Curriculum Day

A statewide term 2 curriculum day is scheduled for Monday 25th May. There will be no on-site or remote learning program on this day. Teachers and education support staff will be using this day to prepare for the transition back to face-to-face learning.

Return to Face-to-Face Learning

Last week the Department of Education gave all schools the green light to begin ‘gearing-up’ for a return to face-to-face teaching! We are all very excited by this and are looking forward to seeing all of our students very soon! The key dates you need to know are as follows:

Monday 25th May – Curriculum Day (pupil free day).
Tuesday 26th May – Students in grades Prep to 2 return to school.
Tuesday 9th June – Students in grades 3 to 6 return to school.

Our students, staff and community have shown remarkable flexibility and adaptability throughout this term. We will tackle this next phase collaboratively and creatively, ensuring a safe and secure return to school.

With the return of students to school, state-wide COVID-19 restrictions will still be in place to continue to protect the health and safety of students and staff. There are strict guidelines and procedures that we are required to enforce at the school level. School will be a little different when we return as you would expect but we are working hard to make sure we have the resources needed and facilities required to meet the Department of Education’s Guidelines around this return to face to face learning.

Changes will include:

Upon return to school, we will be following recommended DET advice about physical distancing measures and health and hygiene practices.
Physical distancing will still be necessary between adults, and school staff will make adjustments to their work spaces and staff room to keep this rule in place.
Parents are not permitted in the school grounds at drop off or pick up. Extra staff will be on yard duty to assist. (Please refer to attached guidelines).
Our Before and After School service will continue to operate. Please contact Extend for more information.
Extra cleaning of all high use areas (e.g. door handles, benches, toilets, tables).
Hand sanitiser in each classroom to aid extra hand washing and sanitising.
No whole school events including assemblies.
No external music lessons, canteen or library classes for term 3.

Please refer to the attached letters which were sent out via Compass last week and today. We have also included a link to the latest DET guidelines.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/parents/Pages/coronavirus-advice-parents.aspx

Remote Learning Update

At this point, we would like to say a huge thank-you to all of the staff at LPPS. As per any other school day, staff have planning time, meeting times and other responsibilities (such as administration, leadership duties, etc) that are still happening behind the scenes. Staff have been putting in long hours to support our students and parents. A big thank you to families for your support, patience, positive responses and feedback. Our staff have really appreciated it.

We encourage families to continue checking in with their kids about the tasks they need to submit. Teachers are looking forward to providing feedback to children about their work and learning. If the task is not complete or not corrected, don't worry. You are not expected to read it all through and check it before it is posted to teachers. Your role is to ensure it is submitted, and then leave the teachers to conference with your child and work from there. We are very confident that when our students return to school, we will see lots of learning growth and a new and developing skill set in every child. We will look forward to having many things to celebrate.

Well-being Wednesday

Thank you for the positive feedback on Well-being Wednesdays. The specialist learning activities on a Wednesday have provided students with opportunities for different types of learning and it has been great to see the work that they have been uploading.

Our specialist teachers have been working very hard to create engaging tasks and activities for the children, often having to ‘reinvent’ their program to work in the home environment. Due to the high volume of posts of completed tasks to specialist teachers on a Wednesday, please be aware that it may take specialists a little longer to respond to your child’s post but they will aim to do this as quickly as they can.

CSEF - Have your circumstances changed?

If you have recently been granted a valid means-tested concession card, you may be entitled to CSEF. The Camps, Sports & Excursions Fund (CSEF) is provided by the Victorian Government to assist eligible families to cover the costs of school trips, camps and sporting activities. The annual CSEF amount per primary school student is $125.00. If you believe that you may be eligible for the CSEF you will need to contact the school to obtain and lodge a CSEF application form, and return it to school together with a copy of your concession card, so that applications can be processed. More information about the CSEF can be found at https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/Pages/csef.aspx

Camps

It is unfortunate that we have had to cancel all camps for 2020. We are currently finalising all family camp payments to process refunds.

Reports

The Department of Education has advised that the Semester 1 reports will take on a modified format. Since the Remote Learning program has been in place, it has seen necessary modifications take place in the way we have delivered our curriculum. This has impacted on how teachers assess and test student learning progress and has made it difficult to gauge accurately how students have progressed against the Victorian Curriculum this term. For this reason, teachers will not be marking progress against the A-E standards but will be producing a progress report. This will include curriculum content covered and a section on your child’s participation in the Remote Learning program. We look forward to the December reporting cycle when we will be able to give a more detailed report on your child’s progress against the Victorian Curriculum.

Reports will be emailed via COMPASS on the last day of term. Parent/ teacher Interviews will run in term 3.

Enrolments - 2021

Do you have a sibling starting at LPPS in 2021? Have you completed and returned an enrolment form? Enrolments are being accepted now for next year. Please help us to confirm numbers for next year by contacting the office to confirm your intentions to enrol for next year.

Would you like to be a part of history?

STATE LIBRARY OF VICTORIA

The State Library of Victoria is currently capturing the Covid 19 Memories of all Victorians. Items and written articles of your experiences during this time can be submitted to the Memory Bank at the State Library of Victoria at the following link.

https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/memorybank

If you are interested in contributing to this (at your own instigation) further information can be found on the website under the following headings:

The Collective Isolation Project
About Memory Bank
Contribute to Memory Bank

The first two questions for the Memory Bank were: Week one: What’s in your fridge or pantry? Week two: What have you learned from home? It is not too late to contribute.

Enjoy being part of our world history.

National Reconciliation Week 27th May - 3rd June

We are looking forward to sharing a variety of on-line learning activities during National Reconciliation Week. Grade 3-6 students, please continue to check your Google Classrooms.

Survey

Thank you to all of the families who completed the feedback survey sent out last week. As remote learning for many of our students continues, we are constantly reflecting and reviewing our practices. Obtaining feedback from parents who are the ones face to face with the children is extremely important.

A Final Word

This is certainly a very challenging time of change. At LPPS we can all be proud of the way our students, teachers and parents have worked together and responded to the current situation to do the very best we can for each other. We wish you all continued good health and look forward to the days ahead when we will welcome everyone back at school again.

Launching Place Primary School Staff

Learning @ Launch

Look at all of the great activities and learning that our students have been doing!

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