4 key survival tips for a school community forced into Covid quarantine ; survive or thrive ?

Believe in yourself, your team and your networks of support. Know that others will look to you for clarity and guidance. Be decisive and stay focused on a clear pathway forward. Then you will ensure that you will not only survive but support you community to thrive during the toughest of challenges.

During 2020, Melbournians more than any other Australians became experts at living, adapting and working through lockdowns. 

Little did we know that those lockdown experiences would pale into insignificance when our school community was unexpectedly forced into 14 days of quarantine.

On the 15 July 2021, four days into a new 10 week school term, a call from the Department of Health informed us that a trip to the MCG to watch a football game, caused one innocent St Pat's student to test positive to the highly contagious Delta variant.

We were advised to close the school immediately.

At 10:40am, we sent an urgent notification to parents and carers to collect all children. The school was classified as a Tier 1 exposure site and all children and staff were instructed to be tested for Covid 19 and to isolate in their homes for 14 days.

That was 9 weeks ago. 

Fourteen days of quarantine was an extremely challenging time for every one of our families and staff members. Some families were forced into longer quarantine periods as further positive cases emerged.

Fortunately, we all survived and we are currently teaching, learning and living in lockdown.

As we approach the final week of an exceedingly long term, our leadership team have resorted to transforming into Star Wars and Toy Story characters, hoping to lift the spirits of children, parents and colleagues.

This poem by one of our Year 3 students, sums up how all children currently in lockdown are feeling.

What are 4 tips from our experience that would help others survive a similar situation ?

1. Support each other. Offer support to others and be willing to take support yourself. 

Our wider community were outstanding. Support included :

• Deliveries of food parcels (many from ex St Pat's families) to our families
• Offers to walk pet dogs as families were housebound
• Local cafe & supermarket offered free deliveries
• Glen Eira Council set up a special St Patrick's TV guide with interactive links to online activities  in the afternoons eg. magic shows, endangered animals, play groups for younger siblings
• Carnegie Library couriered books to our families
• Local gym set up online exercise classes for families
• An uplifting video from Australian singer and songwriter, ex St Pat's student Vance Joy.

Some of our staff separated from their families and went to live on their own so that their families didn't have to quarantine. Support for colleagues and their wellbeing was vital. Half way through the quarantine period, our social committee organised a staff team building evening to give everyone a much needed boost.

2. Daily open and honest communication. 

Be available and willing to listen to everyone and follow up answers for every question (we were able to forward many questions directly to DH contacts). My wonderful Deputy Principal and I encouraged our whole community to email or ring us at any time with their questions, worries or concerns.

I sent out a total of twenty Covid Update Comms to the school families during the 14 days.  Most of these comms are blog posts and are accessible via our school newsblog.  Maximum views for regular posts across the year average 300 views. One of the Covid Update posts had 886 views ( You can access Covid Update #6 on the Parent as Partners Tab of this blog). Community engagement was strong. Families felt connected and informed during isolation. They focussed on every word in every message. Clear, succinct and timely comms were vital.

I sent separate staff comms before the community comms and held online briefings with staff to keep them informed and connected too.  During our first staff briefing, I clarified the dedicated roles that we all held and our responsibilities during  isolation. This was a timely reminder to put our energy into the areas that we could control (teaching and learning, connecting with the kids and families, checking on each other) instead of worrying about everything else beyond our control (covid, quarantine, limited resources, no opportunities to leave our homes ). 

I reminded our staff that we are all leaders at every level across the school and that we will help our community and each other to get through together.

The Regional General Manager and Leadership Consultant from (Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic schools MACS ) were in touch with us from the very beginning and provided media advice, sample comms and contacts for the school's deep clean. We were advised to ensure important comms were cleared through MACS.

3. Be guided by the professionals

Expert communication from the Department of Health (DH), provided step by step daily advice and guidance for the community. 

Recommendations for community testing were advised; four Covid tests for each member of the community across the 14 days. Contact tracers were thorough and professional and reported to me that our community were positive and respectful despite the challenges that many families faced.

The Monash Health Team offered to run two online parent forums which were well received by our community. Every question was answered. We found that a separate google doc for parent's questions worked better than a live chat box during the forum. We averaged 300 participants per forum.

