Welcome back to a new school year to all our returning students and families. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to all our new students and the many new families who have come to our school. I hope you all have been able to enjoy the holiday break and the students are refreshed and ready for another year of learning, both academically and socially.
This has been a very exciting and busy time for me both professionally and personally, having been offered the Relieving Principals position for 2022. My name is Christine Wren, I have over 20 years’ experience teaching in the Department of Education as a teacher, Assistant Principal and for the past 5 years as Principal at Meadow Flat and Castlereagh Public schools. I have a long association with Cooerwull Public School, as a child I was a student here as was my mother and grandmother before me. My mother Bev Wren was also a teacher here for many years so returning here this year has felt like coming home. I would like to thank all the staff, students and families who have welcomed me so warmly and I look forward to meeting you all more fully in the months ahead. I would also like to thank Mr Snow who has been incredibly supportive during this transition. Mr Snow will still be involved with Cooerwull Public in his new role as Principal School Leadership and we wish him continued success in his new position.
COVID 19 Updates
I had the pleasure of meeting many families during our online zoom information sessions last week where I was able to inform families of the latest COVID-19 updates. I will continue to run these zoom meetings whenever new information is put out by the department. While we hope to welcome families back into school sometime this year currently no visitors will be allowed on school sites until further notice with the following exceptions:
Up to two parents or carers will be allowed to accompany their child into school on their first day of Kindergarten, or students starting at a new school.
Parents and carers are able to attend school when:
picking up a sick child
attending the front office when required (e.g. to drop off materials or to conduct financial transactions)
making a purchase at the uniform shop
attending a critical meeting with the principal or other staff member when invited.
We understand that these restrictions are frustrating, however it is our job to keep our students and staff as safe as possible and are doing everything we can to limit and reduce viral spreading through minimising cross cohorting, maintaining extra cleaning shifts, all adults wearing masks and being fully vaccinated and providing Rapid Antigen Tests for all students twice weekly.
Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT)
Thank you to all parents who collected and tested their students over the past 2 weeks. Our second set of RATs (Rapid Antigen Testing) have arrived and are ready to collect. A note has gone home for parent / carers to choose how they would like to collect their tests so we can best support our community in this distribution.
Swimming Carnival
The school’s annual swimming carnival will be held at the Lithgow Aquatic Centre this Friday 11th February. Due to COVID 19 restrictions unfortunately this will only be a time trial event to qualify for district and zone swimming carnivals. Therefore, it is imperative that your child only attends this event if they are a competitive swimmer. Sadly, we are also unable to have parents and carers as part of this event as the Lithgow PSSA is maintaining consistent protocols for all school and district carnivals. Thank you to Miss Jess Wilson for coordinating this event.
Cakes
While we love to acknowledge and celebrate student birthdays each year, unfortunately due to high levels of food allergies amongst our students we do not allow students to bring in cakes or similar items of food to share with their peers. I’m sure all parents and carers understand and support the importance we place on student safety and wellbeing.
School Safety
As an extra layer of protection for our Infants students we are locking the gates at 9.15am each day and will reopen them at 2.45pm. If you need to access the office at any time during the day please call and someone will come to the gate. If you do need to pick up your child early we ask that you QR code in and go straight to the office where the child will be brought to you from their classroom.
Thank you everyone for all the support over the past 2 weeks I wish you all an enjoyable month ahead.
Kind Regards
Christine Wren
Rel. Principal
