Principal's News
Dear Parents/Carers,
As the academic year begins to look and feel a bit more like routine I have been speaking to the children each day about the importance of working in classrooms where we feel safe to make mistakes. All of us make mistakes and of course our children do too. When we are learning to ride a bike for the first time - we all fall off. Our teachers KNOW that our kids will make mistakes in the academic, SOCIAL, physical and artistic fields- in fact, as I explained to the kids they will be planning for it, for this is how we learn.
The crucial bit is how we react to mistakes- if we take the learning to ride a bike example, we ENCOURAGE the youngster to get back on the bike. We tell them we have faith in them, that they will be able to do it… and so they do.
My invitation to all of our students is to be that encouraging person that gives confidence to their classmates when they make a mistake, because, as I’ve said, mistakes are part of LEARNING.
I must share the following story from one of our Grade 1 teachers after listening to me speaking with the kids told me that already this year she had spoken to one of her students MAX HICKEY and thanked him for helping a little boy in his class, only for Max to turn to her and say, “You don’t have to thank me - he’s my friend.” Goodonya Max!
SCHOOL CLOSURE Our school will be closed this coming Friday, February 18th as our staff take part in Professional Learning. Staff will use the day to meet with each other to discuss the particular needs of each of their students with previous teachers and specialists in order that we quickly put in place any particular programs that we believe might be of benefit to individual students. We have taken great benefit from this day for many years as we tailor our programs to meet the needs of our students.
PARENT TEACHER MEETINGS Information gleaned from Friday will help us when we meet parents at Parent Teacher meetings planned for next Monday 21 and Tuesday 22. This is complemented by information gathered from parents at this early stage of the year.
This week I have spoken to every Classroom teacher to ensure they felt safe to meet with parents face to face given the prevalence of Covid in our community. Every single one of them was eager to meet parents face to face. However, it is worth knowing that a couple of our teachers are nursing very frail parents so the last thing they need is to contract the virus and be unable to visit etc.
So, we are going to go ahead with Face to Face meetings with a few sensible precautions. I do hope all parents will understand.
Firstly if you have elected NOT to be vaccinated or YOU do not feel comfortable about coming into the school to meet face to face due to your own vulnerabilities or circumstances then I would invite you to contact us to arrange an online interview.
The interviews will be conducted in our courtyard and in our large multipurpose room with the big doors open.
All parents are asked to wear a mask, as are all of our teachers.
Tables and chairs will be sanitized between and after each interview.
These interviews can be booked online through PAM from this afternoon - 3:15pm
LEAVING SCHOOL PROCEDURES Yesterday we had our first day with dismissing the Foundation students with everyone else at 3:15pm. I spoke to all of the students about this morning. Both staff and students did a great job for our first night. We have endeavoured to design a “fail safe” system where even when there is a mix up the children are still safe with our staff, no matter that they might occasionally forget where to go or where we may have misunderstood. Bottom line, if we all follow the procedures the kids will be safe - maybe temporarily misplaced but never lost.
We ask all parents for their cooperation and patience with this matter and allow us to do what we know works.
COVID-19 Thank you to everyone for continuing to cooperate with the Covid-19 protocols such as testing, reporting and isolating. So far so good. It is key that we protect our staff from contracting the virus particularly all at the same time if we are to remain open.
Talking with Mr Clohesy from Trinity College yesterday he informed me that there are now quite a lot of Trinity students absent as Positive Cases of Covid-19. Lots of their little brothers and sisters that attend our school are of course also isolating as “Close Contacts” however the number of “Positive Cases” has so far been lower than I was expecting. But who knows what next week might bring?
Each day I will send an email to alert families about any positive cases, however it will only be sent to you if the positive case is in the same grade level as your child/ren. If you receive no email then it would indicate that there are no cases amongst your child’s immediate peers.
I understand that some parents have had difficulty opening the attachments that are sent with the email. I will also send a PDF of the letter from now on which I hope will resolve this matter.
Where children are isolating due to Covid-19 our teachers will send home their Spelling and Math's Books with pages noted and a book to read, however they are not permitted to offer "Remote Learning" and they don't have the time anyway. This means I have asked them not to respond to emails from the students etc as they would during Remote Learning.