Principal's Report 

Dear Parents,

Thank you all very much for your understanding regarding last week’s 24 hour closure due to some positive COVID-19 cases. It was very short notice and the support we received on the whole was very welcomed.  It is worth noting, it is not the staff at the school, or indeed the principal that makes these decisions, nor the decisions in relation to school masks for grades 3-6. Decisions such as these are made by very experienced personnel in both the Department of Health and the Department of Education. Our role is merely to ensure those directions are followed. This knowledge may be useful  when communicating with staff, as the staff are following well thought-out processes when doing their job, and a wonderful job at that, in quite a dynamic and fast changing environment.

Whilst there are still some staff and students in isolation, we hope to see all of them back in the coming days ready to complete the rest of the school year.  Whilst no-one can know, it may be a case where similar situations arise.  That being so, please check your family details on XUNO and inform the office if any of these have changed.  It makes contacting parents so much easier when that is the case.

On to other news. With the relaxing of restrictions, it also means we can commence our 2022 prep transition program.  Brenda Elliott has been very busy co-ordinating these, and so long as there are no more interruptions, we have four prep transition sessions planned. If you do have a prep for next year, please make sure they are enrolled so we do not have any children missing out. Details regarding transitions will be forwarded to families with preps enrolled for next year.

Also on plans for next year.  It was announced at school council recently that sport education will be introduced next year from Prep through to grade 6 in addition to physical education, and will be run by the classroom teacher.  For younger students, this means introductions to games and game sense. For our threes and fours it means an introduction to modified sport and fives and sixes it means additional time practising for inter-school sport. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that social interaction, moving the body and getting physical exercise is so important for the mental health of young students. Hopefully this will assist somewhat with that.

The Department of Education will continue with its Tutor Learning Initiative in 2022 which is great news. The funding from this initiative this year saw the introduction of tutoring in reading for students in grades 1-6 and the introduction of an oral language program for our grade prep students. With the continuation of funding next year, those programs will continue whilst we introduce maths intervention and expand the English extension program run so well this year by Ms. Tanner. This will be a wonderful addition to our already strong classroom practice, and allow us to catch up on some of the delays the pandemic caused for so many students.

Finally, please remember that students from grades 3-6 require a mask for school each day unless a lawful exemption applies. As stated earlier, this is a government decision, not a school based decision.  In addition, please encourage your children to use the hand-sanitiser supplied so we can all be COVID safe.

Regards, 

Simon McGlade

Principal