Principal's Message

Dear Parents, students and the wider community,

Will we be back on Friday 3 September? Well, if so, great but I would like to let you all know what a great job you are doing with the remote learning- students, families and of course the staff of your school. We were really pleased to receive almost 60 replies to our recent survey checking in on how remote learning was working from a home perspective. Our feedback we received was that:-

Amount of work is felt to be reasonable
Instructions are clear
The children love the google meets
Strong communication
Families feel we are focused on children's mental health

Considerations include that we are reflecting on having more theme/fun days. We will continue to offer optional google meets for bingo, storytime, boot camp and we will discuss as a staff how google meets are used to best meet academic needs.

Planning Days have occurred this week for the curriculum to be delivered in Term 4. These happen every term about this time and replacement teachers are used to take the classes whilst the staff meet together in levels and with the curriculum leaders. As this was not possible this week with remote learning each class had a day where the class teacher just met with the students each morning before letting the students carry on with a lighter day. I trust this was not any more challenging for you at home.

Next Monday 30th August is a School Closure Day. As is normal procedure for a Closure Day the students will be at home and work will not be provided. For those families who have had to have their children at school during this period of remote learning we are unable to have them here on Monday. Our staff will be completing on-line together units of the Intervention Framework, looking at our prayer and learning and teaching practices in relation to our improvement strategies and putting further time into completing our Behaviour Management policy. A very beneficial, necessary and busy day for the staff, none of whom will not be on-site. I thank you for making arrangements around this day.

Our Foundation Information Night is scheduled for Thursday 9 September at 7pm. We are also hoping to have the students here for the Super Starter Hour in the afternoon. It is looking more and more likely that these will be remote occasions as they were in 2020. If we realistically can avoid this we will!

To our wonderful students at home learning, keep up the great work. I am very proud of you all and know you are trying your best in a world that is so strange to those who are a bit older. Life will change and we will get back to school as it once was with you all here and learning in your classrooms. We just have to keep being patient.....and that is sometimes very hard!

Now a special note for our students- next Sunday 5 September is Father's Day and for the second year in a row we haven't had a chance to have breakfast together at school as has been the custom previously at St Anne's, so it is up to you to have a think about how you might make your dad's, step-dad's, grandpa's day a bit special for them. I have to drop a lot of hints at my house as my boys are now 21 and 19 and they get a bit busy- even during lockdown! I have given all of you students just over a week's warning and it is not all about presents! :-)

With our life's basically operating within a 5km radius I feel we need to continue to be grateful for the many gifts we have with our family, friends, school, community and environment. I hope the above prayer may help us to focus on these.

May God bless you and your family and may you enjoy some opportunities to relax as a family.

Rod Shaw

Principal

School Attendance and Unexplained Absence

Please ensure you contact the school before 9:30am if your child is going to be absent or late by leaving a message on 9786 4736 and press #1.

If you are running late (after 9:00 am ) please attend the office to sign your child into school.

As per our policy this will be our morning routine for absences:

Parents will be contacted as soon as practicable on the morning a student is absent via a phone call or text message.

If parent does not reply or is unreachable the emergency contacts will be contacted by the school.

If there is still no response, and the school feels that the child is in danger, the police will be contacted.

Ongoing unexplained absences or lack of cooperation regarding student attendance will result in a formal conference being organized. Unresolved attendance issues will be referred to D.H.H.S.

This is a legal requirement.