Dear parents and carers,
The school has been a busy and exciting place over the last week with many outdoor activities, camps, orienteering, Wild Action Zoo visits, fishing, bike riding and the Year Five and Six Amazing Race around Macedon.
While we will continue to run the academic program right up until the final week, we also acknowledge the importance of engaging the students in these different school experiences after the last two years of disrupted learning. These opportunities support a range of skill development that is unique and important. The students will have been socialising, negotiating group work, their resilience will have been tested through physical challenges and managing fatigue from sleeping (or not sleeping) in tents in Middle Gully. A big thank you must go to all the parent helpers and the teachers for the support of these programs.
Carolyn Pain Retirement
After 12 years as the art teacher at Macedon Primary School Carolyn Pain is retiring from her role here. We would like to thank Carolyn for her dedication and contribution to Macedon Primary School and teaching and promoting the arts in the local area. Through Carolyn’s role she frequently supported our students to create and exhibit art at the Woodend Art Show and often led the Macedon Show Day art exhibition. I wish Carolyn all the very best in retirement.
We are currently in the process of appointing and new art teacher, and I will inform the community via the newsletter when the appointment is made.
Preparation for the Bushfire Season
With summer arriving today, and our status as a “bushfire at risk” school I am sharing with you our processes and plans in the event of high bushfire danger in our local government area. Please refer to the two process flow charts attached to the newsletter. The first flow chart outlines the pre-emptive process for high fire danger in the area. On a code red day the school is completely closed and on an the extreme fire danger rating day the school students and staff are relocated to Sunbury West PS on buses. The second flow chart outlines our process for when there is fire activity in the area, this is a reactive process to a fire situation that arises after the students arrive at school. In this situation, if it is safety to do so we will evacuate the school to either Gisborne Secondary College or Kyneton High School. In a last reason where evacuation is not possible, we shelter in place in the John Curtin Building.
Please familiarise yourself with the processes and discuss them with your children. We will be completing one of our termly evacuation drills next week and this will include relocating the whole school to the John Curtin Building to practise our Shelter in Place evacuation. The building has recently had upgrades to improve its fire rating such as having a sprinkler system installed (2020), the addition of screens surrounding the ventilation points and screens installed on the floor to ceiling windows. There will also be shutters fitted to the serving windows and there will be some fire risk reduction treatment, such as fire-retardant paint, applied to the grandstand and retaining walls in the area.
COVID reminders
Visitors Onsite
Parents and visitors are now allowed back on site at school. All parents who enter the school building are required to wear a facemask and check in using the QR codes and visitor’s book. Facemasks do not need to be worn outside, however people must adhere to physical distancing requirements.
Vaccination Requirements for Parent Helpers
Any visitor or volunteer performing work in schools are required to be fully vaccinated by 29 November (unless a medical exemption applies) to attend on site.
Under the COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination (Specified Facilities) directions issued by the Victorian Chief Health Officer, schools must ensure that all visitors and volunteers who attend the school comply with vaccination requirements.
Parents that wish to volunteer on camp, excursions or school activities must supply vaccination information to the school indicating their vaccination status. This can be in the form of the following;
· a letter from a medical practitioner confirming the person’s vaccination status or confirming a person is medically exempt.
· A certificate of immunisation
· An immunisation history statement obtained from the Australian Immunisation Register.
The school will maintain a vaccination register for visitors and volunteers.
A visitor or volunteer attending a school site as a parent or carer for the purposes of collecting or dropping off children is not considered to be attending for work purposes and will be subject to the same requirements as all other parents collecting and dropping off children.
Masks
Face masks will still be required for staff, visitors and Year 3 to 6 students in an indoor space at school.
The wearing of masks remains recommended for Prep to Grade 2 students and in circumstances where physical distancing cannot be maintained.
Finally, we ask that if your child is not well, please do not send them to school. If your child is unwell at school, you will be contacted to collect them.
Kind regards and Sampai jumpa (until next time)
Matt Forrest
Principal