From the Principal

Principal Message

Dear families, carers, and community,

I would like to thank you for doing everything possible to prevent the transmission of this virus in our local community, by staying home and following all the guidelines. At this point there have been no reported cases of COVID-19 in the Yarrabah School community.

I would recommend that you read our newsletter each week for the rest of the term. We will be providing an edition each week leading up to the end of Term 2. REAL news will celebrate the work of the week, birthdays, showcase great lessons and videos from teachers and provide a road-map to a post-COVID Yarrabah School program.

The school thanks you for participating in the survey. We have a better understanding of how your child engages in LinkIT VS program.

Come See

Next week is our first Virtual 'Come See' week (11th - 15th May). During week 5, teachers will be provided their DET allocated Professional Practice Days. Teachers, Therapist and co-educators will provide a schedule for the week in advance, on Friday the 8th of May.

Come See is an opportunity for fun, reflection, catch up, repeat or a chance to visit staff that students might have had in years gone by. We hope our students enjoy this opportunity. It's also an opportunity for families to take a step back, ready for a renewed focus in week 6.

From week 6 and beyond

Seesaw Family and Student Accounts are the best way of staying in contact with your homeroom, section staff and friends. The online portal schedule will be modified slightly beginning week 6. You will be able to see your entire day in one slide. The Family Seesaw account page from week 6 will provide a daily program with links and lesson descriptions at the start of the day also.

From week six a number of the students who previously participated in ‘My Life’ type programs, will receive other home learning kits, videos and supports. These students and their families will be contacted personally.

From week six we plan on adjusting our LinkIT slightly, providing your child more opportunity to interact live and see the homeroom staff more frequently.

Planning the return to school

As much as we might like, a return to school will not be as simple as a pick up from where we left off. Your children will require greater opportunities to recover, to reset, to re-establish routine and to re-establish happy relations and spaces at school.

We have been researching several approaches for returning to school and are in the process of evaluating how these might work at Yarrabah. The most crucial element in our return to school is recovery. A curriculum that provides everyone in the community an opportunity to recover. This recovery curriculum might look slightly different to what we left behind in Term 1. An increased focus on communication, relationship building, re-establishing peer supports, re-establishing peer compassion, re-establishing the school values and rules might be invested in more than usual for this time of the year. In some ways it will be like starting a new school year, but with the bonus of already knowing the exceptional student’s needs.

So, stay tuned in weeks to come. This newsletter will be the place I keep you informed of what we are doing, who we are reading and how we are preparing for the return of Yarrabah School Students and community.

Kind Regards,

Matthew Harris

Principal

Yarrabah School