St James News

Principal's Post

Dear Families,

I never expected that it would be this early in the year that we would be in such a situation here at school once again. It is my belief that we can cater for students here on site and that our community will do all that is required to prevent the spread of the virus and therefore students should be permitted to attend school from Thursday onwards. However, this decision is completely out of mine and other Principals' hands. I am desperately hoping that students are permitted to attend school from Thursday onwards and that our Year Six Camp can proceed next week.

 

In the meantime, we met as a leadership team and as a whole staff this morning and have decided to use a similar format to last year in presenting learning tasks to students. That is, to present the learning tasks on slides and use google meets to hangout online for all students in Years 1 - 6. These will be emailed out to parents tonight for tomorrow's learning and also sent to students' Remote Learning Folder on their google drive. Slides will be available to students in the same way they were last year. Prep parents will be sent the learning tasks in a different format via email this afternoon.

 

All classes from Year 1 - 6 will meet on a google meet via the link teachers will send out at the following times for both Tuesday and Wednesday. These times are the whole class meet times. We timetabled these times so that families who need to share a device might be able to ensure all children can attend their class session (should Remote Learning continue for a longer period of time we can lend out devices to families once again). Of course we would assume Yr 3 - 6 students are able to commence their learning prior to a class meeting.

Yr 1 and Yr 2 - 9.00am and 12.00pm

Yr 3 and Yr 4 - 9.30am and 12.30pm

Yr 5 and Yr 6 - 10.00am and 1.00pm

 

Teachers will be in two meetings each afternoon and unavailable for student or parent contact 2.00 - 3.20pm and 3.30 - 5.00pm

Teachers will be available to respond to questions or emails 8.30am - 2.00pm except when they are in at school supervising students on site.

 

COVID Updates

  • No parents are to come on site until Thursday. Please buzz the office at the top gate and we will attend to your needs
  • Currently, we advise any siblings of children who are unwell with coronavirus symptoms  to stay at home, although this is not mandated
  • We are continuing to implement our COVID safe practices with all staff and students who are currently attending on site; physical distancing, staff wearing masks when appropriate, sanitising, routine cleaning, etc

Deakin Community Service Award

Congratulations to Chris Harvey who was presented with the award in recognition of an Outstanding Contribution to the Deakin Community last Tuesday. I was lucky enough to attend the ceremony along with Chris, his wife, Jen and his parents, as Michael Sukkar presented Chris with the award. As well as contributions outside of our St James community, Chris has been instrumental in keeping our Auskick program running for many years and is hopeful of resuming the program in second term this year here at St James.

 

A few brief updates

  • School Fee accounts have been posted today
  • The school crossing will not be supervised for the next two days
  • The eldest child in each family (Years 2-5) will bring home a copy of, 'Catholic Schools Guide :Champions of Change', when we return to onsite learning
  • Birthday Treats: If you wish to provide other students in your child's class with birthday treat, our clear preference is to provide items other than food.
  • Ash Wednesday Mass will not be held here at St James. I will forward on details from the Parish when they become available
  • The Parents and Friends' Team have been able to postpone the Subway Food Day until Friday 26 February.

Camps, Sports & Excursion Fund

 

 

Looking forward to seeing all our beautiful students on Thursday!!!

 

Dave