Thank-you and our next steps

It has been fantastic to watch our school begin to return to normal over the last nine days as we have welcomed our students in Foundation, Grade 1 and Grade 2 back to school, as well as our staff across the whole school.

We are really looking forward to welcoming our Year 3-6 students back on Tuesday of next week following the long weekend. It will be wonderful to have our school back together again after the huge upheaval of the last three months.

The return to school for our younger students has been remarkably smooth and there are many reasons for this and lots of people to thank.

Our staff, who showed a great balance between implementing Education Department and Health guidelines and welcoming the students back to school with warmth, care and understanding.
Our parents and carers, who showed understanding, flexibility and responsiveness in applying new processes, particularly around drop-off and pick-up routines.
Most importantly, our students, who returned to school with a positive mindset; excited to see their teachers and friends, as well as settling in to familiar learning routines.

With the return to school of our older students next week, there are going to be a few key changes to our school operations to help ensure the safety of our students, staff and wider community.

Back to school dates

Students in Years 3-6 will return on Tuesday 9th June.
All students are expected to attend school from this date. We will not be able to provide remote learning where parents elect to keep their children at home, except where this is based on medical advice.

Start and finish times and drop-off logistics

As we are doubling the numbers of students and families attending school each day, from Tuesday we will be moving to staggered start and finish times to reduce the number of parents and carers congregating at peak times.
Students in years Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 will continue to start school at 9am and finish at 3:30pm each day.
Our returning Year 3-6 students will start school ten minutes earlier each day at 8:50am and also finish ten minutes earlier at 3:20pm.
School staff will open the gates and provide supervision from 8:40am and no students should be at school before this time. Students are asked to arrive as close to their start time as possible rather than arriving early and socialising.
Similarly, after school, students and families are encouraged to go straight home raher than congregte and cause congestion outside the school grounds.
If families have children in both F-2 and 3-6 it is ok for all siblings to arive prior to 8:50am and then wait on the playground or oval after school for their younger siblings to finish.
To allow for greater social distancing, we ask that Foundation and Year 5/6 children enter and leave the school through the back gates (near the pencil fence) and Year 1/2/3/4 children through the front and side gates near the oval and car park.
Parents are requested to respect social distancing protocols at busy times and spread out on the oval or in the park.
Parents and other visitors will not be allowed onto our school site (unless this is completely essential). Students will say goodbye to their parents on the oval/park and they will come into the school alone.
Teachers will take their classes out of the school onto the oval (Year 1/2/3/4 classes) and through the back gates into the park (Foundation and Year 5/6 children) at the end of their school day and children will be dismissed to parents from here. If older children normally walk home by themself then they can continue to do this.

Other arrangements

As we have the luxury of so much available outdoor space, we will not be running staggered break times. We will however take the precaution of timetabling our different levels to a particular zone where they will play for both break times in a day. Levels will rotrate around these zones during the week. This measure will help allow for greater distancing and avoid large scale mixing between different cohorts of students.
If parents/carers need to speak to the school office, myself, Michelle or their child's teacher, we ask that you do this by phone or email wherever possible to help protect our staff. Any longer meetings will be arranged remotely using video-conferencing technology.
In-person school assemblies, excursions, camps and other non-essential large gatherings will all be postponed for the time being. Instead we will continue with our Friday video assemblies.
As non-essential adults or visitors are not permitted on the school site, basketball training sessions will not be permitted on school grounds for the remainder of term 2. We regret having to take this decision as we understand the importance of the interactions and exercise that sports provide.

It has been great to see our new ways of operating work well so far and having all 377 students back on site will represent a frther challenge.

However, I know that with the continued support of our families and the enthusiasm of our students we will ensure a safe and happy return to in-person learning for our whole school.

We can't wait!

Neil Scott, Principal

SKiPPS Newsletter

Issue 10 · 04 Jun 2020

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