What a fantastic term we have enjoyed! Thank you to the whole school community for the support you have offered our students, our staff and our school. It was an action packed 9 week term that saw us provide a lot of content and opportunities as we celebrated the first time since 2019 that we have enjoyed back to back uninterrupted school terms.

This wasn’t undertaken without challenges and I am sure you can reflect on your own family dynamics over the last two months and identify the impact that cold, flu, gastro and COVID have all played.

This has certainly created influence throughout our school during Term 2 where we have seen significant impact on all areas of the school from students to staff. To that end, I would like to pay considerable credit to our students and staff, each party demonstrating significant resilience to make our school as special as it is. Thank you to the support offered by our families and the ongoing compliance to our COVID guidelines, RA Testing and positive case notifications.

We have faced many hurdles throughout Term 2 but we done this as a strong school community. I have found myself reflecting this week on our second school term, I am proud of our students and the work they are undertaking each day to support one another and strive to improve. They have worked extremely hard this term and I cannot wait to continue to see their commitment at the resumption of Term 3.

I do hope your family have the opportunity to enjoy some time together over the weeks ahead, I am looking forward to spending some time with my own family but I am very excited about the opportunity to return together for Term 3. Thank you once again for your unwavering support and the strong community approach that has allowed us to achieve what we have this term.

On Behalf of School Council

We refer you to the recent article written in The Age on the collection of voluntary payments.

Many of you may have seen the recent article in The Age on the impact of changes in the level of voluntary payments being collected by Glen Eira College (link below).

Given this article, the School Council wants to be transparent and provide the parents of CPS with some information on the impacts at our school.

Parents Warned State School Programs Face Chop (Click to Follow Link)

Across the school, of the $180,000 in annual voluntary contributions, we have a shortfall of approximately $80,000 which is a much higher figure than in prior years.

CPS is committed to continuing to provide a supportive and outstanding bi-lingual education environment for all our students, and we fully understand that the last few years have been extremely challenging for families. However, when considering the ongoing impacts of COVID and other issues on staffing (expenditure on casual relief teachers is already $40k above budget), this shortfall is placing additional financial pressure on the school and our ability to continue to provide the rich and varied educational and learning opportunities that make CPS a fantastic school.

Voluntary contributions are exactly that - voluntary - and parents can also decide whether they are in a position to pay the full amount or a partial contribution, however consistent with all other government schools in Victoria these amounts form an important part of the overall financial budget of the school and low contribution levels impact our ability to provide planned programs now and into the future.

We appreciate your ongoing support as a means of continuing to allow us to provide a unique and outstanding bilingual education for all students.

スクールカウンシルからのご連絡

先日、保護者による学校への任意の寄付金の状況について、The Ageに掲載された新聞記事をご紹介します。

該当記事をご覧になられた方も多いかもしれませんが、Glen Eira Collageでの保護者による任意の寄付金の状況が大きく変わったことが記載されています。当スクールカウンシルは透明性を保つために、この記事を踏まえたCPSへの影響についての情報を保護者の皆様に提供させていただきます。

記事へのURL: Parents Warned State School Programs Face Chop

学校全体で、今年度の寄付金を$180,000見込んでおりましたが、現時点で$80,000不足しており、過去と比較しても不足分が非常に多い年となっています。本校は、引き続きすべての生徒にハイクオリティな教育環境と手厚いサポートを提供していくことを目指しております。また、ここ数年は特に多くのご家族にとって困難な時期だったことも充分理解しております。

しかしながら、コロナウィルス流行による学校への様々な影響は継続しており、臨時教員確保にかかる費用は既に予算を$40,000も超過しております。こういった状況からもお分かりいただけますように、寄付金不足により、多様で高質な学習の機会を提供する学校の経済的体力が大きく圧迫されています。

保護者による任意の寄付金は、文字通り「任意」であり、全額または一部を寄付されるかどうかは、あくまでも各ご家庭にご判断いただくものです。しかし、ビクトリア州の全ての公立校を一貫して、保護者による寄付は各学校の予算の重要な位置を占めております。現時点で、本校に寄せられた保護者による寄付額が少ないために、現在予定されているプログラムおよび将来のプログラムの実施にネガティブな影響を与えています。

