With the announcement on Sunday of the planned easing of the current Stage 4 restrictions, there was a lot to take in.

Looking from the school's point of view, we were all hoping for schools to reopen as soon as possible. We know how hard it is for our students at the moment and desperately miss the ability to learn together face to face and the routines and fun that are sadly lacking during remote learning.

Whilst the easing of restrictions is going to be gradual, we were thrilled to hear that onsite learning is set to resume for our Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students on the 12th October (Week 2 of next term).

This decision is an acknowledgement that, whilst remote and flexible learning is a challenge for all students, families and teachers, it is especially difficult for our youngest learners.

We now place our hope in infection numbers continuing to decline to the extent that a full return for our Year 3-6 students is not far behind. We would like nothing more than having the whole school back together as soon as possible for a positive end to such a difficult year.

The Education Department will be providing greater detail around the staged return to school in the coming weeks, including the ways that we will keep your children safe as they return. We will ensure this information is provided to you via our usual communication channels in a timely way.

We have taken the step of penciling in our school photo day for Wednesday 4th November (the day immediately after the Melbourne Cup public holiday) in the hope of getting individual and class photos to remember 2020 by. After cancelling these photos in Terms 1, 2 and 3, we hope it is a case of fourth time lucky.

Finally, I would like to thank parents and carers for taking part in our first ever remote parent-teacher interviews last week. The feedback from our teachers was that the meetings were a great success and they were able to use the time to build a better shared understanding of the learning, goals and needs of each child during this difficult time.

These understandings will help us to do a better job as we head into the final term of the school year and welcome the students back to learning at SKiPPS.

I encourage you to get involved in our Footy Colours Day next Friday by taking a photo of the family in their team colours and uploading this to the google drive link shared later in the newsletter. We would love to continue the tradition of finishing Term 3 on a high by sharing these at our (remote) Footy Colours assembly.

Neil Scott, Principal

SKiPPS Newsletter

Issue 15 · 08 Sep 2020

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