13 Mar 2022
The new ILT program has been launched to help manage the increased number of staff absences due to COVID-19 illness in combination with other absence reasons. With the shortage of teachers in New South Wales, it is increasingly harder to find specialist teachers to cover classes in specialist areas though so far at Gymea, we are one of the lucky schools that can secure some quality casual teachers. We need to ensure that all students have adequate supervision and can maintain continuity of learning no matter what day it is and no matter what is happening with absences.
The two lockdowns of remote learning in 2020 and 2021 were periods of time we do not want to revisit again, but for all of us, are two important times where we have learnt and developed so much. A part of that is in the way that teachers and students utilise technology to engage in learning and in the development of self regulation skills with independent learning. ILT builds on that success to ensure that students maintain continuity of learning while they strengthen their independent learning and study skills.
The students will know if they have an ILT period by looking at their daily notices on the student feed which lets them know when and where to go. In our first week of operation, our kids have done brilliantly and will continue to use the ILT periods to build some strong independent learning with literacy, numeracy and their ability to self regulate their study.