Principal's Message

School Philosophy

Orchard Grove Primary School is committed to providing a safe, nurturing environment that engages curiosity, promotes learning, personal growth and wellbeing for all students. We strive to develop adaptability and resilience so students can become valued members of the local and global communities and be prepared for future life experiences.

From the Principal

Well, I am reluctant to ask you all “how you are going?” under the new situation we all find ourselves, but I hope you are doing ok. There is no doubt considerable confusion and frustration still exists around the rules, regulations and permits that will be governing our lives for the next six weeks, and it seems these keep changing on an hourly basis at the moment, which adds to the anxiety and frustration. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone in the community in different ways, and we will certainly have members of the OGPS community who have been significantly affected, either in relation to their work or the health and wellbeing of a friend or family member. To all those affected, we extend our thoughts and sincere best wishes; if we, as a community, can help in any way, please reach out. From a school point of view, we are definitely in the same boat as you and we are still waiting for further instruction as to how we are to operate during this time. 

With moving from a State of Emergency to a State of Disaster, things have certainly tightened, and it is very clear for schools that the underlying intent of the Stage 4 restrictions is to minimise movement and travel in the community and for people to work from home wherever possible. This means that many students who have been attending onsite will now need to engage in remote and flexible learning from home.

In accordance with DET advice and guidelines, our strong focus is on minimising the number of students and staff onsite. New restrictions around staff attending school have now come into play, so it is very difficult to staff the onsite supervision of students under these conditions, which is causing significant stress at my end. All staff members are expected to work from home, and a skeleton volunteer staff roster will be supervising and supporting students onsite. Our staff will continue to place a high priority on the wellbeing and educational outcomes of all of our students while in the remote learning environment.

Essentially, every endeavour should be made for students to be at home and we thank you in anticipation of your support. Attendance at school is a last-resort option and only if the eligibility criteria are met. 

We are very aware that this has upset some families but, unfortunately, we have to operate under this direction. The focus, now more than ever, is on community health and everything else, including education, is taking a back seat. The great thing is that we are a fantastic community of parents and teachers, and we will all be doing our best to make the situation for our children as good as possible; when this is all over, we will all be working harder than ever to make up for time lost.

On another note, we received a request from the Whitehorse Police for our community to fill in a two-minute questionnaire around policing in the Whitehorse Area during the lockdown, and accessing information from the community so that police can better meet needs and expectations.

If you are interested in giving feedback please click the link below and fill out the survey.

www.engage.vic.gov.au/victoria-police-community-connection-project/victoria-police-whitehorse

Many of you also heard that Aurora School, next to OGPS, had a case of COVID-19 last week and had to close. This was a bit too close for comfort, but you will be pleased to know that the deep clean of the site has been completed and the school has been given the all-clear. 

Hopefully, this six-week lockdown now in place with Stage 4 level restrictions will achieve the outcome desired. And, with best practice in hygiene becoming commonplace, it would be great to think that it will help us to get to a place where COVID-19 will become, at best, a very bad memory or at least reduce the spread of the virus to a very low level of community transfer. Let’s hope and work together so that we can return to some resemblance of normality sooner rather than later. Working together is the key.

On an uplifting note, it gives me great pleasure to announce the birth of little Josephine Sophia to our wonderful Gina Mets and her husband Colm.  Josephine weighed 3.26kg. What a beautiful family photo below. I love how Gina describes her present feeling, "we are in our own little 'love bubble' at the moment."

Lastly, keep a look out for notification of the launch of our Year 6 Leaders Blog.  The aim of the blog is to provide a space for the Leader to communicate with the student group and encourage them during this lock down time.  Please support our student leaders by regularly visiting the blog and sharing the content with your family.

Thanks again for your continued support and feel free to reach out if we can assist you.

Take care everyone and stay safe.

Glenda Harry

Principal