Welcome back to Kindergarten and Year 1

The sun shone on us and children and teachers are having a great first week together. It was lovely to have the children back, happy and excited to see their friends and teachers and we are really looking forward to seeing the rest next Monday. 

We also welcomed the Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Education who came to the school for a press briefing and to announce further funding for the Individual COVID Learning Support plan, to enable small groups or individual students whom the school feels may have fallen behind due to conditions of the Pandemic. Our School Captains, Vice Captains and Isabel, our Year 5 "Endeavour " Investigative Reporter, had the opportunity to ask all our visitors a few questions. 

Changing Conditions

I know parents are finding it hard when conditions change. 

The school is doing its best to meet the needs of our families, but we are required to adhere to DOE advice and this advice changes regularly as determined by government and Health. 

We will continue to provide you with updated advice as swiftly as we can, however we cannot change it. Please read the advice carefully as our office has been inundated with calls about matters over which the school has no control.

We had committed to Home Learning continuing for Kinder and Year 1 this week as this was already prepared, but the latest advice is that we no longer provide this support after children are due to return. Government and health believe that children are best served by being back at school both from a learning point of view and mental health and socialization. A medical certificate is required for absences or attendance records will reflect the absences and you will automatically receive an SMS.

Coming up

A number of the "normal" school activities are under development in accord with the COVID restrictions as they currently exist but hopefully flexible enough to change as conditions improve.

Peter Lavender, Stage 3 Assistant Principal, is organizing a number of plans for Year 5 and 6, including developing "at school" day camps, Mini Fair, Year 6 Farewell evening, and bell Ringing/Graduation as well as Leadership training for Year 5 and a Day camp. 

Other events planned include: 

Year 4 Fun Day Camp, Year 2 filming a virtual performance of the Lion King for distribution to parents, and K-2 Athletics carnival on the school site. 

Assessments and reports 

• Year 3, 4 and 5 will complete the statewide Check in assessments in Literacy and Numeracy and Year 1, the Phonics Screener this term.
• ICAS will be held in Week 6 and 7 in English, Maths and Science for those students who have elected to participate. 
• OC for Year 4 will be held Wednesday 17th November, on the school site.

Teachers are currently preparing end of year reports which will be similar to those completed in Semester 1 2020 and therefore will not have the A-E gradings and will focus primarily on Literacy and Numeracy. 

Presentation Days will be held on the school site in Stage groups and we will keep parents informed about attending those as restrictions lessen. 

Kinder transition days will be held in Week 9 and 10 in the hope that by that point we may be able to have children on the site. All other information sessions for parents will be undertaken by Zoom. 

COVID UPDATE

An update was sent home this week by See Saw. There have been significant changes and I would assume that the changes will continue. It also outlines the measures that the Department has implemented for our schools to keep children safe.

Regards,

Susan Allen, Principal

The information is the same, but it looks a little different!

Did you know that you can find all the staff at the school on this page- Our staff - Randwick Public School (nsw.gov.au)

You can also find information about the key learning areas, the canteen, extra school activities, school guidelines and religion and ethics.