Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Term 2. I hope that all families enjoyed a good break over the holiday period and that Easter, in particular, was restorative and afforded you some time to spend with friends and family. It was so lovely to see the students back at school yesterday, the buzz and energy they bring to the school is incredible.

You may have seen my letter regarding the easing of COVID restriction on the Parent Portal, if you have not please have a read. The Leadership Team met yesterday to discuss these restrictions and the following changes will come into effect on Monday 9th May. I will email you next week to reconfirm and remind you of these eased restrictions.

OPEN Days & Enrolment Period

The official Catholic Education enrolment period begins next week on Monday 2^nd May – Friday 27^th May 2022. We will host our first Open day next week on Monday with tours of the school for interested families. The times for this will be 9:30-11 am and 4-6 pm. Interested families are asked to make their way to the front office where they will meet a member of the Leadership Team and be given a guided tour of the school.

We know the greatest contributor to new enrolments in our school is the word of mouth from our parent community. We have information packages available for parents who may like to pass these on to a friend or neighbour. Please contact the office to organise the collection of one of these. We would also ask you to like and share our material on the school’s Facebook page as this helps to spread the word of our beautiful school.

Morning Drop off arrangements

From Week 3, morning drop off will largely remain the same with students being dropped off on the ring road and a range of staff available to help students exit the vehicle. They will proceed to the hardtop out the back of BASCA, where they will be supervised by teachers on duty. From 8:45 am, students in Yrs 4 & 5 will move to the Peace Garden to be supervised by another staff member.

Lunch Arrangements

From Week 3, pre-COVID playground areas will be in operation for students in Yrs 1-6, including ovals, playground, sandpit, sensory playground, basketball & handball courts, nature play, library 4 days a week and other lunchtime clubs. Students will be free to access these areas and will be guided by classroom teachers as to what areas are available each day. Kinder will continue to use their play area for this term in line with normal practice.

Pick-up arrangements

From Week 3, we will move back to our normal school Pickers and Parkers after school arrangement. From 3 pm, K & 1 students only will be in the hall ready for pickup. Siblings from other grades will not arrive until 3:05 pm and will be in the hall ready for collection. Please park your car and make your way to the hall, similar to wet weather arrangements. The remainder of the school will be released at 3:05 pm.

Students who are picked up between 3:05 and 3:20 pm are called Parkers and will be in the hall, seated in grade levels. Please park your car similar to wet weather arrangements and come into the hall, via the side door to collect your child/ren.

Students picked up after 3:20 pm are known as Pickers and you will be able to pick up your students in the 4 coloured boxes on the ring road from 3:20 pm. Please note Pickers Lane is only open once cones are removed from the left-hand lane on the ring road. Students who are Pickers assemble on the grassed area behind the hall and will be taken to the school entrance at 3:20 pm.

Cohorting

Although Cohorting is no longer required, we will still continue to minimise the interaction and length of time of organised indoor activities that involve of students from different grade levels.

Parents onsite

We are still required to limit the number of parents we have onsite and ask parents only to attend the school for scheduled appointments, Parkers or to visit the front office.

Students who are unwell

Please do not send students to school if they are unwell, they will continue to be isolated in a supervised area and then sent home. If you are worried or have any questions, please contact your classroom teacher.

RATS

The school has RATs available on request for families. Please contact the office if you would like some sent home. Please see the requirements for those identified as a household contact of someone with COVID.

Household Contact of Someone with COVID

Household contacts will not have to quarantine if they have no COVID-19 symptoms but will need to comply with the following requirements for seven days from the time the first person in their household tests positive for COVID‑19:

• Advise ACT Health that they are a household contact by completing a COVID-19 online declaration form.
• Wear a face mask in all indoor spaces when outside of the home, if aged 12 years and over.
• Students study from home, where it is practical to do so
• Parents/Carers notify the school of their child being a household contact
• If it is not practical to study from home, students must undertake COVID-19 testing and return a negative result in the 24 hours prior to returning to school and then every 48 hours if ongoing attendance is required

Reporting of COVID-19

It is still vitally important that you email the school to let us know if your child contracts COVID so we can undertake an assessment to ascertain the risk associated with our most vulnerable members in the community. We will also use this data to track case levels in a 7-day period to notify parents in line with ACT Health directions if we reach 25% of a cohort contracting COVID in a 7-day period. Please email the front office or me if your child contracts Covid.

Absences on Compass

Please continue to record all student absences on the Compass Parent Portal for your children. There were a large number of unexplained absences from last term being followed up by teachers, which ultimately takes time away from Teaching and Learning activities. Please complete a note on the Parent Portal if your child is away.

Cross Country and Mother’s Day breakfast

We are thrilled to be able to conduct our Cross Country and Mother’s Day breakfast next week. Please see instructions on Compass Parent Portal sent out by Mrs Reedy on how to order your breakfast.

We acknowledge this event is on the same day as St Mary MacKillop Try day and are working with MacKillop to lock in an alternate day for our students to go and to Mackillop for a ‘Try Day’ later in the term. Unfortunately, due to other commitments (NAPLAN and CAMP) and Calwell Oval bookings, this is the only date we could make work before the regional Cross Country carnival. We will contact our Year 6 cohort with an update soon.

Puoc Aboy

The funeral for Puoc will be held tomorrow at 11:30 am at Holy Family Gowrie and will be attended by a number of our staff. As communicated previously it is expected many of our students would know Puoc very well and maybe experiencing grief associated with his passing. Attached is a graphic from Sharman our School Counsellor, which you might find helpful when speaking with your child about grief and loss. If you are at all worried about your child, please speak with your classroom teacher in the first instance.

Take care in the week ahead.

Blessings and good wishes

Sean Rutledge

Principal