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Lord God,
I give you thanks, for you are good, and your mercy is endless.
Here I stand, at the start of this holy week,
This week in which your church remembers Jesus’ passion and death,
And I am distracted by many things.
Turn my eyes now to the One who comes in your name
The one who opens the gates of righteousness
The one who answers when we call.
I bless you, Lord, for shining your light upon me,
And for sending your son to us, in human frailty.
To walk the road we walk.
Open my eyes that I may see him coming,
And may praise him with a pure heart.
And may walk in the way of his suffering,
And share also in his resurrection.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen
A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL PARENTS
I want to publically thank all parents for the way they have taken up the role of assisting their child with their learning. Parents have not replaced the teachers but are now playing a significant supporting role in maintaining a continuity of learning. Your role is crucial and will continue to be so as we move into Term 2 with a continuation of the current situation re social distancing and isolation. A big thank you to all parents.
The last few weeks at John Therry has been eerily quiet without the handball, basketball games, student chatter and laughter and the learning noise that is usually so apparent. The Staff have spent this week up-skilling and learning better ways to deliver learning remotely, reviewing the current continuity of learning plans and altering upcoming assessments. I thank them very much as well.
THIS WEEK THAT WE CALL HOLY
We are now well into Holy Week after the commencement last weekend with Palm Sunday (also called Passion Sunday). So how has it been different for you? How have you made this single week, out of the fifty-two in the year, special or holy? Has it been difficult to focus on your faith in this world of coronavirus?
There is still time to start on Holy Thursday – the start of the Easter Triduum. Three 24 hour periods remembering the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
As Catholics we are called to attend all liturgies that occur on these very important days. But that will not be possible in our present circumstances. There are a number of services that will be streamed live for these significant events and I urge you to take up thus option. Over the last few weeks both Bishop Brian (go to https://www.dow.catholic.edu.au/ for the link) and Fr Sarkis (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQhkeubtYCBu_elfcglmaw) have used this message to allow us to enter into our Sunday and weekday services.
Holy Thursday is the Mass of the Lords Supper, while Good Friday is the veneration of the Cross (where we vividly recall the journey of Jesus to the cross and his death). While the Easter Vigil on Saturday is the main celebration of the period and lasts a little longer and starts later than the usual Saturday mass. It was here that the faithful waited outside the tomb of Jesus. The Jewish Sabbath commenced at sunset on Friday and the body of Jesus was not fully prepared for burial – so they waited during Saturday, praying and mourning.
Finally we reach Easter Sunday, where Jesus rises and provides hope for the world.
The purpose of the three days is not to re-enact historical events, but rather to the engage the paschal mystery as it is being celebrated in the midst of those gathered. The power of this cannot be underestimated. These three days become our preparation for our willing participation in the paschal mystery, so that it becomes our way of being Christian in our daily lives.
I wish all families a safe and happy Easter break filled with the promise of hope and encourage all to make the effort to connect with this most powerful faith filled time of our Church.
LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS
Attached to this Newsletter (and sent separately as well) is a letter from Mr Peter Hill and myself, summarizing the turbulent last few weeks and plotting the way ahead. I urge all to please take the time over the holiday period to read it carefully.
P/T/S INTERVIEWS
As previously mentioned, because Staff are contacting students and parents in a different way with online learning, and with social distancing implications, the interviews have been cancelled. Parents wishing to discuss the learning of their child are encouraged to contact the class teacher or Pastoral Coordinator via Compass email.
There are a number of projects happening around the school at the moment, including 3 new shade sails that will be welcomed by the students when they return. This is being generously funded by the School P & F Association.
Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong have secured limited resources to support remote learning options for staff and students without internet access at home.
Parents and carers can register for one of these remote access devices by calling the Parent Internet Device Enquiry Line on 1800 512 370 during the registration period (9–23 April 2020).
Operators will ask a range of questions about the students in the home, what devices they have access to and what internet access you have. Parents and carers will be able to opt out of the call at any time. At the end of the call, the operator will explain what will happen next. The information collected will only be used to assess the needs of each family who registers to ensure the appropriate allocation of modems.
If the line is busy or the call is out of hours please leave a message with your contact details. This will be forwarded automatically to the service desk system and logged.
By registering to access a device, parents and carers accept that one of the solutions we are providing includes small modems that contain internet sim cards. These devices WILL NOT be filtered, which means students using them will have the same access to the internet as a typical home internet connection. As a result, monitoring students’ internet use by parents and carers is essential.
During the registration period (9–23 April) we will be collecting information to determine the support needs of families who apply. In the following week, a group of senior leaders will assess the responses and determine what support we can provide to which families. Parents and carers will receive an email during the week of 27 April informing them of the outcome.
Important Dates:
LINES OPEN
Thursday 9 April 2020 at 09:00am
LINES CLOSE
Thursday 23 April 2020 at 17:00pm
Decision Announced / Modems Shipped
Week of 27 April
The Diocese of Wollongong has made changes to attendance monitoring for all Systemic Schools from the start of Term 2. All students at John Therry will receive a daily 'check-in' email with a google form to respond to, letting us know they are ready for learning that day. Once students reply, they will be marked as flexible attendance for the day, which is the equivalent of being 'present' at school. In other words, they will not be marked absent.
If students do not respond to the form, or reply that they are sick and cannot complete work, they will be marked as absent and an sms message will be sent to parents indicating 'absence' from school or home learning for the day.
John Therry will still be open for supervision at this stage so students can come into school to work. The advice here is to work from home if possible but students who require shool facilties for learning (eg: Internet access, device access), or parents cannot provide care can still come to school for learning. Supervision will be provided and they will access online learning materials at school the same way everyone else does at home. These students will have their attendance marked as present on a school activity called "onsite learning", to indicate they are learning on the school site and keep a record in our system. This will show up in the compass portal for parents to be able to monitor.
If students have issue responding to emails due to internet access or other reasons, please contact the school office and we will be able to update attendance in compass and will look to see what support we can provide.
Interim reports for Years 7-10 have been uploaded to the compass portal for students and parents to check. There were planned to be Parent teacher interviews this week but this has not been possible due to the current cirumstances. Parents who would like to discuss the interim report are encouraged to contact teachers by email and teachers will endeavour to get in contact during week 1 of next term to discuss further.