Category: General Education

More news about Australian schools due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.

• SA student free From 4th of April South Australian schools will be students free and online teaching will be implemented in the next term.
• Queensland schools will be students free from next week.

Unless things improving dramatically, we will very likely to see every state move into online teaching for next term. The growth rate of the virus seems to slow a little, but we are still got close to 400 detected case in the last three days. The growth rate did seem to slow a bit from around 20% to 25% earlier in the week to about 15% in the last two days. Total COVID-19 case stood at 2810 for 26th of March 2020. Two weeks ago this number stood at mere 175, however looking at all the information, I do not believe Australia is in as bad shape as most other countries. As long as we act decisively this still can be contained.

On a more personal front, we have picked up the laptop from school and got the online learning pack as well. It is actually very comprehensive and my children loved it so far. They started digging into it already and so far I am getting positive feedback. Both of my children had previous exposure to Google classroom and other online learning tools that their school uses. The elder one particular had a lot of experience with it, she had no issue follow the instruction and run with it herself without requiring assistance from us.

Below you can see the very detailed online learning schedule that school has given us. It is very impressive what had been organized in such short notice.

My wife and I are working from home again, we did not leave the property the whole day as we are pretty well stocked up yesterday. So far I had no issue with doing my daily work, but I think I will need to mix some physical activities into my routine. So far the kids adapt to stay at the home time better than I did.

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News around schools to do with Coronavirus is largely unchanged from yesterday. Stretton State College in Queensland is closed due to public health alert which most likely is Coronavirus infection.

Day two of my kids at home, pretty much the same as yesterday so far. The kids spend half of the time playing with each other, reading books and watching TV most of the other time. The boy is getting a little restless but not too bad yet.

We are picking up the laptop from school tomorrow and will try to get the kids to at least do a bit of work during the daytime. My wife and I also been bogged down with a large amount of work today so not had a lot of chance spending more time with the kids even we are working from home now.

We hit the local supermarket when it just opened in the morning and there are already 100 plus people in front of us. The toilet paper was gone in 2 minutes, also not any eggs to be had or they all got snatched up before we got to it. Other items like tissue, paper towels, hand sanitiser etc are in short supply. Most of the other items look to be in good supply and we had no real issue securing just about everything we needed. I did also pop into the local grocery shop later and got a bag of rice as well which is a popular purchase recently as well.

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Normanhurst West Public School closed down due to a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

My children stayed at home and the majority of the NSW parents did the exact same thing. The information shows that the school attendance rate is 10% for Tuesday. I would expect similar scenes are played out in different states as well.

We also have been issued many online learning tasks for both of my children from the school. We expecting to pick up a laptop tomorrow from school for my daughter in year 6 to use and her brother will be using a home computer. We have three computers at home, but with both my wife and I working from home, we only have one to spare now.

The children coped well for the first day, but if this drags out into multiple weeks it will become more and more difficult. We are also going to have to restock tomorrow which should be interesting as I have not been able to secure enough staples like flour and tissue papers for a while now.

The shutdown of non-essential services are continuing, yesterday was the restaurant, pub etc. Today are nail salons, property inspection and auctions etc. I fully expect this to keep tightening very quickly further as well in the next few days.

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With all the confusing messages everywhere, even if the schools are officially open, in reality, is that all the states went their own ways.

• ACT schools closed on Tuesday this week.
• Northern Territory schools to stay open, but parents can take their kids home.
• NSW schools are open, but state PM recommended all parents to keep their children at home if possible.
• Queensland Schools to stay open for the time being.
• South Australia schools to stay open as well.
• Tasmanian schools to stay open.
• Victoria started the school holiday on Tuesday this week.
• Western Australia schools to stay open.

Basically, all the state borders closed as well, anyone other than essential service personal entering will be subject to an automatic 14 day quarantine.

All the social distancing policy taken so far will take time to work while the current infection rate will still shot up exponentially. Because of this, I do not expect it to be enough to stop the rise of this virus. This will in my view force the government’s hand to implement more draconian policies very soon. We should have gone hard and early on this, otherwise, we risk to drag this out well into next year. Unfortunately, I do not see that happening, we are still reacting to the events and playing catch up so far.

