Greetings from Shaun

School Tours + Enrolments 

You may have seen a group of enthusiastic parents (and some children!) moving around and learning about our school on Tuesday. They certainly had lots of questions and wanted to know what school life was like at Northcote Primary School. 

School Tours for prospective prep parents commenced this week and will continue fortnightly on Tuesday mornings between 9-10am until the 14th of June. We have had many queries and bookings already and tours are filling up fast!

If you know of any parents who are considering schools for their children for 2023, please let them know about our great school, and to call or email the office to book in for a school tour. 

If you are a current family with children in the school and you have a child eagerly waiting to start school in 2023, please do not wait anymore, come complete an enrolment form and drop it at the office, enrolments will fill up fast. 

Winter Months 

Gosh did the weather take a turn this week! As the chill has started to hang in the air, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to remind everyone that classrooms will continue to be open at 8:45am for students to enter and get out of the cold. This is a great opportunity for them to get themselves ready for the day by putting their bag away and getting themselves organised. 

With the change in COVID-19 restrictions, parents and carers can now briefly enter classrooms to support children in getting organised for the day.  Please note however that we still require all adults to maintain social distancing and ensure covid safe etiquette (i.e. coughing into your elbow etc.). For anything less than 10 minutes (i.e. to help children settle at drop-off and again for pick-up) we do not require parents to sign in at the office. If you do stay for longer than this time, we really need you to sign in at the office. 

The Education department has just sent out another shipment of air purifiers to place around the school to increase ventilation and air flow when windows and doors cannot be opened in the colder weather. The existing units have all just been serviced over the school holidays and are ready to go again to help minimise the spread. 

We have received another batch of RATs which are due to be sent out next week. Thank you so much for your diligence and support with regular testing and reporting, this has greatly reduced the impact COVID has had in our school and community. It is also the time to start thinking about getting a ‘regular’ flu vaccination as we enter the flu season and as we begin to interact with more people than we have for the past two years. 

I urge you to continue to monitor for symptoms and to continue to be diligent with testing twice a week. Together we can do this! 

NAPLAN 

As many of you will be aware, NAPLAN commences next week for our Year 3 and Year 5 students. This will be the first time sitting the test for both cohorts and we have been working with all students to help them feel safe and supported and ensuring that they know what to expect as they head into the testing program next week.  

While we acknowledge that NAPLAN does create anxiety in some children, I encourage you to frame it as just another test that will be presented to your child as they move through their learning journey. The mindset we approach NAPLAN with needs to be one of ‘I tried my best and with every day I will learn more and I will be able to do more’ and hopefully this helps students to approach this assessment with an open mind and minimises any unwanted stress. 

We wish all our Year 3 and Year 5 students all the very best.

Parent Volunteers

As we gradually head to COVID normal, we recognise that there are parents and carers who are extremely eager to get into the classroom and help, we are keen too! To ensure that we maintain the highest child safe standards and follow guidelines we are required to induct volunteers before they help out in the classroom. This session is scheduled for Tuesday 10th of May at 10am. If you are interested and haven’t yet registered, please contact the office for more information.

Please note that volunteers must have had their third dose vaccination requirements. 

Updated Student Information

You will hopefully have received an envelope by now with your child’s enrolment information as it is currently recorded in our system. We recognise that you will have been through this process before and we want to acknowledge your patience and understanding as we work through making sure we get this right. Whilst it can be frustrating, this process helps us to better help you and your children. 

As a result of us updating this information, we may need to contact some families for further documentation. This may be an updated asthma or medication plan, a birth certificate or to update our records of your current family situation. Thanks again for your support in getting this important job right. 

Curriculum Day 

This is just another reminder just in case you have missed it so far, but Monday the 9th of May is a Curriculum day and although teachers and staff will be at school learning together, it is a pupil free day.