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COVID-19 and school closures (2 Viewers)

Time&moretime

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The current situation isn't looking promising until a safe and effective vaccine is developed. Schools might start taking temperatures from year 11 & 12 students before entering the school building. 'Social distancing' so probably two desks apart from each student. Rural students will be disadvantaged. :(
 

throwaway2318

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Yeah our school has transitioned to online learning and told students not to come. Our in-class assessments have been postponed. It's been a weird time but hopefully it ends out well for us.
 

jasminerulez

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Many schools are taking casual workers to look after the kids whose parents work in medical areas. Meanwhile the permeant teachers stay at home and do zoom calls with students at home and at school. So basically both the students at school and at home can just go on laptops, scheduled with the same timetable, do zoom calls with teachers, except for the fact the other students whose parents work in medical areas are at school supervised by casuals.
So why don't the government just enforce this policy instead of teachers teaching a small class where they could have been doing zoom calls with the whole class at school.
I hope i make sense lol
 

Potato Sticks

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The guardian does not accurately reflect NESA’s statements, which only indicate that students will receive HSC certificate with no mention of ATAR. This may be through solely school assessments, a combination of school and HSC exams, or HSC exams only. I suspect that they will proceed with the middle option, with a reduced syllabus scope and delayed exams, however, it is clearly too early for them to make any meaningful decisions.
 

a_iqbal

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I would feel much more comfortable if they shut both schools and universities for sure.
 

#RoadTo31Atar

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To add to this Scomo just confirmed that schools are still open and children are encouraged to go to school. What is interesting is that on a normal school day 8% of children are absent, yesterday that number was 40% and today 75%, it seems that despite the medical advice to go to school, parents are still not sending their kids to school. I really think this is a problem when the medical advice is ignored by 3/4 of the population.

I saw ppl saying that they might use Y11 marks for your internals but I think that would be very unfair since we've always been told that Y11 does not count towards you ATAR, and I personally didn't even do the same subjects in Y11 as I do in Y12 so idk how that would work, I'm sure there are tons of other problems with this too.
 

studiesofboard

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Today my school went on lock down until next term. I am not sure what is happening next term though
 

Trebla

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You would think that most schools have done about one or two assessment tasks by now? So perhaps it would be based on these in a worst case scenario. Given the government is predicting to hold onto these restrictions for around 6 months, I reckon the most likely outcome is that it would be safe to hold HSC exams by October/November but internal assessments in the meantime would need to be conducted in some online format or not conducted at all.
 

yooook

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You would think that most schools have done about one or two assessment tasks by now? So perhaps it would be based on these in a worst case scenario. Given the government is predicting to hold onto these restrictions for around 6 months, I reckon the most likely outcome is that it would be safe to hold HSC exams by October/November but internal assessments in the meantime would need to be conducted in some online format or not conducted at all.
measning the hsc will be so fkn weightin?
 

Potato Sticks

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You would think that most schools have done about one or two assessment tasks by now? So perhaps it would be based on these in a worst case scenario. Given the government is predicting to hold onto these restrictions for around 6 months, I reckon the most likely outcome is that it would be safe to hold HSC exams by October/November but internal assessments in the meantime would need to be conducted in some online format or not conducted at all.
Many schools have chosen to suspend assessment tasks so have only one set, and furthermore many chose to hold so called “depth studies” and the required “mathematical assignment or investigation style task” in the previous term. As you may imagine, these tasks do not assess the content outcomes of the syllabus as well as as exams.

These restrictions will be in place for at least 6 months and possibly more, depending on how the situation evolves, and likely coincides with the period of remote learning. As can only be expected, online learning is substantially less effective than in school learning, and in light of this it is possible NESA will choose to reduce the syllabus and increase the weighting of their HSC exams.

Holding online exams is fraught with problems, the most critical of which is ensuring the integrity of the examination. Realistically, in the home setting students will find ways to cheat, even if they are under live surveillance. Additionally, online submission limits what can be tested, such as almost any working in math, as certainly you cannot expect students to learn LaTeX.
 

rvh

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The world has been brought to a halt given the current circumstances and as a society we are having to deal with so many changes at once. I can just imagine how stressed you guys are feeling. We’ve created a Google doc full of psychology services you can access given these unprecedented and unpredictable times. Click here to access it. Feel free to share it and feel free to reach out to me if you want more wellbeing resources 😊 We’re happy to help!
 

BLIT2014

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Some schools still appear to have a reasonable proportion of students.

Interesting.
 

Time&moretime

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I think NSW government will be watching Victoria closely before deciding if schools should be shut down. NESA might give individual schools more power to use their discretion around internal assessments. There might be more students applying for EAS through UAC when April comes around to apply for undergraduate courses. This would be a concern because if you make considerations for everyone then there will be people missing out. Future generations will mark this period of time as a turning point in our history where our way of life will change.
 

lolzdj

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You would think that most schools have done about one or two assessment tasks by now? So perhaps it would be based on these in a worst case scenario. Given the government is predicting to hold onto these restrictions for around 6 months, I reckon the most likely outcome is that it would be safe to hold HSC exams by October/November but internal assessments in the meantime would need to be conducted in some online format or not conducted at all.
Most schools were actually approaching the second assessment task phase. They've been postponed for the most part (or changed to hand-in).
 
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Most schools were actually approaching the second assessment task phase. They've been postponed for the most part (or changed to hand-in).
Yep, I've done 4 of my assessment tasks already but the other 2 are postponed or changed to hand in. My friends in other subjects said that their tasks are done online where the questions are given at 9am and due later in the day at like 3 or 5, which is an interesting way to approach it but I think that just means everyone will collaborate and do really well lol
 

Potato Sticks

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Yep, I've done 4 of my assessment tasks already but the other 2 are postponed or changed to hand in. My friends in other subjects said that their tasks are done online where the questions are given at 9am and due later in the day at like 3 or 5, which is an interesting way to approach it but I think that just means everyone will collaborate and do really well lol
Yes, exams cannot be fairly converted to assignments on a limited timeframes. You would imagine that many are able to source help from subject experts, thereby artificially advantaging them against peers that do/can not choose such an option. A better option would be to weigh previous tasks more, if future exams cannot be coordinated.
 

BLIT2014

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"Queensland schools will be “student-free” from Monday but remain open for children of workers, whether they are supermarket shelf-stackers or healthcare workers, Queensland Premier Annastasia Palaszczuk has announced"

Source:
 

catha230

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Hi all, hope you have all been well. I wonder if school is still optional next term? What I mean by optional is you don't have to go to school unless you don't have anyone at home to supervise you, exactly like what we are doing at the end of this term. Are they going to keep classes online for the entire term of next term or are they gonna make students go back to school like normal again?
 

B1andB2

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Hi all, hope you have all been well. I wonder if school is still optional next term? What I mean by optional is you don't have to go to school unless you don't have anyone at home to supervise you, exactly like what we are doing at the end of this term. Are they going to keep classes online for the entire term of next term or are they gonna make students go back to school like normal again?
they said that this 'lockdown' will go on until june 29th AT LEAST. so i think, and hope so.
 

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