Well we survived Term Two, just!
With the developments of Covid-19 during the second term of the school year, it was truly a chaotic time for us all.
Teachers frantically planned class work that could be completed online, while learning themselves how to get the work online and functioning for the students. For our students without computer / Internet access at home, Teachers and Youth Workers came together to create “work from home” packs that would be delivered and collected from students by their Youth Workers on a fortnightly basis. Other students continued to attend school physically and became well acquainted with the social distancing rules that were put in place by the Australian Government.
All in all, we made it! We are so proud of our students for their resilience and cooperation during this stressful time, you have all done fantastically!
Once we reached the end of Term Two it was time to kick off our June/July Holiday Program.
Fortunately, being in Queensland meant that we were able to get back out and do some outdoor activities again. We spent a couple of our days at the beach, soaking up the sun and some of the braver students went swimming.
Of course, in this cold weather, we planned a few indoor activities too such as a baking day, our infamous tie-dye day and we added a new activity to the mix; making dream catchers!
We had originally planned on cooking up some traditional ATSI meals as part of our NAIDOC celebrations during the holiday program, however NAIDOC had to be postponed until later in the year due to Covid-19. In light of this, we decided to go ahead with our cooking regardless and the girls cooked up a stew with kangaroo meat in it. The girls were intrigued by the smell of the meat as it cooked and were pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoyed the taste.
We had a large turn out for the holiday program, it is always lovely to see the girls interacting in an environment outside of the regular school day. We are all feeling refreshed from the term break and ready to tackle Term Three.
A huge thank you to all of our Southside girls again for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, you have all been absolutely amazing with the new rules around school to keep us all safe.
Good luck for Term Three!