Life certainly changes quickly these days. I spoke to P&C on Monday night about current COVID PROTOCOLS and the challenges they had presented and today these protocols changed, partially due to the advice both school and parents provided. Thank you for your support.

Unfortunately as you now know we had a chance to try out the protocols with a positive Year 2 case. Children in the two affected classes were quickly taken outside for a fun social distancing game and parents alerted. Thank you Year 2 teachers, office staff and parents for your help. Letters from Health have now been sent out to those families whose students were impacted. Please contact the school office if you have any questions.

Other schools in our community are also experiencing infections so please regard the slightest symptom as a reason for testing and staying away from school until a negative test is received.

I would also ask parents to encourage children to wear masks in class at school particularly in Y2-6 age group when they can be a bit more responsible. They certainly help prevent spread if worn properly. Please do not think sending a child in a mask is a good idea if they have a sniffle! Get tested.

Maintaining Educational continuity

Teachers have stayed in close touch with the classes of students deemed close contacts. We appreciate that some siblings may also be at home due to the difficulties of isolating from close contacts. Thank you for thinking of our community in doing this. Teachers will be in contact as able with children in this position and we will work on providing better support for these siblings. Continue to keep the school up to date with attendance and where your child submits some work each day they will be marked as flexible learning.

Having teachers provide ZOOM sessions of class lessons is not practicable due to: 

·         privacy of students within the class being protected (no permission to be photographed); and

·         the teaching style means that teachers move around amongst students as they teach rather than remaining static at the front of the classroom as in the presentations, they had been doing for Home Learning.

Teachers have been asked to contact students who may be isolating due being a sibling where parents have let us know and will use available technology to send additional work home.

Congratulations 

to our Game Changer Team and our Year 6 Debaters who have enjoyed recent success.

·         Our Game Changer team (Anthony J, David N, Mikolaj S, Anthony PG and Praman in Year 6) WON the competition and will compete as a top-ten team at State Finals in the near future.

Thank you to our STEM teacher Alyssa Worthington who has coached this team.

·         Our Senior A debating team - Ashling C, Henry M, Charlie C, Mika H, and Clem A made it into the top 8. This means we compete in a quarter final knockout round 

Thank you to Year 6 teacher Nicky Laurendet who has coached the Debating team.

Parent Participation

While some restrictions have eased at this stage, we are allowed only minimal participation of parents on the site. This can be for specific educational purposes such as meetings with teachers and one parent may accompany their new Kinder outside when attending transition sessions Weeks 9 and 10.

We're hopeful that this may ease over the remainder of the term but at this stage parents will not be permitted to attend Presentation Days. They can also only be held outside and therefore our normal zooming etc will not be possible.  We will be hopeful this might change.

Regards

Susan Allen, Principal

We thank Pearl Consulting www.pearlconsult.com for making a very generous donation to the Year 6 farewell. It has been a difficult year for many an your donation will help to ensure our Year 6 children will have the opportunity to celebrate completing their primary school years.

We have organised an End of Year Raffle to raise money for the party and give the graduates a celebration they deserve. Please get behind this raffle and buy tickets. Monies raised will pay for the party (which is usually paid for by the cupcake day) and any additional funds will go back to the P&C.

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