Assistant Principal Reports

Hello Everyone,

Whooping cough 

Whooping cough cases are continuing to increase across Victoria, particularly among school-aged children. 

Whooping cough is a very contagious infection, mostly spread through coughing or sneezing. 

Symptoms include:

· blocked or runny nose

· tiredness

· mild fever

· severe bouts of coughing, often followed by a ‘whooping’ sound on breathing.

Whooping cough can lead to life threatening infections in babies.

If your child is unwell, they should not attend school. Please see a doctor if you or your child develops whooping cough symptoms. Early diagnosis and treatment will help reduce the spread of the infection.

Students diagnosed with whooping cough must not attend school.

If your child is diagnosed with whooping cough, they must not attend school for 21 days after the onset of the cough, or until they have received 5 days of antibiotic treatment. You must notify the school if your child is diagnosed with whooping cough. To further reduce the spread of infection to your child and the school community, the Public Health and Wellbeing Regulations 2019 require that some students who were in the same classroom as a student diagnosed with whooping cough should not attend school.

Your child should not attend school for 14 days after they were last exposed to a person diagnosed with whooping cough, or until they have taken 5 days of a course of antibiotic treatment if they are:

· aged less than 7 years; and

· not fully vaccinated with 3 doses of whooping cough (pertussis) vaccine.

This exclusion is required by law – refer to the School exclusion table for primary schools and children’s services.

If your child is diagnosed with whooping cough, please contact the school to let us know.

More information 

For more information about whooping cough, refer to Whooping cough on the Better Health Channel.

Vaccination is the best way to reduce the risk of whooping cough. The Department of Health recommends staying up to date with immunisations, including booster doses. A free booster dose of the pertussis vaccine is covered under the national immunisation program for students aged 12 to 13. If you are unsure about your child’s vaccination status for whooping cough, please discuss with an immunisation provider, such as your doctor.

I really appreciate your support in keeping our students safe and well.

Emergency Evacuation Drill

On Tuesday we had our emergency evacuation drill for the term. Each term, we have a drill to practise what to do in certain types of emergencies. This term, we practised our off-site evacuation where we evacuate the whole school to Bon Thomas Reserve.

The students and staff responded very well, and we had the whole school evacuated in good time. Very proud of our students for remaining calm and following the instructions of staff to make sure everyone stayed safe.

We never know if an emergency requiring evacuation will be needed and hope that we will never need to do it for real, but we must be prepared. 

It’s also good to have an evacuation plan for your family home. Take some time to talk with your family about what to do should there be an emergency and what your children can do to be safe. Have a meeting place nearby so you all know where to go just in case you had to evacuate your house. Talk to them about where and who to go to for help, in case they are unable to find you.

For further information about what to do to reduce the risk of a fire emergency, in particular, please click on this link: https://www.frv.vic.gov.au/home-fire-safety-v2

2024 Term 3 Challenge of the Week

 ‘How many words can you make from these letters:’

The aim is to collaborate with 1 -3 friends or family members (no more than 4 people per entry) to make as many words of 3 letters or more from a given lot of letters, as well as trying to find a word that uses the most of the letters as possible. 

For example, if the letters are P, F, H, U, E, L, L you can make the words: help, full, elf, pull, fuel, helpful.

Last week’s letters were: T, N, U, S, R, E, D, A, P

The word using all of the letters is upstander.

Some of the words you could make are: up, stand, and, tap, pat, pet, red, sure, use, user, sun, run, nut, net, set, sat, read, reads, part, parts, art, end, send, pend, pen, pens, turn, turns, nurse, den, dens, pan, pans, nap, naps, span, snap, tune, tunes, rap, raps, sap, asp, put

Students collaborating for week 7’s Challenge earnt a PAC each. 

The students were:

Siddak 2C (& mum and cousin)

Alessio 3B (& mum and dad)

Andrew 3A & Emily 1A (& mum)

Boston, Jake & Francois 5A

Week 9’s letters are:  T, G, N, H, S, E, T, R

Please hand your answers to the office before 3.30pm on Wednesday 18th September.

Kind regards,

Deanne Scott

Assistant Principal 

Spira Antonopoulos

Acting Assistant Principal