Principal's Report

Parent Opinion Surveys

Normally a sample of parents would have been invited to complete an opinion survey during term 2. Like most other things, the usual survey routine has been impacted this year and the process has changed. The 2020 Parent Opinion Survey is now open and all parents are invited to log in and have your say. All parents will receive an invitation to participate through a Compass notification later today.

Please consider taking a few minutes to complete the survey and share your thoughts, as the feedback received through the Parent Opinion Survey is always really useful.

TRANSITION FROM KINDER TO PREP

After receiving an updated set of COVID Safe Operational Guidelines from DET (Department of Education and Training) at the end of the term break, we quickly got to work and mapped out a modified version of the Pre-Schooler Program. This program has been running successfully in term 4 for a number of years and provides an excellent opportunity for students to become familiar and comfortable with primary school.

We’re only able to have 10 kinder children at a time and aren’t able to have parents on site, but that still allows us to run a program of sorts.

Last week those who have a prep enrolled for 2021 received a letter explaining the program and inviting registrations. Dates for the program are as follows and parents are invited to contact office staff to book in their child.

We’re looking forward to meeting all of the kinder children and can’t wait for the first group to arrive on October 26.

BUSHFIRE PREPAREDNESS

After the weather we experienced last week, it’s a bit hard to get your head around bushfires, but the landscape will dry out soon enough and we need to be ready to keep everyone safe. Our Scotsburn Campus is more vulnerable to fires and each year we undertake works to reduce the fuel load around the campus and make sure the buildings are as safe as they can be in the event of a fire.

Having said that, we have every intention of hosting Scotsburn staff and students at the Buninyong Campus on days where the fire risk is high. We are mandated for the Scotsburn Campus to close on days rated as catastrophic, but don’t intend to have anyone on site when the fire rating is Extreme or Severe.

We will do our best to give Scotsburn families plenty of notice on occasions when the decision is taken to host staff and students at the Buninyong Campus.

Start Dates for 2021

We know that some of you will already be planning summer holidays and will be keen to know school start dates for 2021.

Teachers are officially back at work on Wednesday, January 27
All students start back on Monday, February 1

Note: Book collection days will be Friday January 22 & Wednesday January 27th.

For those planning a little further ahead:

Term 1 ends Thursday, April 1
Term 2 starts Monday April 19