All schools need certainty to move forward during these challenging times, said Tim Shields principal, Singleton's Australian Christian College (ACC).
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With this in mind Mr Shields is pleased his college welcomed back Year 11 and 12 students on Monday (May 4) and during this week Year 7-10 students with be able to attend school for three days of face to face teaching.
Primary school students will continue this week with online lessons before they too return to their classrooms full-time from Monday 11.
Prep classes for kindy students enrolled in 2021 will also return for two days a week.
"Schools without their students are missing their hearts and souls so we want them back as soon as is practicable and safe for them, their teachers and their families to do so," he said.
"Structure and order provide the school community with the best learning outcomes."
Government responses to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus saw the widespread shutdown of the economy and social isolation regulations instituted from late March with the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian asking parents to keep children home from school if possible on March 22.
Since then debate has raged about the need to shutdown schools with the Federal government insisting schools are safe to reopen based on their expert medical advice, a view at this stage, not supported by the Victorian government.
Public schools in NSW will provide one a week face to face teaching for each pupil from Monday May 11. But the situation remains a difficult one to navigate for parents and students alike.
Mr Shields said since the Premier's request to learn from home ACC had maintained about 15 per cent school attendance.
Towards the end of Term 1 we had already put in place various routines at the school to minimise the risk prosed by the virus to students and staff.
'We have supervised hand washing four times a day, limited access to the school site by anyone other than students and staff and increased our hygiene awareness education," he said.
Commenting on the online learning switch, that was literally achieved within days, he said he was very proud of his staff's achievements in offering such a high quality platform to their students.
"Our teachers like others who had planned their curriculum around face to face teaching had to switch to online teaching very quickly and they did a fantastic job," he said.
"To assist this process we had a pupil free last week of term as we were planning to teach online for at least a month of term two.
"Fortunately given the success in controlling the spread of the virus we are able to return to the classroom earlier than first planned."
ACC is one of nine days school across the nation plus three distance education facilities. Mr Shields said staff from the distance education facility were able to train us on using their systems which was a great help to us teaching our students online.
On the issue of safety Mr Shield said ACC was fortunate to be a small school on a large site.
"We have been working with staff to ensure their wellbeing is front and centre of our planning along with that of our students.
"Everyone is looking forward to having the school once again full of students."