During the quarantine period, some families required exemptions for a number of reasons. Every one of their requests was legitimate. The Monash health team encouraged us to forward all requests and that every query would be dealt with.

The DH advised us around the safest way for the children to return onsite ( See the post on Parent as Partners Tab  Covid Update #13 of this blog). Naturally, parents were anxious and needed reassurance that everybody was cleared to return to school following their final Covid test.

4. Stay positive

Despite the challenging circumstances, the thank you messages from the community came through incessantly.
The positive messages of support helped all of us to get through and gave us the energy as leaders and teachers to forge on.

Hi Jenny

We wanted to say a big thank you for the coffee today! What a lovely surprise to order a coffee and it was paid for.
It’s such a difficult time for many including yourself and we appreciate the constant communication, support and updates
It was so wonderful to see the teachers ready to do remote learning today with their students with a smile and ready to take on the next couple of weeks with enthusiasm.
The out pouring of support from the local community has been heart warming also. What a great community to be part of.
Take care and if there is anything we can do to help under these circumstances don’t hesitate to ask.
Thank you and take care.
(School parents)

Local Heroes
As a local resident I just wish to thank the school community, staff, parents and children of St Patricks.

Thanks to you all for the sacrifices made to keep everyone safe. I am sure it was not easy. Your efforts are appreciated. And we are happy to hear so many have emerged from isolation and are now back at school and work, and children are once again out and about in our neighbourhood.

I heard high praise from parents for the support offered by the school (“They were wonderful”).

I also heard IGA provided free deliveries to families and friends of St Patrick’s did coffee runs. What a terrific community!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for those who are still ill and again, gratitude for and thanks to our local heroes!

You can read further messages of community support on the Parent as Partners Tab of this blog ( Community Update # 3.3 Local Heroes)

I am proud to be part of a caring and supportive community at St Pat's.

Part of our school vision says:

 ..A healthy mindset, coupled with resilience and well-developed social skills ensures all learners are equipped to deal with life’s challenges...

Staying positive and supporting each other, helps to hold us in good stead as we - leaders, parents and teachers, model resilience for our children.

Acknowledgements:

• To our staff, students and parents who all went the extra mile to get though quarantine
  
• To all members of our wider community who reached out and supported us 
• To the Monash Health Team: I have a deep admiration for the contact tracing teams, leadership and staff from the South East Public Health Unit at Monash. Their advice and guidance for our school was swift and clear and they continue to support our community
• To the MACS staff for their support
• To Charlotte from 3L for her poem
• To our own family members for their love and support

Believe in yourself, your team and your networks of support. Know that others will look to you for clarity and guidance. Be decisive and stay focused on a clear pathway forward. Then you will ensure that you will not only survive but support you community to thrive during the toughest of challenges.

Addendum:

Little did we believe that we would end up with another positive student case onsite only 10 weeks later. Fortunately, everyone is safe and well after 42 of our families including 15 staff members isolated for a 2nd time during the school holidays. This was a huge challenge for everyone involved and we thank the families and staff who suffered a 2nd quarantine period during their holidays. We continue to hope and pray that as vaccination rates increase, we will all experience and appreciate the joy of reuniting and reconnecting with each other, our families and friends in the coming months.

Vision & Core Values 3 Years After Inception

How do you respond when a school parent sends you an email and states This is not reflective of the St Patrick’s vision statement or policies ?

Towards the end of 2020, during the unprecedented challenges of COVID and when the students were back onsite, I received such an email.

Clearly there was a concern, however, direct reference to and a quote taken from our school vision statement were a joy to behold. We received "open and honest" feedback (one of our core values) aligned to our school wide vision. A member of the community was indicating that they related to our vision and were holding fast to it come what may.

Where did our vision narrative, core values and mental model originate from ? In preparation for a day of reflection with the staff, let me put our vision and core values into context ; three years on from commencing the Schools That Deliver professional learning process.

THE WHY

 Students become the leaders of the future through internally driven change 21 Nov 2017

PHASE 1

THE HOW

Empowerment, passion and unified purpose  (staff feedback about the process) 16 April 2018

Staff Generate Future Focussed Vision & Core Values for ALL Learners (27 April 2018) Summary of shared vision and values.

