Where there is a will, there is a way, and staff and students at St Andrew’s Anglican College certainly have plenty of will.
Despite the many challenges COVID-19 has brought for schools, the Peregian Springs based school has chosen to use this period of forced change to get creative and try new ideas.
Team sports, music groups, interest groups, training, competing, volunteering and all the additional things that make up the schooling experience have all been postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions.
However recognising that not all lessons are necessarily learnt in a classroom and the important role co-curricular activities play in self-development and connectedness, staff at St Andrew’s spent time during the term break developing a range of additional opportunities for students to join and collaborate in the online space.
Although impossible to replicate the College’s extensive regular co-curricular programs exactly – almost all students participate in at least one co-curricular opportunity at a time – students at St Andrew’s Anglican College will continue to engage in a range of cocurricular activities this Term, albeit in a slightly different format.
“Co-curricular opportunities are where students learn more about themselves, about working in teams about achieving a goal outside of the classroom,” Principal Chris Ivey said.
“It’s where they learn persistence, how to deal with failure, how to push themselves, how to serve others and so many other qualities we want each of our students to develop.
“Our students thrive on opportunities and experiences because they value the connections both with each other and with our staff.
“If we believe this, then we need to find ways for these opportunities to continue in an online environment. For many of our students they are quite alone at the moment and we want them to stay connected both within and outside the classroom. The classroom is just one facet of learning.”
Beginning with a virtual cross country, which commenced during the school holidays, the first range of activities have been released to students from Prep to Year 12, with more planned as the term continues.
So far more than 400 students have taken up the Virtual Cross Country Challenge, logging more than 2300km using apps like the Nike Run app or similar, and earning House points similarly to the annual school event.
Other opportunities include:
– Online Open Mic using ‘Flipgrid’
– Art recreation challenge
– Saints Soapbox challenge
– Service opportunities
– 100 Club with Brett Holman
+more to be released
College Principal Chris Ivey reflected positively on the past weeks as a learning opportunity and a chance to think outside the box, rather than just doing what has always been done historically.
“We are an agile school. We have a culture of always ensuring we stay on top of what is happening, one that looks to improve where appropriate and to reflect carefully. We are adapting all the time, this is just on a bigger scale,” he said.
“I have challenged members of the Executive Team and Senior Leaders to ask the questions… what have we learned from this experience that we want to retain? Are there some aspects of what we’ve done in the past that we don’t want to go back to? Let’s consider everything, staff, students, learning, pastoral care…everything.”
