Much has been said about the terrible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our lives this year. It has, without doubt, been a very challenging year for all, with the greatest impact falling on our most vulnerable. Significant attention has also been paid to our youth, in particular, the HSC class of 2020.
Schools have been pushed to the limit, with significant changes to practice expected at short notice. The sense of community that is very important in schools, has been broken down by reduced engagement and movement. Transferring face-to-face learning to an online format supported by digital technologies and engaging communities and supporting wellbeing remotely was managed adeptly by our staff.
There have been few divergent paths offered, nor the luxury of time to discern or evaluate direction. Channeled, without choice, into a new path, we have moved onwards with resolve, innovation, and enduring concern for those in our care, ever poised for the terrifying notification of a COVID-19 case in the community.
The plight of international students has been well-documented throughout the year in relation to schools, universities, and other institutions. Some of our students remain unable to return but have still managed to partake in the education process via Zoom. Amazing!
There were many examples of transformational learning during this time, along with some judicious reminders about how we understand and support all our students. The outcome has resulted in significant reflection and improved practice.
Our staff has played a profoundly important role in the success of the 2020 school year as it unfolded, despite the anxieties. New pedagogies, refined operational practices, new ways of communicating, and improved information and communications has catapulted us into the future.
Despite school shutdowns and online learning, HSC courses have been completed and examinations have begun. The anxieties connected with these high stake exams have been less prevalent than in recent years: perhaps a response to adjustments allowing schools greater flexibility in the management of assessment tasks; perhaps the reduced pressures on an ATAR in response to universities adjusting entry requirements; perhaps the number of early entries offered. Or maybe it is about shared pressures and anxieties. The HSC suddenly seems a little smaller.
The students at St Augustine’s College have demonstrated enormous resilience and hope despite challenges faced throughout the year and restrictions to so many of the celebrations of the significant rite of passage of school completion.
I observe the students as they come and go each day, signing the COVID-19 symptom-free register, sanitising as they enter and leave the various exam rooms that are COVID-19 compliantly set out and cleaned, following COVID-19 safe practices and supervised by masked invigilators.
I smile with pride as I witness the stoic way each student applies himself to the task at hand. I know they are ready, and I hope they know that these exams are simply a step in a much grander staircase that is life.
To all students sitting the 2020 HSC, I say "well done". To all the teachers, I also say “well done”. Best wishes to the Class of 2020 as you launch into the world, along a road “less travelled”.
John Laforest
Deputy Principal - Academic
GOLD – Cian Richmond, Harrison Dearing, Jackson Rothwell, Owen Bierer, Slade Baker
