Principal's Report

Dear Parents,

Our school has been nominated for a significant upgrade of facilities. Planning stage is during 2021-22. This includes refurbishment of existing permanent classrooms and building some permanent classrooms to replace demountable classrooms in our school grounds. Staff and P&C representatives are involved in the planning and monitoring stages of the project. The process will be over the next two years to complete. I would like to thank the P&C and staff for ongoing work to have our school nominated for this upgrade.

Covered walkways will be installed from the hall to our double storey building. Work has been approved and will be completed in this financial year allowing for COVID restrictions to construction. Our school pays 50% of this stimulus package program. Thanks to our P&C for assisting with funding this project.

Cricket nets have been installed in lower playground. They look great! I am looking forward to a net session with students and parents when we can get back on school grounds.

Year 6 Camp booking;13-15 October. We are waiting for advice on restrictions to confirm or cancel this year's camp.

Father’s Day stall – postponed. Students will complete cards and posters for their dad’s.

Learning and Working from Home – Term 3

Learning From Home is successfully in place for all classes. Continuity of learning for all students has been assured by teachers preparing and presenting lesson online. Seesaw and Google Classroom platforms are in in use. Seesaw last week included; 19,471 new items, 16,638 likes, 13,730 comments, 4, 647 parent visits. K-Year 4. Years 5-6 have a high level of contact via Google Classroom. Keeping connected is important and has been very successful at our school.

Our own Girraween PS Learning From Home website has been setup to assist parents with resources and ideas. Check it out.

https://sites.google.com/education.nsw.gov.au/girraween-ps

Well-being phone calls will be made to all families in the next few weeks. These 5 mins catch up calls will be a chance to further connect students and parents to our school. Notice of when calls are will be made to parents will be sent out on Seesaw.

Highly restricted number of students on school grounds during lock down. Attendance onsite must be negotiated with deputy principals. Stay at home unless essential workers cannot keep students at home. Nominated days – not full time each day.

No onsite positive cases of COVID-19. There have been a number of positive cases in the

community while isolating at home. As these cases have not been on school grounds while infectious, notifying the whole school community is not required. The has been no infection on school grounds.

School office staff are working from home. Our school phone is redirected to office staff on rotation during the week. Please be aware that messages to teachers may take longer at this time. Seesaw may be more direct.

The OC Test has been rescheduled to Wednesday 6 October 2021. The test will be held at our school. Parents will be notified if there are any changes.the

End of year reports will be different to usual report due to Learning from Home in Term 3. Planning is in place at present. Parents will be notified of the report format in term 4.

Our school has great support from the community for our teachers during Learning from Home this term. This is not the same as face-to-face teaching and learning but we are staying connected while ensuring continuity of learning for all students.

Stay strong, stay well.

Glenn Walker

Principal

The Girraween Gazette

Issue 12 · 20 Aug 2021

In this issue