Page 4 - Basilikos 2020 BOOK

From the
Principal

ceremony for the Captains. The camps were postponed
to occur once restrictions were lifted. Grandparents
Day became a series of online messages spread
over the world. ZACH MACH and carnivals had to be
modified and were mostly restricted to participants,
with observers doing so virtually. With each trial came
an adaptation, a modification, a way of preserving the
spirit of the event while obeying the restrictions. It was
a restriction, and we made it a meaningful adaptation.

The Parent Association had the same challenges. How
do you run events for students and the community
when you can’t even come on campus? Mothers day
Dr Barclie Gallogray stalls, Fathers day stalls, meetings and so on. You run
them virtually, with online shops and online meetings.
Again the team accepted what it was and made it
Welcome to the Mackay Christian College Basilikos for something different something that worked in spite of
2020. the restrictions.

This year has been, to use the oft used word, The lessons of 2020 can best be summarised in the
unprecedented. We began the year with bush fires Serenity prayer. “Lord grant us the Serenity to accept
that burned their way through the area I grew up in the things we cannot change, the strength to change
and ended the year on the slow rise out of a global those we can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.
pandemic. The year can be well summed up in the Or in the words of Year 12 of 2020, “It is what it is, but
catch phrase adopted by the graduating class of 2020, it’s also what you make it”.
“It is what it is, but it is also what you make of it”.
God bless, and see you in 2021.
This year we had a try at digital learning from home for
a little while and learned some important things, both
as a school full of teachers, a school full of students,
and a community full of parents. The teachers learned
a lot of new technologies and how to use them to
create effective learning environments. The students
learned about how they learn best, whether at home
or at school. Many of the parents expressed that they
learned a much greater appreciation of the hard work
that teachers do each day to help students learn. We all
learned something. It was a trying experience but we
made it a learning experience.

When we returned to the classroom it was with a
whole new set of rules to follow to keep COVID from
being spread amongst our community. Almost all of
the usual activities of the year were cancelled. ANZAC
Day, Camps, Grandparents Day, ZACH MACH, carnivals
and many others, could not go ahead as planned. So we
adapted. ANZAC Day became a private wreath laying