Principal's Pen
Dear Parent and Caregivers,
COVID-19
Just another thank you to our community as you have been wonderfully flexible in dealing with the multitude of changes due to the current COVID-19 restrictions imposed to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus. We are hopeful that some of the restrictions in place may be lifted this coming Sunday and I will communicate any news if a decision is announced.
Until then a reminder that we are still working with:
- Parents and visitors not currently being onsite at all, so I encourage you to use the supervised Stop, Drop and Go zones at the front and back of the school each morning and afternoon and if walking or riding to collect children that you do so from the front gate or EPAC gate and not congregate with other parents at the gates. The contactless drop off and pick up is a wonderful service so please avail yourself of this.
- It is important that we all continue to follow COVID-safe practices including physical distancing, sanitising and wearing face masks throughout this period.
- If you, or a member of your family, is feeling unwell or displaying known symptoms of COVID-19 please get tested, stay home and isolate until you get the results and your symptoms resolve.
- The current School and Early Childhood Service Exclusion Direction states that where the Principal, staff member or Teacher reasonably suspects that a child is unwell the parent is to be notified and the child is to be removed from the school as soon as practicable.
- No organised extra-curricular activities which require mixing of year levels therefore, all sports and extra-curricula activities have been cancelled where we cannot limit them to one year level only.
- No assemblies or school functions
I once again thank all parents and carers for your support during this period and we look forward to bringing our whole school community back together again as soon as we are able to safely do so. A big thank you to our staff as well who have navigated the lock down, change to home learning and back to classroom learning quickly and effectively. I I thank them for their professionalism and the way they have taken these changes in their stride.
ASSISTANT REGIONAL DIRECTOR VISIT
This week we again fortunate to host a visit from our ARD, Mr Rob Van den Heuvel. Due to the restrictions he was not allowed to meet with staff and students this time but instead spent valuable time with the leadership team unpacking the school’s A-E data from Semester One and comparing that to previous years and other like-schools.
It was most pleasing to see that our school (yellow) continues to produce excellent A-E results as compared to QSS (Qld Similar Schools) (blue) where we are consistently sitting higher than those schools in the percentages of students achieving C and above grades for English, which is our priority area. We talked around the students achieving C grades and how we could move more of those students into the B grades and also those achieving B into the A grades and how we could work with staff to implement strategies to support this movement. We look forward to Rob returning shortly to work with staff at planning sessions with Mrs O’Malley, our HOD-C.
PREP ENROLMENT
A reminder that we have set dates for two open mornings this term, where prospective families can come for a tour of the school facilities and listen to a general talk about our school and the programs we have on offer by the Principal, Deputy Principal and Head of Department-Curriculum. These Open mornings will held on September 1st and September 7th from 9-10am and will commence in the EPAC facility on Laurel St.
Following that will be the Prep enrolment interviews with a member of the Administration team for those families that want to enrol a Prep student for 2022. These interviews will be held in the last two weeks of this term between September 6th and September 17th and will be able to be booked through the SOBS booking system by each enrolled family at a time that suits them. These bookings opened on August 1st. At that interview we will collect some information about the child entering Prep and check that all of the enrolment paperwork is in order and provide information around the rest of the enrolment and transition process.
Following the enrolment process then in Term 4 we will hold transition afternoons and information sessions which will focus specifically on preparing the child for Prep and also providing all of the necessary information about the Prep program to the parents. If you have any questions about the Prep enrolment process for 2022 please call the Administration office.
STAFFING
The recruitment process for the Defence School Mentor position at our school is progressing and just waiting for the restrictions to ease so that visitors can come onsite so that we can arrange some interviews.
Our new permanent Deputy Principal, Mrs Tina Burrows has commenced with us this week. We are very excited to welcome her to the school and I think she has been suitably impressed with our students, staff and beautiful school since she has arrived. It certainly is an exciting time for the school as we are able to move forward for the time being with three leadership positions in the school, so we are currently working out how that looks and which portfolios each of the leaders will look after.
WAKAKIRRI AND YEAR 6 CAMP
As those families involved in Wakakirri have been notified already, the scheduled heats have been postponed until October 18 which unfortunately clashed with our planned Year 6 Camp tp Marcoola. We have therefore been lucky enough to negotiate a change of camp dates to the only available spot at the end of this term on September 15,16,17. This means a faster turnaround now of paperwork, planning and payments. We are pleased that our Yr 6 students will be able to enjoy both activities which are highlights of their final year in primary school as ESS.
Till next time,
Mrs Anne Robinson
Principal