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.
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.
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
The positive messages of support helped all of us to get through and gave us the energy as leaders and teachers to forge on.
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)
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!
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
