SCHOOL COUNCIL REPORT 

Meeting via an online platform is becoming the norm for our School Council meetings this year.  Despite our current circumstances, I’m grateful that our School Council still has an avenue to effectively collaborate and come together to discuss planning and governance issues for our school community.

My first piece of news is the welcome advice that after undergoing a contract renewal review, our Principal has been offered a further five year extension on his contract at IPS.  School Council would like to thank Mark for his leadership and contribution to the school during the time he has served already.  We congratulate him on the opportunity to further his time at IPS, which will see him serve as our Principal until 2025.

Several school policies were tabled and discussed during the meeting, with the Sun Smart Policy, Uniform and Dress Code Policy and Fundraising Policy all reviewed and endorsed.  Ten other policies were tabled for noting and a Homework Policy was received under consultation with no amendment made.

We received a comprehensive analysis of the outcomes of the recent school survey, which was distributed to families several weeks ago.  My thanks to those of you who completed the survey and provided feedback and insights into the school’s performance.  I’d also like to thank and acknowledge Kerri Fuller for leading this project and to Bianca Plunkett for her invaluable input and expertise in assessing the data.

Council members reviewed several quotes for minor works to the school and endorsed funding to replace our lighting with an energy efficient solution.  Given the substantial government rebate the school will receive, the environmental benefit and that we’ll save approximately $7,000 a year on our power bills, all members were in strong support of this initiative.

We considered two options for upgrades to the school oval – one being an upgrade to the sprinkler system and the other, synthetic resurfacing.  The investment to resurface is around the $250K mark and the installation would mean further disruption in limiting student access to the oval.  Although the sprinkler system upgrade isn’t a long term solution and doesn’t address the ongoing needs of the upkeep of the oval (such as mowing), the cost is under $15K, which is significantly less than resurfacing.  For this reason, the sprinkler system upgrade was endorsed as we see better value in investing any budget surplus we have into a number of smaller projects associated with the new build.

The Fair Committee reported that they have earmarked the third Saturday in November as their event date in Fair years. Our next Fair won’t be staged until next year, so the date for the 2021 Fair will be Saturday 20th November. With the current economic downturn (which will have lasting effect) in addition to so much uncertainty around what the school will be able to do and COVID restrictions which may be imposed, we reflected on how our Fair and other fundraising events are likely to be impacted. It’s too early to make assumptions, but we aren’t expecting as many businesses to be able to contribute cash donations and we are prepared to adapt our format to align with government policy and required operational conditions.  Further work will be done on this as the COVID situation progresses and as we learn more.

The other events effected because of COVID are many of our planned PFA events.  The PFA met earlier this week to look at their plans for the remainder of the year and finalise events over the next term.  It has been decided to cancel the Father’s Day Breakfast and to postpone the School Disco to term 4 (this was originally planned for September 11). The PFA are working towards still going ahead with a Father’s Day stall in the hopes that the children will be back at school by the first week of September.

Lockdown 2.0 has been very trying for us all, particularly after having a taste of ‘freedom’, so to speak.  We know you are all doing your best and that the needs and capacity of our children are all varied and therefore require flexibility, understanding and patience in managing those needs.  Please lean on whatever support networks you can, whether that be a conversation with another parent to see what’s working for them, setting up routines and structure that fits in with family and work demands, encouraging connection with class mates (albeit, virtually) or reaching out to your child’s teacher for help and advice.  There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution in this situation, so adapt and make it work as best as it can for you.

Good luck, stay safe and take care.

Kelly Toghill

School Council President