Principal's News
Dear Parents and Carers,
All of us were pleased to hear the Premier’s announcement over the weekend that all Primary school children can return to onsite learning from this coming Friday, October 22nd.
This means that our Grade 3 & 4 students will attend school today and tomorrow, stay home for one more day of “Remote Learning” on Thursday before returning to school on Friday.
Our Grade 5 & 6 students will return to school on Thursday & Friday, so Wednesday will be their last day of “Remote Learning”
Students in Grades Foundation, One & Two continue to attend school as normal.
It is now up to our community and, more particularly, our school community to work together to keep each other safe as the barriers come down and the infection spreads in our community. To this end all children in Grades 3 to 6 are required to wear a mask whilst inside unless they have a valid excuse.
It is recommended that children in Grades Prep to 2 also wear a mask but it is not mandatory.
WHAT IF THERE IS A CASE IN OUR HOUSE? The Premier has announced that from this coming Friday household contacts and unvaccinated people that are contacts of a positive case must still isolate for 14 days. Therefore if a parent that lives in the same house as a student from Sacred Heart, contracts Covid19, then all members of the household, vaccinated or not, must isolate for 14 days - including the children.
Staff at our school are all vaccinated and any volunteer or parent that wants to come onto our site must be prepared to prove their vaccination status. All adults onsite are expected to wear a mask, although where communication is problematic, staff have been encouraged to exercise cautionary common sense.
Staff will be operating in bubbles at school where we will be endeavouring to separate different year level teachers so that we can limit the number of classes that may need to be shut down if and when a staff member becomes infected.
As mentioned last week, none of us want to be in this position but we must do our best to minimise the risk to our children and their families.
END OF YEAR ARRANGEMENTS With the possibility of family holidays looming this coming summer I thought it might save a lot of phone calls if I let families know our plans for the end of the year, because there are significant changes.
There will be NO testing days at the end of this year, nor at the beginning of 2022. Our staff really value these testing days and have made great use of the information we have learnt about each child to plan our teaching, however, a change in the management structure to all Catholic Primary schools in the Ballarat Diocese has meant we can no longer use these days for this purpose.
Our staff remain committed to continuing the assessments we have done during these days and are considering different scenarios where we might still gather the data we believe we need. - More on this later…
However, I can confirm that the last day for students this year will be Wednesday, December 15th, as staff will be involved in Professional Development on December 16th.
All classes will resume for 2022 on Monday, January 31st.
SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM We are well aware that about half of our candidates for Confirmation and First Communion were unable to participate in these sacraments due to Covid restrictions earlier this year. We are still hoping to provide this opportunity for these children this year. Parents should keep an eye on the newsletter for updates.