Principal's Report

Foundation 2022 Orientation Program

This morning we held our final Foundation Orientation session for our incoming students. During the last two weeks, we have welcomed groups of children to the school where they have happily spent time displaying their creative talents in the classroom and enjoyed the chance to explore our exciting Eastern Playground. It has been lovely seeing the students give a confident farewell to their parent/s at the start of the session, and rushing into their arms, smiles aplenty, when it is time to go home.

When visiting the groups, I have been impressed by how quickly they settled into the sessions and made new friends. It bodes well for good times ahead.

Following on from the success of last year, we once again provided a series of videos for the incoming students to watch on-demand, to further their school connection. Our current Foundation students will be familiar with these videos, however we edited and updated them, and they have been very well received.

Lots of preparation goes into this important program. Thank you to the Foundation teachers who ran these sessions, Sarah Moody for her communication and to Olivia Li for producing the videos.

The Little Long Walk

Yesterday I watched the Year 5 students participate in ‘The Little Long Walk’ – where they displayed the posters they had created in class to the Foundation students. It was lovely to see how engaged our Foundation students were as they looked at the powerful messages on the posters. The Little Long Walk highlights the lives and struggles of Indigenous Australians and promotes understanding and reconciliation.

The The Little Long Walk is the culmination of the Yarning Conference, where the Year 5 students  learnt about Indigenous culture and history, directly from local Elders and Indigenous organisations. Students explored the themes of ‘Heal Country’ and ‘Truth Telling’ to learn the true and powerful history of First Nations Australians.

Transition to 2022

As the end of the year gets ever closer, 2022 plans for Year 1 – 6 are also underway. As part of our process for placing students into grades, students have been listing the names of five peers whom they work well with. These lists, along with teacher input, are fed into a computer system which generates the grades. Teachers and the leadership team then look carefully at these grade lists and make changes in the best interest of the students.

To support the transition process, we organise a few transition sessions for our Foundation and Year 1 students, so that they can experience some time with their current classmates in one of the classrooms of the following year level. These sessions will occur over the next few weeks.

Meet Your Teacher – Transition Session

• Incoming Foundation students have their Meet Your Teacher session on Friday 10 December, from 9:30 – 10:30am. Details on this session will be emailed to families in early December.
• Current Foundation – Year 5 students will participate in their ‘Meet Your Teacher’ on Wednesday 15 December, from 12 – 12:50pm. At this session, students will move to their 2022 classroom with their 2022 classmates and teacher.

In our next newsletter (published 7 December) we will communicate the teachers and classrooms for each year level.

Changes to COVID Isolation Periods

Last Thursday, the state government announced a raft of changes to COVID restrictions. We are still awaiting an operational update from the Department of Education and Training, explaining what this means for schools. We will communicate this once known. We can confirm the changes to isolation requirements:

Identification and Communication of COVID Cases – Close Contacts

• Schools will continue the process of identifying contacts of a confirmed case of COVID-19 at schools. 
  • The Department of Health will no longer communicate with these contacts regarding quarantine requirements. 
  • If your child is identified as a contact, the school will notify you directly.

COVID Testing – Close Contacts

• Contacts will be required to complete a standard (PCR) test within 24 hours from when they are identified by the school as a contact.
• If the PCR test returns a negative result, the student can immediately return to school, with evidence of the negative result provided to the school. Please email negative test results to the school before your child returns to the classroom.

Rapid Antigen Testing – Close Contacts

• After receiving a negative PCR test results it is strongly recommended that contacts complete five days of rapid antigen tests in the morning before they attend school.
• Rapid antigen testing kits can be collected from testing centres from Monday 22 November.

Other Changes – COVID Positive Cases

• Confirmed cases will now complete 10 days of isolation instead of 14.
• Vaccinated household close contacts will complete 7 days rather than 14 days of quarantine.
  • This includes unvaccinated children under 12 years, if all members of their household over 12 years are vaccinated. 
  • Other unvaccinated household contacts will be required to complete 14 days of quarantine. 

Lost Property

There is still an abundance of lost property items at school. If your child/ren are missing any items from pre or post lockdown, please look in the cupboard. In the next few days, we will communicate information regarding an area sectioned off with lost property items, making it easier to go through. Anything not claimed will either be donated to charity or put into the second-hand uniform shop. 

Library Borrowing Schedule

To support the library stocktake at the end of the year, here is the timeline for borrowing and returning books.

• This week: Borrowing continues
• Week starting 29 November: Library open for browsing and book returns (no borrowing)
• Week starting 13 December: Library closed for stocktake. All books to be returned.

Wishing you an enjoyable week.

~ Paul Wallace, Principal