Dear Secondary Class reps,
As this is our first communication of the year we would like to introduce ourselves. We are the new APEEEL1 Vice-Presidents for Secondary and we both have children in the secondary cycle. You can find out more about us, and the new APEEEL1 board on the APEEEL1 website https://www.apeeel1.lu/management-committee/
We look forward to working with you during this school year.
We are in close contact with School´s management regarding all the issues that are brought to our attention and we feel it is important to share the school’s reply.
Annette Mai and Alexsandra Goraj
- Canteen: even if there are now several distribution points of the lunch packs the pupils still seem to have a long waiting time in the queues.
From the next week, we will have more distribution points (communication was sent to parents on Friday)
- Short breaks: we got the feedback that these several short breaks in between lessons (10 min) are not long enough to have a drink or a quick breakfast, as the pupils need these to get to their next class room.
The suppression of a long short break has been decided to reduce the risk of having students without invigilation for a long time. We have actually extra invigilating staff who is helping in the supervision during the breaks and we are evaluating the situation and discussing the possibility to restore a longer short break or select an alternative plan. This would indeed require a lot of modifications, also to our supervision plans for the teachers and before taking a final decision, we would like to be convinced that is the right one. One possibility would be to discuss this in the next Educational council.
- In the corridors resp. stairs there are no signs to guide the pupils in certain directions. Therefore, the pupils run into each other as they do not respect the directions of travel. So, keeping distance is difficult, especially as there seems to be no surveillance.
We have now more supervision, and most of the students respect the basic rules. Indeed, I agree with you that the situation could be improved and sometimes we have internal discussion regarding putting some more signals or just reinforcing the respect of our rules.
- Is there an official protocol for COVID-19 foreseen? For example in case of quarantine, how fast the pupils can resume online lessons? In case of the confinement of teachers, what approach will the school adopt? Will the teachers be present remotely, using the internet connection and the beamer in the classroom?
This procedure are normally decided directly from the Luxembourg health authorities. If a teacher cannot be in the school for a long time, we can try to organize online lessons if possible with all the students in ICT rooms, so that everyone can interact directly with the teacher (via Teams), or using a beamer in the classroom as you mentioned before. In some cases, we might instead try to substitute directly the teacher with another qualified teachers (this second possibility is not always possible)
- BYOD: there are numerous concerns regarding the BYOD project, especially with regard to safety of pupils inside and outside the school and the use of the devices in classrooms and the content, as well as financial recourses to cover the costs of purchasing laptops to be used at school and IT security a school.
We understand some concern of the parents. However we feel that in our school all the potential risks are at the very minimum, even if compared with all the other European school where similar BYOD projects are being launched, even if with different internal policies. Our Wifi is very modern (extremely low radiations) and at the same time cover very well all the classroom in the building (we are also improving it with very modern and efficient devices). For the security of the content, all the connections pass thought our firewall, that is very powerful and continuously updated. This permits to control quite well the content. For the costs, unfortunately the school does not have any financial resource that can be designated for purchasing the student laptop. Indeed we are confided that in the future the adoption of a laptop can reduce the costs in the booklist, as discussed also in the Educational council where the BYOD project was approved exactly in the form that is being implemented.
- How many absent pupils and teachers are there at the moment? And how many vulnerable teachers/pupils? How is it ensured that absent pupils continue with their school programme?
At the moment we do not have vulnerable students. Some of them are living with vulnerable persons, but they cannot be considered vulnerable themselves, and they shall come to school. On the contrary, we have at the moment 2 vulnerable teachers who in principle should give lessons from home using Teams to the students possibly in a ICT room. As soon students in s5,s6,s6 will have all their devices, they will not need to be in a ICT room.
In the case of Physical education, it was decided that a vulnerable teacher can be temporary assigned to another task and substituted with another PE teacher in situ.
- Are there already results from the last Educational Support Survey from beginning of September?
I still didn’t receive any information on this.
- There are no lockers assigned for S6 and S7 students
S6 and S7 students can have their locker on demand. We took this decision to reduce occasions for the students to stay in the corridor.
- Possibility to have bike racks at entrance “salle de fetes” for pupils entering there?
I take on board your proposal, and will ask if we can implement it.
- S6 class trips: how far is the state of refund?
As far as I know, most of the trips are going to be refunded (partially or totally, depending on the conditions that was possible to negotiate for each trip).