Dear Readers, 

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." – Socrates

You have now read the most important part of this message, no need to read further!

It’s all a bit mad, isn’t it!

I’d like to give the background as to how we are making decisions at St Edward’s College. Our extended Senior Management Team includes, Heads of Section, Bursar, INCO, Student Support (emotional wellbeing), Admissions and Marketing and at the most recent meetings, a representative from the Student Council.

The only segment that was missing was parent input. Here I’d like to applaud SEPTA. We got in touch with SEPTA, they mobilised their Year and class reps and in a very short space of time we had the perspective from parents. The speed and spirit of cooperation in which this was done augers well for our ‘Three legged stool’ concept of education. Teacher/Student/Parent.

The last ‘real’ meeting our extended SMT had was the day before we announced our change of holiday dates…

During this meeting we considered the technological challenges, the level of preparedness for all involved, we had input on the possible mental impact for students, parents and teachers.

When making decisions we try to involve all stakeholders. This can take more time but when we have ‘buy-in’ the resultant outcome will have a more implementable effect. We anticipated the tsunami of information and resultant panic. To this end we constantly made efforts to reassure all affected. We were constantly reminding all that this is ‘A marathon, not a sprint’, and to this end we will all need to pace ourselves.

Remember, teachers are not just teaching one student (your child) or class, they have many students and many classes. Feedback from students and parents can result in a barrage of emails for teachers. Not to forget that teachers are also working from home, have families, need to shop, are stressed in the same way that all parents and families are … in a word teachers are human too!

You all received the timetable for years 7 to 13. Early Years and Junior will continue as is.

The timetable and application of the MySchool VLE will all start on Monday 30^th, March. Next week there is a public holiday on Tuesday. On Friday we break for the Easter holidays. During this period we can all take a breath. Holidays are just that. Teachers will continue as usual during any holiday period. Some may suggest readings, research, and revision but use the time to let us know how you are coping, any adjustments we need to make. How the week, this coming Monday to Friday, went.

Have patience and trial this week with the new timetable and using the VLE.

Wishing you all a good weekend.

Mr Nollaig Mac an Bhaird
Headmaster