Students reconnect with friends and learning

THE city’s primary school students headed back on campus last Monday morning following term three’s remote learning period due to COVID-19.

At Urquhart Park Primary School in Newington, principal Janet Hillgrove welcomed 350 children on site.

Following the Victorian chief health officer’s advice, the school has enforced the Department of Education’s guidelines to establish an ideal and safe teaching and learning environment.

They aren’t currently able to run all of their usual co-curricular activities, but Mrs Hillgrove said Urquhart Park has “coped remarkably well,” has been positive and understanding.

“I’m really thankful and proud of our children, our families and our staff. We have such a fantastic community who are extremely supportive and have helped us make the changes that we have needed to make,” she said.

“The staff have really worked together, and the children are very excited to reconnect with their friends and their learning at school.

“I even heard a couple of foundation children say that they’d forgotten their friends’ names because they’d been away from school for so long.”

Grade 6 captains, Clodagh, Luka, Malachey and Piper said it felt strange to be back in the classroom, but good to establish a proper school-day routine again.

“Seeing all our friends is a really great feeling because most of us haven’t been able to talk to everyone in two months,” Luka said.

“It’s really awesome to catch up and talk about what we’ve been doing for the last few weeks.”

Malachey said it was a little nerve wracking to be back on campus, but he was getting used to the experience.

“I’m really glad I’m back to school, able to see everyone again and can catch up on work I haven’t done in a while. It’s great to be back,” he said.

Piper said there was plenty of normality at Urquhart Park, but a few touches of difference.

“There’s social distancing, and we stay in our classroom while our specialist teachers come to us,” she said.