From the Principal cont... 

 LOVELY NEWS TO SHARE & STAFFING UPDATE

We are happy to announce that Amy Travers and her husband, recently welcomed a beautiful baby boy, Archie. I’m sure Zavier will love being a big brother to him.  I am sure you will join me in congratulating them on this lovely news.

Welcome back to Ms Dominique Oosterbaan who will be teaching 1C replacing Ms Lipson when she leaves to eagerly await the birth of her first child. Dominique is well known to us and is looking forward to again being part of the Year 1 team.

COVID-19 VACCINATION DIRECTION FROM DET

The Victorian Chief Health Officer has issued directions for required vaccinations for education workers. These directions are specific to education workers and supersede those for other authorised workers.

All staff who work in schools will be required to have a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by 18 October 2021 or be able to produce evidence of a vaccination booking within that week.

All staff are required to be fully vaccinated by 29 November 2021 unless a medical exception applies and will be required to show evidence of their vaccination status.

Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself, your colleagues and students and the whole school community. Getting vaccinated will help slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent future outbreaks in our schools.

The Victorian Government’s coronavirus website has information about COVID-19 vaccines in 63 community languages at Translated information about COVID-19 vaccines.

PLEASE NOTE - Schools must collect, record and hold vaccination information for all other visitors and volunteers working on school sites who will or may be in close proximity to children, students or staff. 

This includes the parent helpers supporting our school in activities such as book bags, assisting with excursions, incursions etc. We will share our process for collection of such information over the coming weeks and hope we are able to welcome parents and carers for such activities before too long.

ALLERGIES & ANAPHYLACTIC REACTIONS

All our staff recently completed comprehensive Anaphylaxis training to ensure our knowledge is kept up to date in order to best care for our students.

Our school has children with specific health needs including some who have allergies. The most common causes of allergy in children are eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, cow's milk, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish. Other causes are bee or other insect bites.  Like most schools, we do have children who suffer from more serious anaphylactic reactions. Management Plans are developed for these children at our school and updated annually. Please contact us if your child has health needs that have recently changed. 

Preventing an allergic reaction or anaphylaxis is very important. In our CPS Anaphylactic policy we do not ban nuts but we do minimise risks by: 

• Knowing and avoiding the causes
• Not allowing food sharing or swapping
• Practicing food hygiene and good food safety practices
• Taking allergies into account when preparing or cooking food at school
• In the event of food sharing for occasions such as birthdays ensure alternate treats are available for children with allergies.

PREPARING FOR 2022

As mentioned previously, over the coming weeks staff will be writing modified student reports, in light of the year we are in and reflecting on your child/children’s achievements throughout 2021. These will be available from Tuesday 14th December on Compass. On Wednesday 15th December our Prep to Year 5 students will also ‘Step-Up’ to their next year’s class for a short while and will meet the students that will be in their class in 2022. A list of all our classes and staffing structures will be shared with families on this day.

The booklists/voluntary contributions for 2022 are currently being prepared by our Business Manager and were approved at our recent School Council meeting. 

The specific documentation for each year level with this will be sent out, via Compass, when school resumes next year.  If you wish to view the letter to parents and the voluntary school requirements for your child/children’s year level you can access them on the school’s website or alternatively on Compass from November 9th.  Please note no payments are required until 2022.

If you have any questions, please email or phone and we will answer any questions.

SUNSMART

Term 4 is now upon us and I remind families that all students should be wearing their sun smart hat when playing outside at recess and lunch breaks during term 4. School hats can be purchased from Primary School Wear Uniform Shop and are also available from the office. Plain navy sun smart hats that can be purchased from local department stores are also acceptable, particularly if you like to keep a spare one! 

WORDS OF WISDOM 

Linda Jones & Karen Bentata-Grimm