PTO do to address this with parents?
October 2022
Teacher-Parent Conference
TIMING: Unhappy with 7 minutes. Several over-runs of time limits. New families may need more time.
ORGANIZATION: Schedule of teacher locations last-minute / not shared in time for appt bookings.
AVAILABILITY: Teachers have no slots available.
ATL REPORT: Sent with no time to review before conferences started.
MISSING: Teachers not in room for appointment – missed and late.
STUDENTS DAY OFF: Organization to repurpose the time?
G11 and G12: inconvenienced as well during their school time.
Just for reference we received every possible piece of feedback including contradictory pieces as people’s situations were different. i.e. Those who got appointments wanted more time, those who missed out wanted more slots (which equals a shorter time). To clarify how to best move forward we
have a survey for parents to complete. Can PTO please help to ask parents
to fill it in?
Survey will go out today.
Please also note that we moved the conferences from Tuesday – Wednesday to a Friday -Monday in order to support the Celebration of Cultures week (but that it seemed to work well on those days) and that the ATL’s were just one part of the feedback that was sent to parents. For those who attended on Friday it did make the timeline for digesting all the feedback shorter and we acknowledge that is not ideal.
Responding to Rumors
How can PTO help ISHCMC best respond to rumors?
This is tough as we don’t engage in rumors or gossip. Our preference is that if someone has a real issue to come to us with explicit information that we can act on. If there is nothing that is actionable, then we need PTO to help seek clear information or dispel rumors. We do background and reference
checks for all staff so if there are any issues with a staff member’s past then it has not turned up on their background check, reference checks, or teacher rumor mills.
Safeguarding
How are topics like sex, drugs, eating disorders being addressed?
Students will soon begin their Health Education which covers these topics.
The Freedom From Chemical Dependency has also been contacted to look at as a possible collaborator.
PTO Reps
We would like to request a Food Rep, a Sports and ASA’s Rep, Library Rep and a Parent Education Rep.
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