COVID Intensive Learning Program at Dural Public School

Dear parents and carers,

As we all know, 2020 was a tough year.

This is particularly so for our students and teachers who rose to the challenges in a disrupted year that included seven weeks of remote learning due to COVID-19.

For our students, this has been an unsettling time.

The government and department have recognised this with the announcement of a $337 million program aimed at ensuring that schools can identify students who would benefit the most from intensive support. This will be tailored to their requirements to ensure that students’ educational outcomes continue to improve in 2021. Our school-based funding allocation allows for support two days a week.

The 2021 COVID intensive learning support program will provide small group tuition for students who need it most across NSW primary, secondary and specialist schools.

All public schools across the state will benefit with an allocation to employ additional teachers and educators to support student learning. At Dural Public School Miss Ridley will be implementing this program two days a week in addition to her role as Instructional Leader, focusing on supporting our teachers and students in the classroom.

Our school Executive Team have started planning for the implementation of small group tuition program in our school. The Department of Education has provided schools with the options to run these programs before, during and after schools. At Dural Public School this program will be conducted during school hours. Although we will be focusing on literacy and numeracy, we are considering a number of subject areas.

The COVID intensive learning support program is for the full year. Schools are supported in using class, grade and school based assessments, as well as teacher input, to identify students for the program. Miss Ridley will work in partnership with classroom teachers to provide high quality literacy, numeracy or subject specific support.

We will keep you updated on the implementation of this program. In the meantime the department’s website has more information on this high-quality literacy, numeracy or specific subject area in small group tuition program.

Ms Stone

Principal