PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents/Carers,

It’s been a terrific past couple of weeks for our school with a number of interesting extra-curricular events happening. Many of the senior children have had their turn for excursions, with the Year 3/4 students visiting the Melbourne Museum and the Year 5/6 students spending the day at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. The Cross Country team also headed off to compete in the Holt District competition, with 15 students finishing in the top 20 and four students headed off to the next level of competition. Our Year 5/6 students have continued with Interschool Football and Netball on Friday afternoons, which is a highlight for these children. One of the things that I continue to be impressed with is the behaviour of our students when they leave our school on excursions or to attend sporting events. We have high expectations of our students behaviour in these instances and they regularly rise to meet these expectations, which as the Principal, I couldn’t be more proud of.

Autumn this year seems to be more challenging than previous years in terms of illness, with Influenza and Covid-19 circulating in the community. There continues to cases of Covid-19 in our school and some families have been affected by the flu. Recently, there have been changes to the rapid antigen surveillance testing scheme for Covid-19; it is now recommended that RATs are used by students and staff when symptomatic. RATs are also required to be used for five days if a student or staff member is a close contact of a confirmed case and they are attending school. Face masks continue to be required for those children from Year 3 to 6 who are attending school while a household contact. Yesterday, your family would have received a pack of rapid antigen tests. Should you required further testing kits, please collect from the school office. Finally, a gentle reminder to keep your child home if they are unwell for the benefit of all.

I would like to thank our parents for your understanding over the past two weeks, as we have battled through some staff absences. We have had four staff absent with Covid-19 and two with flu, which has presented significant organisational challenges. I am grateful to all staff for going above and beyond to maintain positive and productive learning environments for all during this time. We are very lucky to have such amazing people working with our students.

Cybersafety Night - Tuesday 7th June

At a revised time of 6.30pm-8pm on Tuesday 7th June, the school will be hosting a CyberSafety evening for our Year 3 to 6 students and parents. The partnership between the schools and parents in educating the children around safe online behaviours is absolutely vital in today’s world. There will be two workshops run concurrently on this evening - a parent workshop in the school hall led by Louisa Di Pietro and myself; and a student workshop in the classrooms, led by our Year Six Science and Technology Captains. The purpose of this evening is to provide parents with the opportunity to talk with other parents and learn more about current trends, challenges and solutions in this space. The student workshop will cover safe online behaviours and cyberbullying. In the final stages of the evening, parents and children will come back together to write/update a family agreement regarding technology use in the home. It is expected at all students from Year 3 to 6 are in attendance for this evening and are accompanied by at least one parent.

Semester One Assessment and Reporting

Over the last two weeks, our teachers have been busily working through a suite of assessments with the students to assess their progress across the curriculum for reporting purposes. This includes formal assessments, assessments online, oral and written assessments. The teachers will then use these assessments to inform and generate comments for personalised Semester One reports. This week, our Specialist teachers are working in classrooms to provide classroom teachers some additional time to write these comments. 

On Friday 17th June, Semester One reports will be sent home and made available digitally through our nForma Parent Portal (access details communicated later). Student reports took a very different form through the pandemic, however in Semester One this year, we will return to a more standard reporting format. Student achievement will be reported on in all key learning areas, including Specialist programs. There will be an ‘Achievement’ comment from your child’s classroom teacher, as well comments regarding your child’s ‘Areas for Improvement/Future Learning’. The reports will be followed by Parent/Teacher Interviews on Tuesday 21st June. School will finish at 1pm on this day to allow this to happen.

Who Gives a Crap

During Term One, I was fortunate to attend the Victorian Association of Catholic Primary School Principals Conference. At this conference, one of the keynote speakers was Simon Griffiths; co-founder and CEO of Who Gives a Crap toilet paper. Who Gives a Crap donate 50% of their profits each year to Water Aid, who build toilets in developing countries. Since inception in 2012, Who Gives a Crap have donated more then $10,800,000 for this purpose. Following this conference I met with the Social Justice Captains and they have completed a review of our toilet paper use at school. They observed toilet paper use and completed a cost review, finding that we could save 30% if we purchased Premium TP from Who Gives a Crap, instead of purchasing Kleenex rolls . On top of this we’d be supporting a business who supports those who need basic sanitation. Thank you to Leanne Cooke for helping us to obtain wholesale prices and well done to our Social Justice Captains for getting socially just TP into our school!

