Principals Report
Term 3 Week 4
Appreciations
Despite the Stage 4 Restrictions, our teaching, classroom support, administration and leadership staff members have volunteered across the board to participate in the necessary onsite staffing roster. We are nevertheless endeavouring to even more comprehensively manage our teaching and support responsibilities offsite in the spirit and expectation of the strictures commensurate with Stage 4.
Change of criteria for access to student learning supervision at school
The announcement of Stage 4 Lockdown restrictions has of course massively changed the employment landscape, as we all are required to play our further part in reducing direct contact with others in an endeavour to reduce the COVID-19 reproduction factor.
We hope all parents and carers can appreciate that access to direct onsite supervision, is very much the last resort and only for families who meet either of two categories:
Children of permitted workers
Children whose parents are permitted workers. Children with both parents working who are unable to do so from home, only on the days and times of their work and who are able to provide a legitimate permit.
Vulnerable children
Vulnerable children including:
- children in out-of-home care
- children deemed by Child Protection and/or Family Services to be at risk of harm
- children identified by the school as vulnerable (including via referral from a family violence agency, homelessness or youth justice service or mental health or other health service).
Information was provided in a Flexischools (see explanation below) post on Tuesday. All parents seeking limited and necessary support in extenuating circumstances were required to respond to the Flexischools message by 3.30 pm today. The school staffing roster for next week will be finalised today. Late requests will not be considered.
All parents and carers seeking school attendance will need to provide a legitimate state government mandated Permitted Worker Permit, or for police or medical workers, proof of role and current work roster.
Communication to our community
It seems that effective two-way communication that is timely and respectful has never been more important than at this very stage of our lives. Please take time to read the following items of information, as the return to remote and flexible learning at home (R&FL@H) holds with it risks and challenges. R&FL@H 2.0 in itself is a barrier that could lead to a variety of negative consequences, if we allow the strange situation dictate outcomes. We feel it is really important that you and your child(ren) remain connected to our school community. This is achieved most practically through daily involvement in the Classroom stream but may require lots of flexibility, engaging at different times and encouraging rather than demanding. Enhancing curiosity, creativity and resilience are all possible positive outcomes that may be derived during this R&FL@H reboot. When in doubt, communicate your thoughts, concerns and considerations with your child’s class teacher, specialist teacher, or in other matters, members of leadership and administration. While in keeping with Stage 4 Restrictions, we are gradually paring back onsite staffing, we do not anticipate any less capacity to communicate and respond to your child’s learning needs.
Transition from Flexibuzz to Flexischools
It looks similar in format, but the Flexibuzz application is a separate and different app to the Flexibuzz app that we are familiar with. The company that provides this service to schools has chosen to transition and like so many things in these challenging times, we have found that the timing and communication has not been ideal. We are asking all parents and carers to take five minutes to download the Flexischools app to your phones, tablets and, or computers - whatever are your default devices you check school messages on.
You can still use Flexischools to email the school, note student absences (when we return to face to face), link to our revamped school website and our Facebook page.
Currently, our old app is continuing to accept our posts, however when you have the new Flexischools app up in running it would be worth then deleting the old app.
Information and a ‘how to’ on this transition is also posted on page 6 as an Update on the front page of the school website.
For more information on Flexischools:
https://www.flexischools.com.au/
Parent/Teacher interviews and Student led conferences (grades 5 and 6) - This is another aspect of regular school practice and process that has been subject to the coronavirus stress test! As has been covered previously in this forum, in any normal year we would have held P/T interviews and Student led conferences for grades 5 and 6 students during the last week of term 2. For a variety of appropriate reasons School Council was supportive of us moving this to a remote interview process during mid-term 3. The date was adjusted after the return to R&FL@H arrangements this term and as has been previously noted in the newsletter, will be held on a Curriculum Day on Wednesday August 19th. On that day remote learning activities will not be posted, as the teachers will be available all day for video conference meetings with all parents and carers. Information on booking an interview slot is on page 6. We will also send via Flexischools today. While holding a video conference is the preferred format, parents and carers will have the opportunity to ‘meet’ via telephone. This will also be our back up should either the teacher or parent encounter technical issues. Interviews will be scheduled to run for 10 minutes with a 5-minute changeover to assist deal with possible connection issues.
Crazy Hair Day - What an amazing bunch our Junior School Council members are, and how well have they been supported by the conveners, Medha and Joanna. As presented last week by grade 5 JSC representatives, Bea Anders and Hugo Newman, even our current virtual schooling can manage to replicate some of the fun things we normally do at school, with Crazy Hair being the latest. I will look forward to having some crazy images for the following assembly and newsletter!
Reaching out to Prep families for 2021 - Can you imagine just how different it must be for families planning for a 2021 prep transition to FWPS? For the rest of our parents and carers there were multiple opportunities to visit our school and to come to feel part of our caring community. During remote and flexible learning at home 1.0, our Prep transition coordinator, Karri initiated a series of videos supported by staff and student captains. There are now 19 separate, brief videos that are available via the school website, so if you are one of our new families, a current family with a prep starter, or just curious about what has been presented, please scan through the list and see what they have to offer.
My regards,
Please stay safe
Brendan