Principal

Welcome back to Term 2.  Although COVID-19 may have restricted our proposed holiday plans, I trust and sincerely hope that all our families had a relaxing term break and took the opportunity to enjoy (and appreciate) spending quality time with their children.

I would like to begin by sincerely thanking you all, the parents of St Philomena's School.  Your continued support and understanding during these challenging times is very much appreciated by myself, and all members of the St Philomena's Professional Learning Community.  As we begin to strategically design and implement our COVID-19 Return to School Strategy, (Re-engaging students, parents and staff to the "New Normal") I trust that this support will continue.

In developing this plan of staggered student attendance, we have addressed the learning and safety needs of staff, students and families by focusing on:

The specific needs of different year groups

our youngest students are returning more often than others

Social distancing implications of staff/student, staff/staff, student/ student and staff/parent community interactions

Limiting number of students at school on any given day

Strict regime of hand-washing, classroom furniture cleaning, bathroom and playground equipment disinfecting 

The need for assessment of recent learning in order to plan for future learning

While at school on their allocated day, students will undertake assessments designed by their Leaders of Learning. These specifically designed assessments will gauge ‘where the learners are at’ and allow for the planning of future targeted learning opportunities and or interventions. When not partaking in assessments, our learners will be supervised while continuing to work via our Remote Learning Platform.

For the 2 week period commencing Monday 11th - Friday 22nd May our COVID-19 Return to School Strategy will be as follows:

On their day of learning, students are required to return with their remote learning pack which may include the following :

School managed Chromebook

Workbooks/textbooks

Completed worksheets (if applicable)

Pencils/pens (Pencil Cases)

Students will be required to provide their own headphones/earphones in order to engage with the Remote Learning Platform. Due to the COVID-19 virus, St Philomena’s is not permitted to provide these for our students to use. This is to ensure that we continue to meet the hygiene and personal health requirements of all students.

We thank you for your understanding and support as we implement this plan. It is designed with the health, safety and well being of our staff, students and families in mind. To ensure this is not compromised, we need your support by only sending your child/ren on their allocated day. Exceptions are the children of essential workers and where there is no acceptable alternative to their attendance. 

To further help protect our staff and parent community from the risk of adult to adult transmission, we ask all parents to maintain social distancing when on the school grounds.

Please note the canteen WILL NOT  be open during Weeks 3 and 4.

God bless

Jamie McDowall

Principal