COVID Update
It is absolutely terrific to have everyone back at school. It’s lovely to hear the laughter and the noise of play, as the children enjoy being able to socialise with their friends and learn together with them and their teachers in the classroom. This has certainly been a challenging time for everyone, so it is good to get back to some sort of normality.
It is with relief that we haven’t had any secondary infections from our first initial case that I notified the community about on Friday 29th October. We just wanted to take this opportunity to thank our community for the way everyone has followed the procedures that they’ve been asked to. This includes making sure children are kept at home if they’re showing signs of symptoms, and if called to the school, parents arrive quickly to pick children up. As well as ensuring children have masks if required, many parents are also providing masks for children in Foundation to Year Two. All these things together make a significant difference.
Additionally, the routines the teachers have implemented in the classroom add another layer of protection to reducing the spread of COVID. Windows and doors are left open, routines of hand sanitising, going outside for learning as much as possible and eating outside. Everyone is incredibly respectful of the routines and are continuing to work together to keep our school as safe as possible.
In conclusion just again thank you to everyone who have supported the school, and the teachers, and in turn the whole community in ensuring we’re doing everything that we can to make sure that people are safe.
As we open up as a community, our school still looks a little different due to the fact that we have so many unvaccinated children, so we still have restrictions that we have to adhere to. For example, once we have any visitor to the school density limits inside apply, which is one person per four square metres, and outside it is one person to two square metres . All volunteers and visitors that come on site have to present their vaccination certificate. Due to these restrictions we can only plan according to the DET Operations Guide. This means at this point our community celebrations will look different because of the size of our school and the need to manage density limits and vaccination certification. As we have done all throughout this time our community has been really supportive and worked together to follow the directions outlined by the Department of Health and the Department of Education, once again we thank you for your support.
Remembrance Day
On Thursday our school captains led us in a Remembrance Day ceremony. This was time to reflect and remember the people who have fought for our country and lost their lives. The service was followed by a minute silence at 11 am.
2022 Planning
Next week the teachers begin the process of class placements. This is a lengthy process. Parents were provided with the opportunity to put their considerations in at the end of last term, our students will have an opportunity to name five of their friends. The teachers will then use all this information together with their own knowledge of the children, their friends and learning needs to place students in their 2022 class for next year. Please understand once these classes have been decided it is very difficult to make any changes.
Foundation Transition-Has Begun
We welcomed our new families this week. The kinder children were lucky enough to visit the classrooms whilst parents checked in and were introduced to some of our key community members.
Thank you to our school council president Natasha Hosein and Rebecca Newboult our parent club president for coming along and sharing with our new community members the opportunities that lie ahead of them.
Hope you all have a relaxing weekend,
Simone, Suzanne and David