Dear Parents and Carers,

RE: St Philomena’s to return to full “Face to Face” learning for all students

As lockdown restrictions are slowly being lifted to varying degrees, we (again) enter a time of transition and adjustment in both our personal and professional lives. For many of us, the transition back to the “new normal” over the coming weeks and months, will look, feel and sound different from family to family. During this time it is important to go gently and continue to focus on what is truly important during these challenging and uncertain times; the safety and wellbeing of our children and our family.

As you are no doubt aware, we have received communication from our Premier Gladys Berejiklian this week stating that students in NSW are to return to full time “Face to Face” learning from Monday 25th May, 2020. I am excited that after a number of weeks of providing an extremely successful Remote Learning Platform for our students, we will be following this advice and will return to full time “Face to Face” learning for all students K-10 from Monday.

The decision to return to full time “Face to Face” learning for all our students comes as a result of a very smooth transition back to school (Kindergarten & Year 1 three days and Years 2 - 10 one day), while still providing offsite remote learning for families that required this support. Over the past two weeks, St Philomena’s has experienced a K -10 student attendance rate of around 70% (Friday’s being the only exception).

Our Leaders of Learning will continue to use these first few weeks of full time schooling to conduct a range of assessments to measure the growth of our students over the self isolating period. These assessments will enable our Leaders of Learning to identify where our students are at (academically, socially and emotionally) and then plan for future learning opportunities aligned to their current needs.

Although advice from the NSW departments of Health and Education, states that social distancing between students is not necessary, we feel that the safety and wellbeing of our staff, students and families must remain our highest priority. In additional to our regular cleaning and hygiene practices, the following practices have also been added:

Daily spray and wipe of stair rails and classroom door knobs
Staff and student hand washing whenever entering and leaving learning spaces
Students not using shared pencils etc. Each student bringing own in pencil case
Twice weekly sanitising of playground equipment and outdoor furniture
K - 6 - teachers ensure students are not seated on the floor in a group for longer than 15 minutes
Classroom doors and windows to be left open (weather permitting) for increased ventilation
Students being encouraged to bring and refill their own water bottle. Bubblers will not be used.

To further help protect our staff and parent community from the risk of adult to adult transmission, we ask all parents to maintain social distancing when on, or near, the school grounds.

From Monday 25th May, 2020, students will be expected to bring (if not already returned)

School Managed Chromebook
Workbooks/textbooks
Completed worksheets (if applicable)
Pencils/pens (Pencil Cases)

As this return to school is a directive of the NSW Government, from Monday 25th May, 2020 learning for all students will be delivered by “Face to Face” instruction, and thus, learning via our Remote Learning Platform will no longer be supported from this date. The directive to return to full time “Face to Face” schooling also returns parents legal responsibility to send their children to school each day. All absences will need to be explained and can be done so through our regular communication procedures.

To support the full time return of our students, the following services will reopen from Monday 25th May, 2020:

School Canteen - for Qkr Lunch Orders Only. No recess or cash orders will be accepted.
School Uniform Shop - Normal operating times with strict social distancing. Qkr or card purchases only. No cash transactions will be accepted.

Finally, I would like to sincerely congratulate the St Philomena’s Learning Community (Staff, students and families) for the way they have managed, adapted and accepted the challenges brought about by COVID-19. Your support, understanding and feedback, has ensured that our students continued to receive a targeted and rich learning experience via our Remote Learning Platform throughout this period of uncertainty.

I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday as we begin our return to the “new normal” at St Philomena’s.

Warm regards

Jamie McDowall

Principal

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