Disruption, Creativity: Innovate 2 flourish 22 July 2018 

Active participation and deep reflection stimulated by the Edward's and Martin Delivering Innovation Conference (June, 2018) led to the creation of a video. The personal challenge was to succinctly capture two full days of powerful learning in a three minute animated video to share with others.
This sums up the approach we are taking as part of the Schools That Deliver Process.

PAUSE & REFLECT

2020 Covid ?   Disruption? Comfort zones ? Creativity ? Innovation ?

Conference to reality ; shift happens together  17 Aug 2018 4 Research teams and practice fields

Practice Fields Lead to Quick Wins for Learners 11 Nov 2018. Shared outcomes of Practice Fields

PHASE 2

Storming to Norming; Multiple Voices Co Design Quality Actions to Propel Our School Forward 20 April 2019

Reflection of Phase 1 - Outcomes of staff research and recommendations during the first year lead to draft long term plan going forward.

Specific Focus Review Through a Core Values Lens  2 May 2019

Using the core values as a focus for the School Review. How will we gather evidence for our review ?
We will use the core values as the lens through which we gather data for the review. The values were chosen by staff in 2018 as the five key ways to treat each other at our school. The values link to the CEM (now Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools MACS) Horizons of Hope curriculum with a clear focus on honouring the sacred dignity of the human person. If we concentrate on the human element, we will build a sense of belonging and increase student wellbeing data whilst contributing to a natural lift in academic standards.

Archaeological Dig Unearths Invaluable Treasures. 7 Sep 2019

TEAMS

Recommendations from the review led to our staff and leaders developing a new leadership model at St Patrick's school that encourages everyone to take ownership and contribute collectively. It is a team based approach to growing leadership capacity and capability across our staff and was implemented at the start of 2020. 

The team based approach is a shift from silos of learning led by independent leaders to collaborative learning teams. Every staff member is part of an equitable team and together take responsibility within three areas developed and agreed on by staff: Faith and Community; Faith, Wellbeing and Diversity; Faith and Curriculum.
Just as all schools include Child Safety on every meeting agenda, we agreed to include the word "faith" in all of our teams. We want to ensure that the Catholicity of our school is kept at the forefront of all that we do. We are ALL responsible for the Catholic faith at St Patrick's. 
The first sentence of our shared school vision states: St Patrick's is a school where our Catholic identity underpins all we do. Our new School Improvement Plan reflects this innovative approach. Once a week after school, two POL leaders from within each team work alongside staff to achieve the annual actions developed by teams from the School Improvement Plan.

POST REVIEW FEEDBACK 

Twelve months on from the review and during the first week back onsite for our staff and children following on from the 100 day COVID lockdown, the leadership team met with Maree Homes (Regional Leadership Consultant), Brittany Ford (Religious Education Consultant) and Donna Anderson (Learning Consultant School Effectiveness). We had a forty five minute conversation in which all leaders contributed. Here is 3 minute excerpt of the feedback given to us by the MACS ( Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools) leaders from the Southern Regional Office.

All of the COVID posts during 2020 focused on our core values. "Throughout the challenges of the pandemic, holding tight to our core values with faith filled hearts enables our community to thrive".

Our core values are now aligned to the House Awards (daily) and Assembly Awards (weekly) and we continue to embed them in all that we do. 

Our values are a way of living and working together and our agreed mental models remind us of what is important to us in our work as we realise the vision for our community.

Our Mental Models

• Source evidence based research.

• Work in practice fields and trial innovations and interventions.

• Action authentic cycles of deep inquiry. 

• The knowledge is in us all.

• Slower is faster and less is more.

• Move forward and deeply through powerful questions. 

• Listen, listen and listen.

• Be outward facing through active participation in the following networks and collectives: RE Network, RE Collective, STEM Network, SWIF (School wide Improvement)

Strengthened and enriched as a committed staff team, we will continue to propel our school forward with renewed energy, quality, passion and purpose to ensure "learners leave St Patrick's self motivated ready to make a positive impact on their world".

Action without vision is only passing time, vision without action is merely daydreaming, but vision with action can change the world (Mandela & Barker, 2013)