Message from the
Head of Junior School
Mr Rob McLean
Welcome back
The return of students to school has brought great energy and excitement to the classrooms and the playgrounds.
The contribution of remote learning, supervision and classroom teaching has brought many challenges and as a result great experience, as we look to modify some areas to make the learning experiences stronger and management of different areas better.
More students are travelling by car to and from school because of the current situation with K-12 all finishing at 3:25pm which will cause further traffic congestion. Therefore, from Monday 25 May the Junior School will finish at 3:15. Students will be at the Kiss n Go zone at 3:15 ready for pick-up.
Classes will now start at 8:55am with no morning assembly. It is important to have your children here before this time so they are ready for classes.
Until the end of term there will be no daily or weekly Assemblies, Chapels or massed choirs. Timetables will be altered and your class teacher will notify of the changes.
There will be no co-curricular activities before or after school for the rest of this term. This also includes Homework Club for Year 6.
Our After-School care provider, Uniting Care will unfortunately not be continuing the service for our families. The School understands the importance of the service and we are contacting other services as a matter of urgency and will advise as soon as possible.
The School continues to follow the guidelines, as set by the Department of Health in regard to hygiene for our students and staff. Our cleaning staff are working at capacity in order to have sanitizers refilled and regular cleaning of all surfaces. This is a massive task now and with full operations of the School from Monday it will require further cleaning maintenance.
From Thursday 21 May our Junior School playground equipment will be closed until further notice as we cannot regularly clean the equipment to the standards we seek.
There has been concerns expressed through the media and community of the detriment to learning progression of the students. We will be assessing all our students in the coming weeks across literacy and numeracy and relate them to previous assessments. Our focus is on literacy and numeracy and our staff are experienced in cross curricular learning when for example, elements of English are used in Geography and History.
We will be report writing later in the term and have a detailed Semester 1 report of your child’s academic progress.
A reminder that Friday 5 June will NOT be a pupil free day and classes will be as normal with the Monday 8 June being a public holiday for the Queen’s birthday.
We have had some Special Awards during Term 2 Remote Learning and I wish to congratulate the following students:
Application to Remote Learning
- Digby Volkofsky (Year 1)
- Joshua Leung (Year 1)
- Oscar Pigot (Year 2)
- Lachie Healey (Year 2)
- Georgia Phillippe (Year 4)
- Oscar Zielinski (Year 4)
- Aurora Everett (Year 4)
- Benjamin Chambers (Year 4)
- Phoebe Paynter (Year 5)
- Mischa Lawson (Year 5)
- Thomas Nelson (Year 5)
Special Awards
- William O’Connell (Year 2) - Commitment to Learning
- Lucie Chambers (Year 2) - Commitment to Learning
- Zaro Jalal (Year 3) - Enthusiasm for Online Learning
- Ingrid West (Year 3) - Enthusiasm for Online Learning
- Georgia Simpson (Year 4) - Outstanding Out of the Box
- Natalie Hayward (Year 4) - Outstanding Out of the Box
- William Stratton (Year 4) - Commitment to Learning
- Nicolette Saran (Year 4) - Commitment to Learning
- Olivia McBeath (Year 4) - Commitment to Learning
- Molly Mason (Year 6) - Commitment to Learning
- Spencer Williams (Year 6) - Commitment to Learning
- Samuel Balcomb (Year 6) - Commitment to Learning
- Alice Scholte (Year 6) - Commitment to Learning
Principal's Award
- Samuel Commins (Year 4)
- Andrew Caskey (Year 5)
- Hugo O'Brien (Year 5)
- Thomas Goodsir (Year 6)
Enjoy your week, and I look forward to our return of all our students and staff next week.
Mr Rob McLean
Head of the Junior School