Minor Bump and Head Injury Procedure

After some incidents recently, it is timely to communicate our school's procedure around head bumps and head injuries. In recent times, we have learnt more and more about the lasting impacts serious or repeated head knocks can have on brain development and function later in life. See below a summary of our procedure, which is followed by our staff, who are all Level 2 First Aid trained.

1. When a child reports a head knock to a staff member, the children are assessed and observed by the attending staff member for a minimum of 10 minutes. Following this period of observation, if it is deemed to be ‘minor’ (with no physical or cognitive symptoms present) they will be sent back to class or out to play with a pink sticker on their uniform. This sticker informs other staff of a bump to the head and if a deterioration in this child’s condition is noticed, they are to be sent back to the Sick Bay for further monitoring. In the instance of a minor bump to the head, parents will be notified via email.
2. In the event of a serious head injury, where there is broken skin, swelling, bleeding, bruising or dizziness, parents will be contacted immediately by phone to collect the child.
3. In the event of more serious symptoms including but not limited to slurred speech, confusion, vomiting, stumbling, the attending staff member will take appropriate action, which may include contacting emergency services (000).

Please also see attached, a copy of the St Agnes’ Minor Bump and Head Injury Procedure.

Tuckshop Closed this week

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the school tuckshop will be closed this week. Sally passes on her apologies, but looks forward to orders for next week.

Girls Night Out

The evening celebration of Mother’s Day organised by our P&F - Girls Night Out - was once again well attended and a great night was had by all. These social events are a wonderful way to connect with the awesome families in our school community! Thank you to Leanne Cooke and the P&F for organising this.

Classroom Helper Training

We are excited to be welcoming parent helpers back into the Prep and Year 1 classrooms from the beginning of Term Three. Our classroom programs will benefit greatly from the support of Classroom Helpers. You will enjoy participating in your children’s education – we are in partnership with you and your support is invaluable. All parents are welcome to help. The compulsory training session will be run by Amanda Baker (Junior School Leader) in the Hall, where we will meet on:

Monday 30th May 9.00 – 10.00 am

For those people already trained, lists for you to place your names on will be posted outside the classrooms closer to the 30th May. An Operoo form has been sent for further information.

Year 1/2 Family Faith Night - Wednesday 1st June at 7pm

Our Year 1/2 children and parents are asked to come along to our Family Faith Night where we will talk and learn about prayer and storytelling in RE. The session will be held in the school hall from 7pm.  

St Agnes’ Biggest Morning Tea - Friday 3rd June

The Annual St Agnes’ Biggest Morning Tea will be held on Friday 3rd June. Parents are invited to come along to school to join us for a community morning tea. There will be a raffle and other activities, with all funds raised going to the Cancer Council.

Multisensory Language Education training - Amanda Baker

For the week beginning Monday 6th June, our Prep Teacher and Junior School Leader, Amanda Baker will be attending the Multisensory Language Education training workshop. Amanda will complete the training and then return to school to work alongside teachers and support staff in delivering this approach in our Junior classrooms. Lauren Cummins and Denise Howey will teach Prep for the week. Thank you to our Prep parents for your understanding and support with this, as we strive for improvement and excellence in Literacy.

Extend Winter Vacation Care

There has been an expression of interest once again for this service from within our school community for the upcoming holidays. For Vacation Care to be viable onsite, on an ongoing basis, Extend has informed me that a minimum average of 15 children per day is required. If you would like to access Winter Vacation Care during the upcoming holidays, please indicate your intended level of use in the survey below (click on button) before 9am tomorrow (Thursday 25th May). This will determine if the program will go ahead in the upcoming holidays, but please only indicate genuine/expected utilisation. We will communicate next week if the Winter Vacation Care is indeed viable.

Assembly

Assemblies are in the Hall on Wednesday afternoons from 2.40pm and parents are welcome to attend. At assembly, there are presentations from classes, student awards, birthday acknowledgements and special announcements.

Wed 25th May - Year 2

Wed 1st June - Year 6

Wed 8th June - Year 1

Wed 15th June - Prep

Wed 22nd June - Year 4

Kind regards,

Lachie.