皆様のご支援があって、全生徒への本校のバイリンガル学校としてのユニークで素晴らしい教育の提供が可能となります。これまでのご支援に感謝すると共に、今後とも引き続き学校へのサポートを宜しくお願い致します。

COVID Restrictions

As you may have already seen in the media, this week the Chief Health Officer in conjunction with the Department of Education and Training made changes to vaccination requirements for staff in Victorian Government Schools. This information was provided to our school and coming into effect from the beginning of Term 3.

From 11.59pm on Friday 24 June 2022 (in effect the start of Term 3), staff in mainstream schools will no longer be required to meet vaccination requirements to attend work.

Schools will continue to have strong mitigation measures in place, including enhanced ventilation measures such as air purifiers, ongoing use of rapid antigen testing and ensuring those who are unwell stay home. This will continue to help keep our schools as safe as possible. Vaccination remains strongly recommended for all staff, contractors, volunteers and visitors working at Victorian government schools.

The following Frequently Asked Questions were provided by the DET in response to information sharing for our whole community:

Q. Can a school choose its own mandate for staff and volunteers, such as for excursions and camps?

A. For Victorian government schools, the Department, as the employer, must set the terms and conditions of employment for employees. Policies in relation to visitors and volunteers at Victorian government schools are publicly available. Schools will need to liaise with camp and excursion venues to determine vaccination requirements at those locations.

Q. Will there be additional RAT screening or requirements, such as masks, for unvaccinated staff?

A. No, but we will continue to strongly encourage these staff, and all new staff, to get vaccinated in the interests of their own health and safety, and the safety of those around them.

While recommended, face masks are not required in any school settings. Any students or staff members who wish to wear a mask may do so, including those who are medically at-risk.

Q. I don’t want my child to be around staff who are not vaccinated. Can I keep them at home?

A. Some families may have concerns about their child because they or a member of their family is medically vulnerable.

I encourage you to discuss this decision with your GP who can assist in balancing your child or family’s personal circumstances with the social, health and wellbeing and educational benefits of returning to school onsite and reconnecting with peers and teachers.

To keep our students safe at school, a range of measures have been put in place. These include the strong promotion of vaccination of students aged 5 and above, ventilation of indoor spaces, and a range of COVIDSafe measures including cleaning, the regular use of hand sanitiser, increased use of outdoor spaces and air purifiers in classrooms.

Q. Do parents have the right to pull their kids out of a class if they don’t want them being taught by an unvaccinated teacher?

A. No. Parents do not have a right to information about a teacher’s vaccination status, which is confidential.

Q. Can parents check whether their child’s teacher is vaccinated?

A. The vaccination status of staff is completely confidential. Parents do not have the right to ask for this information and no-one at the school should have this information. Principals do not hold information about the vaccination status of staff or students.

Q. What happens if I have COVID-19 but still need to drop my children off the school. Can I do this?

A. A further change to the pandemic orders from the start of Term 3, will allow COVID-19 positive parents or carers to leave self-isolation where other arrangements cannot be made to transport children who live with them to or from a school or an early childhood service.

The parent or carer must travel directly to and from the school or service only. They must remain in the vehicle at all times, unless it is reasonably necessary to leave the vehicle to deliver the child to, from and into the school safely and they must wear a face covering at all times while transporting and delivering the child.

Student Free Day

At the beginning of this week the Department of Education and Training provided information for all schools. For Semester 2, 2022, the Department of Education and Training has provided schools with the option to hold each teacher’s allocated professional practice day on the same day for all staff. This is to enable the most effective and efficient use of this day. As a result of this we took this information and had valuable discussion with our School Council on Tuesday evening

We have scheduled our professional practice day for Monday 29th August. Students will therefore not be required to attend school on this day. This day was chosen to provide as much notice as possible for families to plan for this. Additionally arranging a consistent day like this, provides the school the opportunity to save nearly $8000 in Casual Relief Teachers that would otherwise be paid for by the school to provide this time to teachers.

