School camps are an integral part of our student’s school life. It’s a chance for each student to be put out of their comfort zone and continue to develop amazing life skills with the support of their friends and teachers and parent volunteers. One of our lovely rituals each year at the Chase is the making of the Grade Six graduation posters. Students list their memories of each year of school and camps rate very highly on nearly every student's reflections.

This year is the first year that the Time in Lieu arrangement, that affects all staff in schools, have come into effect in relation to school camps. In essence teachers and support staff are being recognised for the extra hours of work that they commit to so camps can go ahead. Until very recently these entitlements were not funded and would have been an extra cost that the school would need to have covered. Financially this made camps a very challenging problem to be overcome.

Luckily with forethought and planning in 2022 between the staff and our School Council an arrangement was agreed to for 2023 to ensure that each camp would still go ahead, and the staff were recognised for the time commitment over and above their normal working hours. In the agreement Time in Lieu can be repaid in two ways, either financially or in time staff are not required to be at school.

The Agreement 2023

Teachers and support staff will accept a repayment of their Time-in Lieu on two days for Grades 3, 4, 5 & 6.

These days are:

Monday 6th of November (Day before Melbourne Cup Day)
Tuesday 19th December (One day earlier than P-2 Students)

Students who are in these year levels are not required to attend school on these days.

If there are no other options that parent/guardians have for supervision their child will be supervised at school in a junior classroom for the day. Please contact the school if this is the case for your family.

For Preps to Grade Two's, school will run as normal.

The two days were chosen and agreed to by Staff and School Council as these days cause the least amount of disruption to learning and both days are typically low attendance days.

It should be noted that staff are entitled to more than these days however they recognise the importance of camps and would have been equally disappointed for the students if camps were to be cancelled.

Camps for 2024 and onwards

Thankfully the payment issues have been resolved through arbitration. This resolution ensures camps can continue and alternate arrangements will not be required post 2023.

Regards

Chris Short

Principal

Prep & Grade 6

Reading Together