As I am writing this, overlooking empty streets near my apartment block, I realise that there is only one topic to write about! It really is still ‘learning’ that is on our minds!

Our members of staff have worked incredibly hard to ensure that learning could still continue. Not ‘as normal’ because at the moment, things unfortunately are not normal. However, things are what they are and we all understand why the ‘Restriction of Movement’ measures had to be taken.

Learning has continued for our children and there have been numerous examples of how, with creativity and dedication, our teachers have managed to facilitate the learning. Early Years have made very good use of the on-line platform ‘Storypark’, Key Stage One learners were introduced to Seesaw’ and our older children made good use of ‘Google Classrooms’. These resources have been instrumental in supporting the learning away from school.

On Thursday, we introduced an extra addition to this provision as we started to interact with our students via Zoom. Zoom is an on-line communication platform where you can hold meetings with others joining you on screen and with audio. Our thinking was that this could be a way of interacting with our children at home. I am very pleased to say that our children were indeed able to connect with their teachers the way we intended this to happen. It now gives us more opportunities to be dynamic with the children’s home-learning and we plan to continue supporting learning with Zoom sessions for as long as it takes.

We originally had the Parent-Teachers Conferences (PTC) planned for next week Friday. Our plan is to still go ahead with a number of sessions via Zoom. We would also offer some slots on the Monday on Tuesday thereafter. For those who wish to have a conversation in school, that would be made available on Friday the 24th of April, assuming that the school will be open. More information on this will follow in the next few days.

In times like these, staying in touch with the school is very important but not always as easy as before. We are fortunate to already have ‘Remind’ in place and it has proven to be invaluable during these days of school closure. Parents, leaders and teachers have been using it very successfully to stay in contact and this will continue to be the case.

The school’s leadership very much remains available for all your suggestions, feedback and concerns. Parents can always make an appointment with me online via zoom. Once you emailed your request, a zoom session can be set up. primaryoffice@pc.tis.edu.my.

All of the arrangements for home-learning had to be set-up and carried out in a short space of time. To ensure interactive learning, our members of staff had to acquire new skills, be tremendously flexible and work very hard to get all of this in place. My gratitude goes out to them.

In turn, thank you to parents, your flexibility, your understanding, your collaboration and communication. Thank you for all the support you are providing to your children. Times like this require us to stick together as the community we are, and we most certainly are making this happen. Stay safe, stay well, hope to see you soon!

Mr. Marco Damhuis (Head of Primary)
Email Contact : marco.damhuis@pc.tis.edu.my