Principal's Report

Prep & Year 6 Musical

Rehearsals and prop making are all underway for our annual musical. More information about costumes and tickets will be sent to Year 6 and Prep families in the coming weeks, however for your planning the dates and performance groups are as follows:

Monday 14th September – Prep KW and all Year 6 students

Tuesday 15th September – Prep B, Prep V and all Year 6 students

Thursday 17th September – Prep H, Prep G and all Year 6 students

There will be a STRICT limit of 4 tickets only. Students performing DO NOT need a ticket. Children under the age of 2 years may sit on a parent's knee as long as they do not block viewing for patrons sitting behind.

Once all Prep and Year 6 families have had the opportunity to purchase tickets, we will open it up to the wider school community for purchase and for Prep and Year 6 families to buy more if needed.

Attendance and Sickness

We are always striving for high levels of attendance. Regular school attendance is essential for every student's learning, wellbeing and sense of belonging. Every day at school provides valuable opportunities for students to build on their learning, strengthen friendships and participate in the many experiences that make school enjoyable. Now the cold, wet and damp days are here, we start to see the levels of illness increase and we understand this.

The health, safety and wellbeing of our students and staff is a priority at Langwarrin PS. To help minimise the spread of infectious illnesses within our school community, we ask that parents and carers keep students at home when they are unwell.

Students should not attend school if they:

Have a fever (temperature of 38°C or above). Students should remain at home until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication.
Are experiencing vomiting or diarrhoea. Students should remain at home and must not return to school until at least 24 hours after the last episode of vomiting or diarrhoea.
Have symptoms of gastroenteritis (gastro), including nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea or stomach cramps. Students should remain at home until symptoms have completely resolved and the exclusion period has been met.
Have cough/cold/flu symptoms, such as fever, chills, body aches, fatigue, sore throat and cough. Students should remain at home until they are feeling well, fever-free for at least 24 hours and able to participate fully in school activities.

If your child becomes unwell during the school day, parents or carers may be contacted and asked to collect them from school. By keeping unwell students at home, we can help protect vulnerable members of our community and reduce the spread of illness throughout the school. When your child is healthy, fit and well, we want to see them back at school participating in all our programs and activities.

Teacher shortage - Replacing staff

We are going through another really difficult time with covering classes when staff are absent. Some days relief teachers (CRTs) run out by noon for the following day. This means any staff member that calls in sick later in the afternoon or early in the morning cannot be replaced. Ms Soutar is doing an excellent job anticipating, pre-booking and juggling the shortage each and every day. Please understand that all schools are having these challenges and it’s not something we can control. At LPS we manage these circumstances pretty well but they do become challenging especially during these colder months. When we are short of teachers these are the steps that we try to implement to ensure as much continuity as possible:

We try to ensure that students still get their specialist classes eg sport, art etc even if it is with a CRT
We try not to have the same class split within the same week
We cancel support programs e.g. intervention and reallocate these staff to classes
Members of the well-being team cancel small group sessions, 1:1 supports with students, supports in classrooms with teachers and other meetings to take classes
Learning Specialists and Assistant Principals take classes

Have a great fortnight,

Nicola Pepper