Dear Parents, Families and Community members,

I hope everyone has had another great week in this 'Remote Learning World' and that the Mother's out there were spoiled on Sunday!

Return to Onsite Learning

Earlier in the week I communicated with our School Community about the announcement of return to onsite learning at the end of May; music to everyone's ears I am sure.

Please refer to the Compass News Feed posted Wednesday 13 May for full details; however, I am also including some of the key points below.

- Schools will commence a staged return from remote and flexible learning from Tuesday 26 May 2020.

- To support all school staff to prepare for the transition, Monday 25 May will be a pupil-free day. This is important to enable the planning necessary to ensure the successful transition back to school can be completed.

- The return to school will take place in two stages. This will give the Victorian Chief Health Officer and Government time to monitor and evaluate the effects that the staged return to school has on the increased movement of people and transmission within the community.

Stage 1: 25 May – 5 June

- In the first stage, students in Prep, Grade 1 and Grade 2, and all students enrolled in specialist schools will return to school from Tuesday 26 May.

Remote and flexible learning will continue for all students in grades 3 to 6 until Tuesday 9 June.

- As our School Community are aware, our unique enrolment provision means that students at Armstrong Creek School are enrolled under either Primary Enrolment Criteria or a Special Education Enrolment Criteria. Whilst our school places a strong emphasis on the ‘inclusion’ of ALL students and throughout a school day our children are actively engaged in their learning ‘together’, this announcement does bring some added complexity for a ‘staged’ return to school.

- What this means is, that students in grade 3 to year 10 and enrolled under a Special Education Criteria, will also return to onsite learning on Tuesday May 26. Parents and Carers of students for whom this applies will be contacted in the next week, to discuss what a supported transition back to school looks like.

- Our preference as a school would be to have all children transition back to onsite learning at the same time, but despite advocating for this I am advised that like all schools, Armstrong Creek School is required to follow the advice of the Chief Health Officer and the Premier.

- During Stage 1, the existing model of on-site schooling for students who cannot be supervised at home and vulnerable children will remain in place.

Stage 2: from 9 June

- All other grades and year levels will return to school from Tuesday 9 June. All students will be expected to attend school as normal.

-For those students who cannot be supervised at home and vulnerable children, the existing model of on-site schooling will remain in place during the two-week period from Tuesday 26 May to Tuesday 9 June.

- The current process that we are using to enable parents and carers to indicate the days or part-days for which on-site schooling is required will continue for this two-week period.

- Once a year level has returned, all students will be expected to attend school as normal. This means if you choose to keep your child/children home after their year level has returned to on-site schooling, we can no longer support their learning from home.

- This same approach is being taken by all government schools in Victoria.

PACC Mother’s Day Event

Thank you to all our wonderful families and especially our students who created the lovely Art work for the residents of the Warralily Gardens Aged Care home.

Our PACC team alongside our students, Warralily Cockatoo and Uforic Café presented these lovely artefacts to members in our community.

The morning was well received by the residents who loved the art work and felt overwhelmed by the community’s generosity.

2021 Prep Virtual Information Session

On Wednesday evening we welcomed parents of prospective 2021 Armstrong Creek School Prep students to join us in our very first ‘remote’ information session!

Typically at this stage of the year we would open up the doors and invite our families in for a tour and a chat. Obviously we were not able to do that on this occasion, so instead we held a virtual session to showcase the school and share information about our teaching and learning programs.

This session was designed to:

 Meet and hear from the Principal and Assistant Principal

 Have a virtual peek into our learning communities

 Learn what a ‘day in the life’ of a Prep child looks like at our school

 Hear from our current school captains

 Submit any questions you may have

 Find out how to enrol your child for 2021

It was certainly a new way of introducing families to our school. We hope the session provided some insight into our School Community and the amazing opportunities we have to offer at Armstrong Creek School.

We will be holding further transition sessions in Term 3 & 4 for prospective families. Watch this space…

A big thank you to our staff, parent and student special guests on the night.

(Here is just one of the videos shared on the night; thanks Nina and Alex!)

To register your Expression of Interest to Enrol at Armstrong Creek school - please complete the details in the link below:

https://forms.gle/Lm99JiVEmeszUErD9

This is the first step in our Enrolment process. Once details have been received, our Enrolment Officer will make contact with you.

Education Support Staff

On Monday the 18th of May we will celebrate the wonderful work that our Educational Support Staff do.

As a school community we highly value your passion, dedication and commitment to our students. Your continuous effort and hard work to ensure that all of our students achieve the best they can, is just one of the many facets of your commitment to our school community.

We want to say a big thank you to all of our Educational Support Staff!

National Reconciliation Week

The theme for #NRW2020 – In this together – is now resonating in ways that could not have been foreseen when it was announced last year, but it reminds us whether in a crisis or in reconciliation we are all in this together.

Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and importantly as a nation. At the heart of this journey are relationships between the broader Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Armstrong Creek School had planned to hold an incursion with Koomurri Entertainment group and share their aboriginal culture with our community. This has now been postponed until later in the year. However during Reconciliation Week students will still be participating in activities both in their classrooms and remotely.

We all have a role to play when it comes to reconciliation, and in playing our part we collectively build relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories, cultures, and futures.

Virtual Cross Country

So our first and only (possibly) ever Virtual house cross country will officially end at midnight tonight. When we cooked up this crazy idea, we were unsure about how it was going to go, but we have been blown away by the number of families (more than 120 at last count) that have got involved and got out with their children to complete the track, their own track or completed the distance in their own way.

I’ve had so many families contact me with questions about completing the Cross Country in another way. We’ve had families do it as steps around their backyard, children convert it to jumps on the trampoline. The response has been nothing short of amazing. It has been so fantastic to see everyone posting photos and videos of their efforts onto the celebration wall.

It really does show what an amazing community we have here at Armstrong Creek School. Well done to everyone and we can’t wait to announce the winner at next weeks assembly.

Who Knew Cats Could Read Too??

This term we have embarked on an exciting partnership with the Geelong Cats Football Club (GFC) to develop some online reading videos featuring current Cats Stars as well as some supporting Learning Resources.

This week the reading was completed by Cameron Guthrie for the book ; Ali the Shiny Sparkly Unicorn by authors Nic Cunningham & Ali Villani.

You can watch the video below, as well as head to the Geelong Cats website where you can watch the video and find the Learning Resources created by the super talented ACS Staff!

Enjoy and look out for the next book coming very soon.

School Photos

Official School Photos have been rescheduled from later this term until Tuesday 6 October 2020 due to COVID-19.

Families will be given information on how to order individual, class and sibling photos closer to the date.

NDIS Therapists Visits

To continue to adhere to social distancing measures when students return to school and to reduce the number of adults on site, NDIS Therapists will be unable to conduct student visits for the remainder of Term 2 at this point.

If this advice changes we will inform our community, but we do still want to promote strong collaboration and partnerships with families and support agenices, so we will work with families on alternative ways to achieve this.

We invite therapists to make bookings for Term 3, however, this may be subject to change once further advice is received from the Victorian Health Minster, Premier Andrews and DET later in the term and and we will update you once this information is known.

Lunch Orders

Lunch orders will be available for students who are onsite, beginning Friday 29 May.

Details on how to order can be found on the last page of the Newsletter - 'Lunch Orders'.

Please note orders must be placed by 9am on the Thursday morning prior.

Have a great weekend!

Evan Savage

Principal

Dates to Remember

May

June