I am sure recent announcements about a gradual lifting of restrictions that have affected us all so profoundly has improved our sense of optimism. As COVID numbers again climb in many parts of the world, I think we all know that the return to freedoms previously taken for granted comes with a rider.

We are very appreciative that we have had the opportunity to have as regular start to the school term as we could have hoped for considering the circumstances. As I state regularly, we are trying to make school as normal as possible. However some aspects remain on hold, have been amended, or are still subject to changing advice.

Some recent examples include;

Advice received this week that restricted groups of 2021 Prep students and their parents and carers will be able to make school visits.
Graduation events with students and staff will be able to be held, but parents and carers will not be able to attend.

We will work collaboratively within these amended guidelines to best meet the needs of our students and our community.

Appreciations

Tomorrow is World Teachers Day. I know many of you will share my deep appreciation of our teaching staff who worked in partnership with parents and carers over many weeks during our two periods of remote learning in terms 2 and 3. If you feel as I do, what a great time to send an appreciative note, email or card.

Halloween Mufti Day - Tomorrow is also the day we will have our next mufti day, this time not surprisingly comes with a Halloween theme. We know that trick and treating in the local streets has gained popularity over the last decade or so with the kids (and the parents). With socialising still subject to COVID restrictions, the suggestion by our grade 6 captains that we could bring the fun to school seemed a grand idea. We will broaden the appeal by making costume optional, as some of the children might just want to wear their casual clobber. With limited opportunities for mufti days this year, I would love for our families to take the opportunity to donate some of those gold coins sitting around at home to support State Schools’ Relief, our very own government school’s charity. This cause usually receives a fillip from our school each year on Footy Colours Day, but with that being a virtual experience this year, it seems very logical to align this with Halloween mufti day. So please ensure your child donates their gold coin to the class teacher’s cash bag on Friday morning for a contactless donation. Just remember what Tilly said on Monday’s assembly video about toning down the gore and scary face masks outside (which will be welcomed to be worn in the older grade classrooms). We will look forward to taking pics from the classrooms and sharing these in the assembly video and newsletter next week.

Up-dated for communications - We are launching our replacement push notifications app for your phone (tablet or computer) next week. It is called Up-dated, but for our change to be successful we need your cooperation and support. We will be phasing in Up-dated over the next month, so until December we will continue to use FlexiSchools as well. But if you don’t make the change you will miss out on important information (including the weekly newsletter).

The background

We have for the last 5 or 6 years become used to relying on a push notification app to share important messages and provide our parents and carers with an easy to access link to the school to send messages, such as news of student illness or absence. We started with Tiqbiz, it was transformed to FlexiBuzz and quite recently that morphed into FlexiSchools. While the product has met our needs, we were concerned that the change to FlexiSchools was not well communicated to us (ironic I know). This occurred at a time when we were in the midst of our first iteration of remote and flexible learning, something this Sydney based company was not very aware of. The new app also contains very prominent advertising, something that we were not informed of, or given a choice to opt out of. Consequently, the Communications committee of School Council tasked our admin team to look into a more suitable option. This coincided with us contracting local company Sponsor-ed with rebuilding and managing our website, a change we have been delighted with. Sponsor-ed also provides an E newsletter, similar to our currently electronic newsletter and a push notifications for phone, tablet and computer app called Up-dated. We will launch Up-dated as our daily form of electronic communications next week. We are very keen to ensure all our parents and carers quickly migrate to this new app. Unlike our (soon to be) redundant FlexiSchools app, we do need to approve access after registration. We hope this means our communications and newsletter are available for all who it is relevant for, but will also enable us to refresh our communications database. There is a flyer with more information included in today’s newsletter.

Managing illness in schools – A reminder that if any students or staff members are unwell, even with the mildest of symptoms, they MUST stay at home. Students and staff must remain at home until they are symptom free, even if they have returned a negative COVID-19 test result as per Department of Education guidelines.

Next week …

A reminder that FWPS will be open on Monday, the day prior to the Cup. I make this note, as in a more regular year this day has in recent times been provided as a time in lieu day for teaching staff. Tuesday, 3rd of November however will be a Public Holiday as usual.

Members of our Facilities sub committee have been invited to attend our first meeting for term via Webex at 6.30 pm next Wednesday 4th November.

Cheers,

Brendan

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