On behalf of the School Council I'd like to wish you all the best for the Summer break and take a moment to reflect on what has been an unprecedented year for the school. The impact of COVID has been that much of our work around community building and fundraising had to be put on hold or held online, which has meant our approach to what we could do as a council has taken a different form this year.

Our focus has been on working with the school to ensure we keep our finances on-track, that projects that could be completed have been and that planning for next year has been commenced. This year the access ramp and prep courtyard has been completed, the new all-abilities playspace built and significant inroads to the new school build finalised. In addition, we have tendered for and selected a new Out of Hours School Care provider in TheirCare, with a highly competitive process run to target a significant lift in the calibre of care for our children. We look forward to seeing the outcomes in the new year.

The new build - that will be our teaching space for Grade 5 ad 6's - has been led by the Victorian School Building Authority and our architects JCB and is now at tendering for construction, with the project due to be awarded for the build to commence in January 2021. Our teachers and School Council and some helpful parents have provided input throughout the process, with many hours spent finalising the plans. The Passivhaus design will be one of the few school buildings in the country with such a high standard of sustainable credentials, and we hope will be an incredible environment for teachers and children to work in. Below are some renders of how the building will look.

In the year ahead we start to think about how to manage potential ongoing COVID normal, and have already re-balanced our budgets to anticipate impacts to how we fundraise and run our events. This is probably our most significant challenge as we move into the year ahead, and we as always appreciate any parents assistance who want to get involved or have ideas.

To end, I'd also like to thank on behalf of the School Council and community, all of our teachers at the school. The efforts they have all put in to manage the response to COVID, establishing an online teaching curriculum and working tirelessly to engage our children has been amazing. We have been very grateful for all they have done.

Wishing you all a restful and enjoyable summer with all your family and friends,

Regards,

Brian Bird

School Council President

Clifton Hill Primary School

Kindness & Empathy, Gratitude, Inclusiveness, Critical & Creative Thinking

Issue 13 · 16 Dec 2020

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