On a personal front, I have decided to take both of my kids out of the school from tomorrow. We will receive the online education pack and instructions on this Thursday, so far about half of the parents we know have taken a similar decision. I am expecting most of the parents will follow suit in the next few days as well.

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Another day another change, NSW premier’s announcement earlier today of all non-essential business will shut down set people’s expectation up that the NSW schools will shut down on the coming Tuesday. However, the later press conference by Australian PM announcement of what appears to be watered down shutdown measures confirmed that schools will stay open in Australian. Victorian schools will go into the earlier holiday on Tuesday being the exception.

However, parents are allowed to take their kids out from schools and keep them home for the period before the Autumn holiday. They are still planning to open the schools as normal after the holiday.

Given how things have been developing, I do not personally expect the schools in NSW will be able to keep open for too much longer. There is currently intense pressure from the public to close the schools, so something will give sooner rather than later.

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Corona Virus related news is coming hard and fast now. Schools are busy readying for a possible school close down. Given the trend of virus growth, we probably have a few weeks around the time that Autumn school holiday is over that various level of governments will have to decide whether the schools will have to shut down or start open again.

NAPLAN has also been cancelled for 2020 and will resume in 2021, this is a shame for education watchers like me, but with what is happening now, this is the right decision to make.

Just to note that everyone in my division has switched to work from home now. And local supermarkets have been stripped of essentials, particularly if you go in the afternoon, there are very little essential staples left like pasta, flour etc, not to mention the much-prized toilet papers. Just about all extracurricular activities of my kids had been cancelled now. If there is no significant reduction in the growth of infection rate, we will likely to see lockdowns like parts of Europe and the US are currently experiencing very soon.

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All the universities look like all moved into online teaching and shutting down the physical campus at least until the beginning of the term 2. Primary and secondary schools will stay open for the time being. Catholic schools will stay open as well for now.

The general consensus is that if COVID-19 spreads get worse it requires extreme suppression methods in order for it not to overwhelm the Australian health system. Extreme suppression will require school and university shut down, and for it to make a difference, we will probably looking at a minimum shut down period between three to six month. We are not at that point yet, but events in Europe have already amply demonstrated that things can and will change very quickly.

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Things are developing really fast now. Most of the Universities in Sydney had either closed or will be next week, teaching has been moved to online. Toorak Primary School in Victoria had been closed as well due to a teacher who had been tested positive for COVID-19.

With mounting cases, we are yet one more steps closer to general school closure. I think the federal government is trying to hold out until Autumn holiday which would give it two additional weeks before it had to make the decision that may result in the next entire term of schooling cancelling. This is an unprecedented event and we will just have to see how this develops from this point on.

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Two more schools in Australia closed today due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Three schools, Unley High School and Scotch College in Adelaide both have been closed due to positive test results. St Christopher’s Catholic Primary School in South-west Sydney had been closed today as well after a person tested positive for Coronavirus as well.

News articles also reported that Sydney schools reported that there is a 25 per cent drop in attendance today. Many private schools also either started the Autumn holiday early or have transited into online teaching as well.

Plotting the current Australian Coronavirus infection rate, we will probably see one thousand plus infected at around Friday to Saturday, so the pressure will really be mounting for the Federal government to take additional preventive measure to try and flatten the curves.

Depend on how much the infected number grows, we will likely to see all school and university closure by next week and no later than the week after that.

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A lot had happened in a week and even in two days. Geelong Grammar School in Victoria had closed all its four campuses for the rest of the term. Also now NSW Department Education had instructed all schools to cancel assemblies, excursions and sports carnivals from Monday. This is on top of the cancellation of the none essential gathering of more than 500 people. My daughter’s band performance this weekend has been cancelled already. I am expected many more similar cancellation will be happening over the next few months.

Also 14 days automatic self-quarantine requirement for all oversea arrivals has been put into effect now by Monday as well. Students and families travelling to and back from the oversea need to keep this mind as well.

As of this moment, schools will stay open next week, however, with how fast this virus moves, the decisions made this week will be very much out of date by next week. So we will just have to see how this goes.

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