Principal's Message

The Issue Highlights

• Staffing: Welcome back to Gabi (Teacher). Nikki and Laura G are the new teachers of Prep B.
• Thank you families for your support on our third curriculum day on Monday.
• New Bus Zone! After 8 years of negotiation with Western Health (Sunshine Hospital) and Brimbank Council, I am extremely pleased to announce that we have been able to negotiate for us to develop a safe bus zone for our students. 
• Last week was NAIDOC week. We are holding Campfire Conversations with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community at Jackson on Wednesday 13th July. Uncle Keith Randall was also able to join us at school.
• COVID-19 Update: Face Masks Strongly Recommended, 6 Packs of RATs provided to students for Term 3, forth Winter Booster and Flu Vaccines, transport of students by positive cases.
• Respectful Behaviours within the Community policy and a video on the new Community Safety Orders in place from 11th July 2022.
• From 2023, Senior Secondary education in Victoria is changing. Victorian Pathways Certificate (VPC) will replace Foundation VCAL. There are three videos on these changes from the VCAA.
• New Child Safe Standards began on 1st July 2022. There is a video of these changes from the CCYP.
• For the most up-to-date calendar dates, always refer to the Xuno Calendar in your Parent Portal.

Dear Families,

Welcome Back to Term 3!

I hope you've all had a lovely break as a family over the holidays. Personally, it has been a good break to spend quality time with the kids as well as a short trip away to Melbourne. We both also enjoyed a couple of days away from the kids too! 

Semester 2 brought new challenges for us as we navigated our COVID normal lives, particularly with ongoing staffing issues in every industry. With this in mind, I think we have adapted as a community with exemplary resilience. 

On Monday we had our third Curriculum Day run by our Teaching and Learning Team. This was focused around on our AIP goals of Reflective, Responsive Teaching for Differentiated Learning to better meet our students' individual learning needs. Our ESS also received professional learning on providing inclusive adjustments. Thank you for supporting our staff's professional learning. 

It was lovely to welcome our students back onsite this week. It is always a joy to see their excitement to return to school and see their friends and educators and hear about their holidays. 

Staffing

On behalf of the Jackson School Community, I would like to officially welcome back Gabrielle Riedel-MacArthur who is returning back to us from Jennings St in a teacher release role. Megan joined us in Term 2 from Sunbury Macedon Ranges Special School and will now work in a casual capacity to support staff absences across the school. Nikki also joined us at the end of Term 2 from Sunshine SDS; Nikki and Laura Gianfriddo have very kindly offered to take our new Prep B until the end of the year due to our increasing number of Preps. All of our Prep students will continue to work in an open-plan classroom supported by all teachers and education support staff in the team.

COVID-19 Update Summary

The Commonwealth Department for Health and Aged Care and the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has updated their recommendations for a winter dose of COVID-19 vaccine to help reduce severe disease from the emerging surge (up to 53% increase) of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariant infections. ATAGI specifically recommends that people aged 50 to 64 years should have their fourth dose, while people aged 30 to 49 years may choose to have a fourth shot.

As announced by the Premier on Friday 8th July, schools will continue to receive rapid antigen tests in Terms 3 and 4 (6 packs of 5 tests per term for staff and students). These were sent home to those at school on Tuesday 12th July. It is recommended that RATs are used by students and staff when symptomatic. Rapid antigen tests are also required to be used for five days if a student or staff member is an identified close contact of a confirmed case, and they are attending or working at a school onsite. From Tuesday 11th July, if you're re-exposed to a positive case after your isolation period end, you are now only exempt from testing and isolating for four weeks - reduced from 12 weeks. 

DET strongly recommends staff wear masks when indoors to keep our community safe. Household contacts attending school who are over 8 years of age are required to wear face masks indoors unless they have a valid exemption. Everyone including students aged 8 years and above must wear a face mask when travelling on public transport, taxis, or ride-share vehicles. Lawful exemptions continue to apply to our students. We have a large supply of N95 masks available from the office. 

From 11.59 pm on Friday 24 June, 2022, parents and carers who are COVID-19 positive can leave self-isolation to transport children to or from school in a private vehicle.

The parent or carer must travel directly to and from the school only. Parents/Carers must remain in the vehicle at all times unless it is reasonably necessary to leave the vehicle to walk the child to and from the entrance of the school safely. They must wear a face mask at all times. Staff supervision at the start and end of the day will continue in Term 3. Families have been asked to notify the office before they arrive if they require their child to be brought to their vehicle.

For the full information, please visit the COVID-19 Update page.

Late Arrivals & Early Leavers

This semester we will work with families to continue to support student attendance at school. There is an increasing number of students regularly arriving late to school or being collected early from school. This significantly affects your child's education over the year. We understand families have a variety of commitments and some appointments cannot be avoided. Thank you for your support in getting your child to attend school on time, for the whole day where possible.

New Bus Zone!

A number of building and grounds works have been completed over the holidays. For many years Jackson School has used Western Health (Sunshine Hospital) land at the bottom on Legana Street as an overflow car park.  After 8 years of negotiation with Western Health (Sunshine Hospital) and Brimbank Council, I am extremely pleased to announce that we have been able to negotiate for us to install a cross-over to develop a safe bus zone for our students. Over the holidays, a new entry cross-over has been installed, a pedestrian walking path, new fences and entry and exit gates. This will provide a turning circle for the SDTP coaches and buses to allow our students to arrive safely on and off the buses in the morning and afternoon. Bus operations will not change immediately until School Council have worked through the logistics of the AMP capital works program with our project managers/architects and daily management with the bus companies. We are awaiting new electric gates and signage to complete the project. Thank you to School Council, Western Health, Brimbank Council and the contractors for making this happen. 

Our Jackson Student Leadership Team (JSLT) asked me for more seating for recess and lunch, so we've purchased three new seating pods located at the back of the oval. These can also be used during lesson time as an outdoor learning space. New cubbies have been installed to enhance the playground. The Prep playground will be decommissioned soon to allow for the commencement of our AMP capital works program.

During the holidays we had a power upgrade in readiness for our AMP capital works program. This however caused a period of power outage onsite at school, meaning that some phone calls and messages sent to the school were not received. We apologise for this if you tried to contact or leave an out-of-hours message at the school during this time.

NAIDOC Week - Get Up, Stand Up, Show Up

This week is National NAIDOC Week (3-10 July). Celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year to celebrate and recognise the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. I encourage you to highlight and complete activities with your students around NAIDOC this week, including an Acknowledgement of Country.

We have invited our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to a "Campfire Conversation" on Wednesday as part of our involvement in the Self-Determination Reform. We have also invited Uncle Keith Randall to join us. We have 12 Aboriginal Families within our school. Six of our students also took part in the campfire conversations. Thank you to those who attended the conversation to ensure that our community is culturally safe and respectful for everyone.

Respectful Behaviours within our Community

In Semester 1 and over the holidays, there has been an increased experience of disrespect from some community members towards staff and between families. This is not acceptable and will not be tolerated whether in-person, over the phone, email or online including SeeSaw. From Term 3, Principals can now issue School Community Safety Orders as a legislative scheme to protect the school community from harmful, threatening or abusive behaviour from parents, carers and other adults. 

For more information, please visit the Respectful Behaviours page.

Many thanks for your ongoing support as always.

Anthony