Even though we are only a few days into Remote Learning we've notice a slight change in the way some families are approaching Round 2. 

Yesterday at our Whole School Google Meet we spoke about the conditions where people learn.  We learn when we get to that tipping point of struggle, a living on the edge type excitement you might feel your on a roller coaster or walking across a swing bridge.  Teachers are constantly looking at their strategies to deliver the curriculum to a class of students all wth different needs and different behaviours - they live on the edge too!  

A wise colleague from early in my teaching career told me to back off a little with my instructions, she felt I was spoon feeding them the answers.  She told me that they had to be like jelly, they had to wobble a bit on the plate.

Checking in with a few families I have heard them talk about how this time around they are sitting back a little more and not driving the learning as much.  This reminded me so much of the jelly on the plate analogy.  In a classroom setting our staff aren't in a position to deliver constant support to everyone, but in a home environment you can.  The challenge is to find the happy place between offering too much and too little support, we don't want jelly on the floor but we don't want to create unsuccessful learners who don't think for themselves, fear challenge or don't have the space to innovate for themselves.  It also allows more potential time for parents who work from home to not be 1:1 for children.  It may take a little time to get the balance ...... treat it like going to baby sleep-school and controlled crying!

As the capacity and safety features of Google Meet and Google Classroom are established for us to use immediately this time around, I remind parents that those spaces are just as important for you as they are for the children.  Feel free to listen in or log in on your other devices to keep informed of what is happening.