Principal's Message

Jackson School is a collaborative learning community for all. We aim to develop independence through safety, respect and responsibility. We aspire to offer authentic, quality educational experiences that develop futures, create opportunities and inspire student potential; enabling our students to be valued and contributing members of the wider community. We share and celebrate our successes and achievements.   

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome back to a new school year. I would also like to welcome our new families to the Jackson School Community. Happy New Year and Happy Lunar New Year (Tết for our Vietnamese community). The Chinese Zodiac Sign of the Tigers reflects positive qualities include being kind, adventurous and enthusiastic. With this, it is with great enthusiasm we return to school next week and I am looking forward for us all to begin a new year of adventures together.

I hope that you have all had a safe holiday. I have no doubt that January for many of you hasn't been the break you anticipated with some testing positive, been close household contacts and had to isolate or had holiday plans disrupted due to the new Omicron variant. I do hope that you are at least rested to begin our new school year. There is no doubt that Omicron will pose new challenges for us to overcome as we manage more positive cases across our community.

Students are returning to school on Tuesday 1st February and will be onsite in classrooms for Term 1. This is following two Curriculum Pupil-Free Days on Friday 28th and Monday 31st January for staff to undertake professional learning, received COVID safety training and prepare classroom for students to return next week.

On behalf of the Jackson School Community, I would like to officially welcome our new staff for 2022. Leadership: Michelle (LT - Wellbeing and Support), Teachers: Kat (7/8), Alison (5/6), Pagan (Performing Arts), Michael (CRT/PA); ESS: Stephanie (9/10), Tori (Art Therapy ES). 

We also say goodbye to a few staff who have been successful at securing positions in other settings for 2022, these include: Phil H (A/AP moved to Geelong High), Sue F (Retirement), Lynsey H (12 months leave), Lauren D (ES now a Kindergarten Teacher), Mary B (seconded to DET in  Barwon for 6 months), Demi (Speech Pathologist - Private NDIS), Danielle (Speech Pathologist - Private NDIS), Leah (ES - New School), Ainsley (ES - CRT). Joan remains on leave.

Following the announcement by the Premier and the Minister for Education on Sunday 23rd January, DET have published key information about school operations settings expected to be in place for the first 4 weeks of Term 1 2022.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/keeping-education-open-and-safe-2022 

School will make sure your child is as safe as possible and will focus on:

• washing hands regularly
• wearing a mask (recommended for Years 3-12, disability exemptions continue to apply) 
• physical distancing
• daily recommended rapid antigen testing (RAT) at home

Free rapid antigen tests

Free rapid antigen tests will be available for the first four weeks of Term 1 2022. Daily testing is strongly recommended for students and staff in specialist school settings. You do not need to buy your own RAT kits - school will provide them to you. We will let you know once these test kits are available.

After doing the tests at home, if it is positive, you will need to:

1. let the school know on the via the Jackson COVID Hotline 03 9366 4322; Option 4 and/or dedicated email address covid@jacksons.vic.edu.au. There is a message bank on the phone for when the phone is unmanned by our rostered COVID Officer. Families are able to message the mobile number and/or email address 24 hours a day. Please note we will only be able to respond to messages and calls within office hours.
2. keep your child at home for 7 days 
3. contact the Department of Health via the COVID-19 Positive Rapid Antigen Test Self-Reporting Form or call centre on 1800 675 398.

A video about RAT testing in many different languages, is available online by clicking here.

School will notify the community if we have a positive case onsite with by Text Message (SMS). 

Schools are no longer required to individually identify the close contacts of a positive case. Instead, we will inform the school community, at the earliest opportunity, that there was a positive case onsite, all members of the school community should monitor closely for symptoms and that staff and students should continue with daily rapid antigen testing before school.

Getting vaccinated

Parents and carers must have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine or have a medical exception (with limited exceptions) to enter school buildings.

All staff working in schools need to be fully vaccinated or have a verified medical exception. If a teacher gets COVID-19, we will use internal staff, bring in extra teachers and other staff if we need them.

COVID-19 vaccinations are not required for students to attend school, but vaccination for students is important. Please try to organise your child’s vaccinations before school comes back.

For more information on how to book a vaccination, including important information about vaccination for children aged 5 to 11, refer to Vaccination information for children and teenagers.

https://www.coronavirus.vic.gov.au/parents-carers-and-guardians 

SDTP Buses

DET Student Disability Transport Buses will also operate as normal on this day. Staggered drop-off and pick-up times will no longer be running. 

OSHC

Our Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) program will also restart on Tuesday 1st February 2022. It was lovely to see our students who were participating in our OSHC Holiday Program whilst they were on their first excursion to the zoo in early January. Karen will formally start in her new role as OSHC Project Manager this week. We did have two staff and one student who contracted COVID during this period but these were managed by TheirCare. Dusty also paid them a visit too! Thank you to all the TheirCare staff for your work with our students over January.

Essential Information 

To support families with the start of the 2021 school year, our administration team have compiled essential information in the pages in this issue which provides you with all the necessary information to start the year. This includes:

• Key 2022 Dates
• Xuno & SeeSaw Information
• 2022 Photographing, Filming and Recording Students Information
• 2022 Parent/Carer Payments Charges & Camps, Sports & Excursion Fund Information
• Other Essential Information

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us on 

(03) 9366 4322 or email us at jackson.sch@education.vic.gov.au.

There’s no doubt that this term is going to be a different challenge for all of us, but we are also very excited to kick off the school year.

Thank you for your continued support as always. I look forward to welcoming our staff, students and families back to school.

Stay safe,

Anthony Jackson

Acting Principal