From the Principal 

Dear Families,

Health: It’s not until we are unwell that we truly appreciate how healthy we usually are! After a 3 day stint in hospital recently, I can assure you I am very grateful for my health and can’t wait to be back to 100%! Thanks to the Staff and students who reached out with well wishes and to all the kids who wrote me cards and popped them on my desk, I am truly appreciative of them. It made Monday a little easier for me to get through! And while we are on Health, you may see a few moustaches on their way around staff. Movember is in full swing, led by Mr Hebbard. If you'd like to make a donation and support the staff involved please visit https://movember.com/m/bellaire?mc=1 

Thanks: While away, Kristy took the reins and did not miss a beat. Not even a massive storm could stop her! Thanks to Kristy and the Admin team for your work while I was away. 

Camp: We have heard the Year 6 campers are having a terrific time at Howqua. We are so fortunate to have been able to make this happen and I have to commend Mia Reece on her tenacity to make this happen. All the Year 6 staff and some of our Education Support team have helped organise and ensure these great kids get their last primary school camp. Thanks so much. Please thank them when they return. Many schools have just chosen to cancel camps - but not ours!!! 

Year 3 Child Wise Program: Year 3 families, keep your eyes open for some more information coming from Rhonda, our wonderful Chaplain, and the Year 3 team. An overview of the content is available, and we strongly encourage you to be familiar with it and also continue the valuable conversations with your young person at home. Thanks to Rhonda and the Year 3 team for this opportunity.

GEM day: Thanks to all involved GEM day last Friday. I hope your children were able to reflect on a few things they may be grateful for, have empathy with or for and become more aware of how to be mindful and unwind! I hope we are all learning and reflecting on these traits.

Curriculum Day: Reminder we have a curriculum day next Friday 19th November. This day is used for staff to moderate work samples, discuss the grades and assessments for students and to begin drafting their reports. 

Entering the School: Thank you to the community for working with us and calling the office to collect children and seeing if queries can be sorted over the phone. If visiting the office, please remember that the team will ask to see your vaccination certificate so let's make it as easy as possible on all involved and have it ready.

Covid19 Primary Close Contacts: It is important that our community are prepared and ready in the event of a positive case in our direct community. As we have moved through the pandemic we have had to adjust to new rules and new procedures. Yesterday we listened to a number of schools who have had positive cases, closed their school, isolated some cohorts and their experiences in the contact tracing. 

If your child has been exposed or is a confirmed positive case, please call the school as soon as possible so we can work with you. If it is on a weekend or after work hours, please email or call this mobile number: 0400586744

If or when we have a positives case:

• The school may close, and the community will be notified
• We will notify the effected cohort (parents) via email in the first instance
• Possibly call directly to follow up
• Respect privacy and not disclose any names
• We complete the primary close contact (PCC) spreadsheet and send to the Department of Health and Department of Education
• Some staff may be required to isolate and remote learning may be reintroduced
• We ask families to follow the Department of Health directions

The email may read something similar to this:

Dear Parent/Carer,Your child {studentName} has been identified as a potential Primary Close Contact of a positive COVID 19 case at Ocean Grove Primary School. The potential date of exposure when the positive case was on school grounds was {potentialexposuredate}. Your child will be asked to test and isolate for either 7 or 14 days from this date, dependent on their vaccination status. The school will be completing contact tracing over the next one-two days and contacting families directly to confirm details. If your child was not in attendance on the above date, or the 48 hours prior, they will not be included in the Primary Close Contacts, but you are still receiving this message based on the current class lists. We appreciate that this news may be difficult for you to receive, and you will have concerns and questions. Please email any questions to ocean.grove.ps@education.vic.gov.au and we will be checking this when school resumes and getting back to families.  We do ask families to respectful of any families involved and there may be information we cannot share.

As a school, we are hoping to allay any fears or anxiety around the potential positive case if or when it may arise. We will support all families and work together. No doubt there will be lots of questions as other schools have found but please be aware, we will share the information we can, when we can. Our community has done a great job so far by following the health advice and looking out for each other. Keep up the great work and let’s hope we don’t need to go through this process. If we do, let’s stick together, work through it and respect each other in the process. 

Have a great week everyone!

Scott McCumber

Principal