Welcome Back to Term 4

It has been amazing to see the smiles, hear the buzz and feel the excitement of 500 students back on the grounds of Surfside Primary School yesterday. It felt like day 1 of the year all over again. We hope that all of our families had a restful break and it has been pleasing to see all of our students settle so quickly into the routines of school while re-connecting with their peers. Unfortunately life is not fully back to normal and we still have a number of regulations in place but it has been great to see the flexibility and resilience of our school community over the first few days. There are many things that we are excited about resuming such as camps, kitchen and garden and seeing all of our friends. However, there are still many things that will be impacted in term 4 such as not seeing our parents on school grounds, whole school events and transition programs. We also sit and wait to plan out future events such as graduation, school photos and excursions. In the meantime we are grateful to be back in class and continue on our learning journey. Please refer to our latest Compass information regarding term 4 operations. Thank you again to all of our parents for their continued support, flexibility and being an all round amazing school community!

Keep smiling,

Peter Walsh

Principal

New Families

We would like to welcome the following students and their families who started their Surfside journey with us on Wednesday. We welcome the Hinck family, Stevenson family, the Jenkin family, the Maxwell family, the Gibson-Carter family and Stefanovski family. It definitely is an interesting time to transition to a new school and community but there are wonderful people in our school community to help you out if you need anything.

School Program Updates

Many things throughout the 2021 school year have been impacted so we would like to update you on some additions for term 4 to enable our students some increased engagement and experiences:

Footy Colours Day - Thursday 22nd October - (gold coin donation - we will be donating our fundraising to the Kids with Cancer Footy Colours Day appeal) Come dressed up in your footy colours on this day to prepare for the Grand Final. We have all missed our Footy this year so feel free to come dressed in your jumpers, scarves, beanies and red, white and blue (Go Bulldogs!). Students are always welcome to dress up in soccer, rugby, netball or sporting colours.

Book Week Dress Up Day - Friday 13th November - Theme - Curious Creatures and Wild Minds. We would like to give our students the opportunity to dress up and celebrate book week for 2020. The theme for this year is Curious Creatures and Wild Minds - so think Where the Wild Things Are and let your mind run free. We are also in the process of linking up with a virtual book fair that you can visit.

Some more dates are below for upcoming events:

20/10 - Prep Information Evening (Virtual Evening)
21/10 - Geelong Cup Public Holiday (no school for students)
23/10 - AFL Pre-Grand Final Public Holiday (no school for students)
26-30/10 - Year 4 Camp Anglesea TBC (Year 4 cohort will be split into 2 groups due to COVID restrictions (Group 1 - 26/10-28/10 Group 2 - 28/10-30/10)
16-19/11 - Year 6 Camp Roses Gap
27/11 - School Council Endorsed Curriculum Day

Foundation Transition Program - It is confirmed that we will be able to welcome our 2021 Foundation students with an official on-site transition program. This will be different but we are planning this process at the moment and will communicate with families.

Year 6 Graduation - Our aim is to allow our year 6 students an opportunity to reflect and celebrate their Primary School journey. This will be dependent on restrictions prior to the date so we are going to wait until closer to the date until we release our plans for the event.

School Photos - at the moment The Department of Education has informed us that school photos are unable to take place. We have a number of dates tentatively booked and will continue to await further advice. We understand that this is an important memento for students and families (especially our Foundation students) so we will explore every alternative.

Thank You - SC Landscapes

We would like to thank Surfside parent Steve and Nina Carnell (SC Landscapes who have donated and installed a section of our new watering system in the Kitchen Garden during the holidays. With plenty of rain over the last month and full water tanks this update will enable our watering system to be more effective. Thanks Steve and Nina.

Surfside Primary School Term 4 Week 1

Virtual Assembly @ 2.30pm

Thank you to all of our students and families who have been joining in on our Friday Virtual Assemblies during remote learning.

We are still unable to hold large school gatherings so our school based assemblies will still be remote with classes logging in.

We will be starting launching our virtual assemblies for term 4 tomorrow and look forward to hearing what is planned for term 4 and officially welcome back all of our students for term 4:

Virtual Assembly Link: Term 4 Week 1 Virtual Assembly @ 2.30pm

It is preferred that you access the virtual assembly on your device by downloading the Webex Meetings App and use the following login:

Using the Webex App please add the

Event Number: 165 638 0774

Event Password: surfside

Health & Safety at Surfside Primary School

The Victorian Government, Department of Health and Human Services and The Department of Education have introduced new restrictions and measures for all schools in the state of Victoria in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The move to remote and flexible learning is in place to support these measures and we continue to run an on-site program for applicable families. We can all do our part in the following ways:

Please inform the school immediately if you or your family are notified as a confirmed positive case of COVID-19 or are identified as a close contact of a confirmed case, so we can take the necessary precautions.
Continue good health and hygiene practice by washing hands regularly, coughing or sneezing into our elbow, using hand sanitiser regularly and limiting the sharing of equipment.
When unwell it essential that you remain home, seek medical advice and not return to school until well again. Please contact the office at any stage if you are unsure.
Students need to bring their own drink bottle clearly labelled.
Parents and carers are not to attend school on-site at any stage and if you need to contact the office please call and make a time for an appointment. If you arrive late or need to collect your child early please call and we will collect or bring your child out.
Adults are to wear face coverings and continue to practice social distancing at all times when dropping off, collecting students or visiting the administration office.

We are aware that situations and information changes very quickly so we will update our school community via Compass and email with important updates if required. Please make sure that your contact details are up to date.

Surfside Primary School Virtual Tour

Due to current restrictions we are unable to run our school tours for prospective families. To enable our prospective families to gain a valuable experience of the school we have put together a Virtual Tour. Please feel free to pass this on to families and share via Facebook and we look forward to welcoming our new families in 2021. We are planning to have small Q&A sessions with new families in the coming weeks. In the meantime sit back and enjoy the show. A big thank you to our Surfside parent, Eamon Urtone who has done a great job in putting this together and Layla, Ava and staff for providing some special guest appearances.

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