FROM THE PRINCIPAL

To the St Nicholas School Community

Welcome to Week 5, Term 3.

As principal of St Nicholas School, I am in the very fortunate position of talking with parents every single day. I often ask parents, “What do you want for your child?” The answer is consistent, “I want my child to be happy, safe and learn”.

During the current pandemic, the safety of society has been compromised. While currently very fortunate in Tamworth, worry and concern is still very evident. Consequently, the following quote from Glennon Doyle Melton resonated with me. The quote also alludes to building the resilience of our children.

COVID-19

Yesterday two letters were distributed to the school community. One from myself and the other from the Director of Schools, Mr Chris Smyth. The two letters detail further COVID-19 directives and restrictions for NSW schools. Please take the time to read both letters carefully.

UNWELL STUDENTS

We must enforce your responsibility as a parent/carer to keep your child/ren at home if displaying any symptoms of COVID-19.  Please keep our office staff fully informed with accurate information regarding your child's illness (eg. symptoms) so that we can determine the safety of all our students and staff.  As detailed in the above letters, a student displaying the symptoms of COVID-19 can not return to school until a negative COVID-19 test is sighted by office staff.  

This is a team effort, and we ask that everyone in St Nicholas School play their part in keeping our community safe and well.

School TV: Riding the Corona Coaster

As a way of supporting our families during the pandemic, St Nicholas School engaged the service of School TV. School TV is a streamlined, wellbeing platform for schools and parents addressing the modern-day realities of raising safe, happy and resilient young people.

The uncertainty of not knowing what will happen next in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic will have an impact on many students and their families. There is a concern mental health issues such as anxiety and depression will increase, especially amongst young people.

In the special report, Riding the Corona Coaster, families are encouraged to embrace the guidance offered to help minimise the impact of this corona coaster. I trust you find it valuable.

School Improvement

Last Thursday and Friday principals from the Diocese of Armidale System of Schools came together to work collaboratively on school improvement. While we should be proud of St Nicholas School, we must be unapologetic in our demand to become an even better school.

The theme of the two days could be articulated as consistently re-focusing on the core business of our work: ‘working in teams to improve the conditions of teaching, learning and wellbeing’. As leaders we were challenged with stopping some of the ‘good work’ in our schools, to focus on two or three areas of ‘great work’, two or three areas which would have a significant impact on ‘improving the conditions of teaching, learning and wellbeing’

In 2020, as per our 2020 Annual Improvement Plan, our three pillars of ‘great work’ are:

1. Faith Formation
2. A relentless focus on learning
3. Wellbeing

St Nicholas School leadership team has commenced the process of evaluating our 2020 Plan with an emphasis on our aspirational goals versus the actual reality of where we sit today. As we move towards 2021 with a focus on ‘working in teams to improve the conditions of teaching, learning and wellbeing’ we will outline our two or three areas of great work, with a critical lens of reviewing how much ‘good work’ we have achieved in 2020.

Parent-Teacher Meetings

A big thank you to those parents and carers who met or phoned in with their child’s teacher. This partnership is crucial and one of the many ways as parents we show our children we value a quality education.

Have a great week

John Clery

PRINCIPAL

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

RE:  COMPASS PARENT PORTAL

Compass is St Nicholas School's new Student Information system.

On Monday, 24th August 2020, parents and guardians will be sent home a Parent Portal Compass login and temporary password by email. This email will guide parents to login to their parent portal. Parents and carers will only be able to access their own student's details and information. This email will only be sent to parents or guardians of the students. 

Compass Parent Portal

Parents will initially be able to view their child’s attendance and provide reasons at to why their child is absent or late to school. When Compass is fully operational parents and guardians will be able to use the Parent Portal to: -

• Book your Parent/Student/Teacher conferences
• View up-to-date class and school attendance information
• Approve past absences for your child
• Enter upcoming absences for your child
• Access your child's Student Semester Reports
• Download, print and approve upcoming excursions
• Update your registered email and mobile number (used for SMS alerts)
• Access information regarding upcoming events and news.

We ask that all parents make an effort to join the Parent Portal and when completing online information (eg. student absence), give as much detail for our office staff to be fully informed.    The Parent Portal will certainly make your life easier.

Compass Information

• If you are a parent or guardian and you do not receive your email please contact the school.
• If you follow the instructions in the email and you are unsuccessful logging into Compass please contact the school.
• Both parents and guardians of the students will receive an individual Compass login and passwords. For security purposes, please DO NOT  share Compass logins and passwords with your family.
• It is very important that you DO NOT share your login details with your children.When the school decides to introduce the students to Compass they will give the students with their own login and password details to access the student Compass portal.

We look forward to communicating with you through the Compass Parent Portal. Any questions please contact the school office.