Principal's Report

Saint Francis Xavier - Principal's Report

Term 3 - Week 3

Dear Parents and Friends of St Francis Xavier,

It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces entering through the Green Gates last Wednesday morning. The staff here at S.F.X continue to marvel at the resilience that all of our students continue to demonstrate through each of these lockdown periods. 

COVID Testing Clinic

Once again, I really do want to thank each and every family for the patience shown when stuck in the horrific traffic bank ups that surrounded the school, both on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. I would love to say that this will not happen again, but the reality is that whenever local exposure sites are named there will be a rush on the Frankston COVID clinic. We will endeavour to keep you all updated with the traffic conditions as frequently as possible on any busy days. I am hopeful that work on the new hospital extension will begin soon, resulting in a more suitable site for the COVID screening clinic being established. 

New restrictions for school

New COVID guidelines have been handed to schools after this most recent lockdown period. This is due to the nature of the more contagious 'Delta' strain that has recently been transmitted in various areas throughout Victoria. Hopefully these restrictions can be relaxed in the near future, as they do feel like a step backwards compared to what has been in place throughout 2021. Some of the changes that will impact our school community are;

Visitors

Non-essential visitors must be excluded from the school site (both indoor and outdoor) during this period. Entering the school office only should happen for essential reasons. If you do need to come in to the office, you must use the QR code to check in. 

Unfortunately this also means that families cannot enter through the green gates during pick up periods and must wait in the car park or across the road at Beauty Park.  

Incursions/Excursions

Incursions cannot take place, however excursions can with students from a single school only. Venues that we attend must have a COVID-safe plan in place. We are fortunate that our Grade P-2 excursion to the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens can take place on Monday next week. 

It is important that I make all families aware that most excursion venues, such as Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, are required to collect contact details and are responsible for managing record keeping for contact-tracing in line with public health directives. 

The Department of Health has strongly recommended that a contact number for each individual student is provided. A school phone number alone is not considered sufficient. Providing contact details for individual students will expedite contact tracing so that individuals can be contacted by the Department of Health if required.

Parents/carers/guardians are advised that, when required, the school will be providing excursion venues with contact details for students. The phone number on school file for the student will be provided as the nominated contact number.

If you do not consent to this , then your child will not be able to attend these excursions. 

Venues will be collecting student names and contact phone numbers for a legitimate purpose and are subject to Victorian privacy laws so will handle the information securely and only retain it for the required 28-day period.

Please contact me at school if you have any quieries or concerns around this information being shared. 

Assembly

It is disappointing that just like last year, we are once again unable to run whole school assemblies, even without parents attending. As soon as this changes, we will create a new timetable for individual class presentations. We will also invite the families of these classes to attend the assembly.

Bunnings Barbeque

Can I say a massive thank you to all the parent and family volunteers who braved the elements during the school holidays to run the barbeque at Bunnings Frankston.

It made a brilliant $950.75  for our school.

Well done to everybody involved, your support of our school is greatly appreciated!

School Disco

This is probably no surprise to anyone, but we need to postpone the School Disco which was scheduled to take place next Thursday. Once we have a bit more certainty in rtegard to restrictions, we will aim to lock in a new date. 

Have a super weekend everyone. Hopefully Australia can pick up a few more Olympic medals to add to what is already an impressive tally!

Steve Peart

School Principal