The school has worked remained steadfast in our approach and commitment to quality bilingual education and limited disruption throughout Term 1 and 2, which has seen us spend 107% of our forecast annual budget on Casual Relief Teachers during Term 1 and 2.

Unfortunately this isn’t a sustainable option for the school moving forward and a uniform student free day as proposed by the DET and endorsed by School Council is seen as one way of alleviating these financial pressures on the school.

We are working to ensure Camp Australia can deliver a Student Free Day program for this day.

Lunchtime With a Difference

On Wednesday, we celebrated the final week of term with a wonderful performance at a student only concert. This was the culmination of many weeks of work and rehearsals by our students and gave them the first opportunity to perform to an audience.

This was intentionally intended for students to watch and listen, providing students some comfort and increased confidence to undertake this activity in front of their peers. Thank you kindly to Okano Sensei for her work in preparing the students and presenting this performance.

Prep Cultural Day

To finish off the Term 2 Inquiry topics - Celebrating Cultures and This is Me, Our Prep students participated in a Cultural Day on Wednesday 22nd June.

On the day, students experienced lots of fun activities including, a cultural parade and various cultural activities from around the world such as craft, music and simple cooking. Students were encouraged to wear their traditional/cultural attire on the day. The cultural parade was a great success and it was wonderful to note the growing confidence our Prep students have demonstrated as they complete their second full term of school. Well done to everyone on a wonderful day!

Tom Lahiff Cup

Well done to our football team that represented the school so proudly yesterday at the Annual Tom Lahiff Cup, the team combined together and strongly supported one another, demonstrating team work and a great level of respect in all games.

They returned to school and were very eager to share in their own highlights and celebrate the success of others. These opportunities are such a thrill for our students and it is noticeable sometimes, that opportunities like this are little things that we have not had an opportunity to do with regularity over the last two years.

Well done to our Football Team for doing themselves and our school proud. Thank you to Miss Molloy for organizing this opportunity for our students.

A Successful Open Day

We held a very successful Open Day on Saturday that was well attended and well received by prospective parents. Once again, the work of our student leaders was one of my highlights, to see their leadership and informal interaction with families and prospective prep students was wonderful, a real credit to themselves.

We once again received glowing feedback about our student leaders, our teaching and learning programs were very well received as was our sausage sizzle, thank you once again to our PFC and volunteers that delivered a highly successful sausage sizzle that was extremely popular.

Thank you to those who dropped by to buy a sausage and the significant volunteer support that allowed us to run the event.

Teaching and Learning Review

On Monday 20th June, we sat down as a Leadership Team to review and evaluate some of our teaching and learning programs and achievements throughout the first semester. This work is aligned to our Annual Implementation Plan, a piece of work that allows schools to have real rigour and fidelity around an improvement cycle. At the conclusion of the 2021 school year, the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) proposed targets and direction for the 2022 school year addressing the DET priorities of Learning and Wellbeing.

This work continues to be evaluated and feedback and discussion was had around achievements, barriers and next steps. Some of the key pillars of that work throughout the beginning of 2022 include:

Embedding consistent Learning Intentions and Success Criteria in all classrooms
Intake in the DET Professional Learning Communities as a whole school program for rich data discussion and increased data literacy
31% improvement in student connectedness to school from 2021 – 2022 (Attitude to School Data)
11% improvement in Student Voice and Agency from 2021 – 2022 (Attitude to School Data)
31% improvement in motivation and interest from 2021 – 2022 (Attitudes to School Data)
Consistent wellbeing framework implemented throughout all classrooms
The delivery of lunchtime clubs and activities to support student engagement
Documented and evidence based approaches to social emotional wellbeing in all teaching planners and classrooms.

We are looking forward to working towards further success in this areas in the second half of the year. Have a wonderful Holiday break.

EDWARD STRAIN

Principal

Caulfield Primary School Newsletter

Excellence, Respect, Diversity, Responsibility, Kindness, Honesty

Issue 7 · 24 Jun 2022

In this issue