Thank You

As we claw and scrape our way over the finish line of Term 2, I would again like to thank the tremendous efforts of our whole school community during this very challenging and uncertain time. A lot has been asked of our students, parents, carers and staff to adapt to the ongoing challenges presented and I could not be prouder of how we have all responded. So thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for your patience, support, resilience and encouragement during this time and I hope that everyone is able to have the most relaxing, enjoyable and safe holiday period.

The Secretary of the Department of Education and Training, Jenny Atta, has provided a letter of thanks to parents and carers for their support during the remote and flexible learning period. You can read it here:

Feedback

As mentioned in the previous newsletter, we have been gathering feedback from parents/carers, staff and students as we try to capture some of the silver linings from the experience of remote learning. The staff have collated and analysed this information and have made commitments to actions for the future. Some of the key positives for our community were strengthening the home-school partnership (including communication) and having greater insights into what is taught and how it is taught. Some other areas for exploration will be student choice and agency in learning and looking into how this experience may have been gained greater levels of engagement for some of our students. Thank you for your input into this. We look forward to building on the successes of remote learning.

Term 3 Arrangements

We have not received any further guidelines from the Department of Education in relation to any organisational changes that we need to make due to COVID-19. At this stage, we will continue with the current arrangements (staggered finish times, allocated gates etc) in Term 3. Any further changes will be communicated via Compass as soon as we can.

STEM

We were successful in receiving a grant late last year to purchase resources to get our STEM program up and running. Janine has been very busy researching and purchasing a whole raft of exciting equipment for our students to develop key concepts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And with the return to on-site schooling, we are finally able to actually use some of the gear! The excitement levels in the STEM room are through the roof. We will be showcasing our STEM program more in the near future.

Shade Sail

I am very pleased to announce that we will be getting the long-awaited shade sail put over our new playground over the term break. As many of you will know, the shade sail has been the fundraising target since the playground was constructed so it will be great to see some reward for all of the fundraising efforts. Thank you for supporting our fundraising events and a special thank you to the Parents and Friends Committee for all the work they have done to support our school.

Safety Messages

With the heavy use of technology during remote learning, I would like to remind our school community of the importance of online safety and safe and responsible use of technology. The keys to keeping children safe online are adult supervision and communication between children and adults. There are some great resources to support parents here: https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents. I have also attached our Digital Technology Acceptable Use Agreement as a refresher of the expectations of technology use at school.

Some other safety concerns have also arisen in recent weeks in regards to coming and going to and from school. We have noticed an increased number of families crossing the road at the top end of Victoria St. This is a dangerous spot as the visibility is low due to the bend of the road. We are requesting that all families take particular care in crossing the road and use the school crossing whenever possible. The school has put extra supervision in place to help monitor this and I am in contact with the council to look at more permanent solutions.

Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences

We have postponed the regular Term 2 conferences until the 5th & 6th August. This gives all staff enough time to formally assess all students and enough time for students to be reengaged and settled back into on-site schooling. Hopefully, we will be able to have this face-to-face, but if not, we will arrange for it to be done through Webex.

A Message from the Principal and Assistant Principal for the Day...

On Friday the 19th of June, Nina and I (Perryn) were Assistant Principal and Principal for the Day. We had lots of jobs and we even got to make announcements together! A few of the jobs we got to do were putting up the Italian posters around the school, writing a message on the sign at the front of the school and awarding KEFAR tokens and lilypads. Oh, and we got to order David and Cam around!

Free Expert Parenting Advice - Triple P

Families can now access free expert parenting advice through the online Triple P – Positive Parenting Program. The program is relevant to families with children between 2 and 16 years and provides strategies to deal with specific challenges, such as building children’s resilience and dealing with conflict. There are courses specifically for parents of toddlers to tweens, and for parents of pre-teens to teens. It gives parents strategies to:

raise happy, confident kids
manage misbehaviour so everyone in the family enjoys life more
set rules and routines that everyone respects and follows
encourage positive behaviour
take care of themselves as a parent
feel confident they’re doing the right thing.

Sign up to the Triple P program via their website.

Kind Regards,

David King

SCHOOL FINISHING TIMES FOR TOMORROW