From the Principal's desk
NAIDOC Theme 2020
This week we celebrate NAIDOC week. Across our school students have been involved in activities with their teachers and other classes. At our assembly, Friday afternoon, some of our indigenous children shared with us their reflections on the week.
Below I have included a brief summary of this year's focus from the official site - https://www.naidoc.org.au/
Always Was. Always will Be. The 2020 National NAIDOC Week theme has been developed to shine a focus on the length of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander occupation of Australia. In our narratives Aboriginal people talk of continuous occupation of being here when time began, we are part of the Dreaming – past, present and future. Anthropologists and archaeologists have dated our sites to being hundreds of thousands of years old, in fact recording some of these sites as being the oldest on this planet.
Additionally, the NAIDOC theme seeks to get teachers, students and community to explore and learn about, and appreciate the wealth and breadth of Indigenous Nations, languages and knowledges of this continent. Exploring and learning about Indigenous understandings of the environment, plants, animals, greater astronomy and cosmology, waters, land use and protection, Indigenous sciences and maths. We need to question ourselves and understand: How does learning these knowledges expand current western teachings to have a greater understanding of the world around us as individuals, as a community of learners and activists in looking after our environments?
Operational Guide Update 10th November
In this newsletter, I thought I would share with you some of the recent changes to the School's Operational Guide. I know that for many of us we are feeling COVID fatigue and wish that we could go back to how it was before. However, our state government is taking a very cautious approach and as a state school we must follow the directions as set out below.
The promising news is that the operational guide is being updated almost weekly and perhaps there may be further restrictions removed in the coming weeks. I would like to formally acknowledge the awesome job that staff at school are doing in arranging incursions, excursions, book week, our debating festival, small group transitions, and interschool opportunities. There is an enormous amount of paperwork, bookwork, risk assessments, etc that must be organised within a short time frame. Judging by the smiles on the faces of the children, though, it is certainly worth it!
Below I have included several excerpts from the guidelines for your perusal.
Year 7 transitions
Small group primary to secondary school transition activities can resume. This includes Grade 6 students and their teacher or parents meeting Year 7 educators in the secondary school environment. Group size should not exceed 10 people and groups must not mix with other students at the school.
Transitions, end-of-year events and other large gatherings
Face-to-face year level assemblies can occur for students and staff only, no parents or other external visitors can attend. Whole school assemblies and other non-essential large gatherings must be postponed or adapted through online broadcasts.
School graduations
Year 6 and Year 12 graduations are permitted face to face in Victorian schools. Students from the graduating year level and staff can attend in person. Parents/carers and other family members or friends cannot attend in person but could engage via an online broadcasting of the event.
Interschool activities
Outdoor interschool sport can resume in both metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria in line with community sport, with the following measures in place:
- spectators to be discouraged or to be within public gathering limits
- reinforce hand hygiene before, during, and after
- attendance register maintained to support contact tracing
- no sharing of food (such as oranges at sport)
- cleaning and disinfection of communal facilities prior to and after an interschool sport event (toilets and communal change rooms can open).
I will send a compass update out next week with details about our Year 6 Graduation.
Thank you for working with us.
Regards
Debbie Oliver
Principal
