Lyndhurst Primary School is doing everything it can to maintain normality for its students, but it’s coming at a cost. Across the state, schools are running split classes, cancelling specialist subjects, and trying, somehow, to teach the curriculum.
It’s 8.30am at Lyndhurst Primary School, and there’s a scramble to fill staff vacancies.“It’s not just COVID, there’s the flu and colds. Because of lockdown, their resistance to diseases is down, and there is just exhaustion, to be honest,” Lyndhurst principal Greg Lacey said.
The Education Department’s policy is for schools to stay open. Students are given rapid antigen tests to take home weekly, there are air purifiers in most classrooms, but students are no longer required to wear masks. School captain Aishy Badesha said it was good to be back at school but that she was nervous about students spreading COVID-19.“It was kind of tricky. It slowed down the learning for people. I felt I had to catch up on my maths. I wasn’t learning by myself as well as with my teacher. It was hard. Learning new things was hard.”
It’s a similar story across Victoria. Miner’s Rest Primary School principal Dale Power, who is juggling nearly 30 to 40 per cent of staff absences in his Ballarat school, said it was a huge challenge: “You never know what will arise on a day-to-day basis.”He said staff were being flexible, “turning up almost daily not fully sure of what they’ll be doing ... but you can only sustain that to a certain point”.Lacey said he had a job position closing on Friday with only one applicant.
“Things haven’t been normal,” she said. ”I’ve been waiting patiently for things to get back to normal, [but] now the flu is on top of COVID. It makes it hard.”“The change is really difficult. Some people are coping with it, others not really.”Setayesh said students were checking in on each other through the Messenger Kids app, having “brain breaks” from class and engaging in wellbeing programs.
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