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Dear Parents and Community,
A big Happy Father's Day to all our Fathers out there. I hope you all had a wonderful day.
The main thing this week is the announcement about the return to school. Please see below:-
First week of Term 4, 5–9 October
Remote and flexible learning will continue for all students, except in specialist schools in rural and regional Victoria.
Onsite supervision for children of permitted workers and vulnerable students will continue to be provided consistent with existing guidelines.
Schools in metropolitan Melbourne from 12 October – return to onsite learning
Students in Prep to Grade 2 return to full-time onsite schooling. The existing remote learning program will not continue for these year levels.
Remote and flexible learning will continue for all students in Grade 3 to Year 10, other than for children of permitted workers and vulnerable students.
Dates to be confirmed, subject to health advice
All students from Grade 3 to Year 10 in metropolitan Melbourne will continue with remote and flexible learning. A date for the return of these year levels to face-to-face learning will be subject to further health advice.
During the staged return, outside school hours care will be available to students attending for on-site supervision and progressively for the relevant year levels returning to on-site learning.
Preparing for 2021.
We have had a few questions as to what is happening in regards for 2021, especially for our Year 6 students moving to High School and the new Preps for 2021. Firstly, in regards to Year 6 transition. Most of the Year 6 Transition activities occur in towards the end of Term 4. Schools do not start these too early as we want the students to stay switched on to their learning. Usually we have visits from the local Catholic High Schools and our students have days where they visit the high schools. I am sure this will happen in some way this year, but it may be virtual. It all depends on what the restrictions are. We know many of our senior students have missed leadership opportunities and we will look at ways we might be able to incorporate this into Term 4. Preps 2021. Our hope is that we will be able to have some visits to the school late Term 4 for our Preps. If we cannot do that, we will have to put something together virtually.
School Photos: We have booked and cancelled several times our school photos for this year, but we still hope to get them done this year. It will be a mad scramble for the photograhpy companies as every school in Melbourne tries to get their photos done in the last 5 weeks of school when everyone is at school. At this stage we are booked for Tuesday October 20 and will rebook for a later date. I think it will be summer Uniform this year!
Building Project: Works have continued and there have been no new problems. Unfortunately, the steel works and contaminated soil have now pushed us a little over budget. We will now look to extend our loan to complete the works and borrow another amount to complete the lighting and audio in the hall.
Update on Paul Burke: As you may have heard, Paul Burke had to return to Ireland as his mother was unwell. She passed away surrounded by family. Many staff watched the live stream of her funeral. The difficulty now is Paul returning to Australia with the tight restrictions. He is in contact with the Embassy, but he still cannot get a flight and has been told he will not be returning until late December. The hope is that Paul will be able to return before that, but he just has to keep trying to get an earlier flight. He will need to go into quarantine on his return interstate before he can return to work. Please keep Paul in your thoughts.
Principal Meeting this week. Yesterday, I took part in an online Principal Meeting. Like us, schools are stuggling with what to do about School Reports, Sacraments, Graduation, Prep Orientation, Fees and Levies and many other things. Schools were throwing around ideas about how to do thing virtually and other ideas.
School Fees and Levies. Firstly, a big thank you to families as our school fee schedule is great and most families have been able to pay. We are communicating with a number of families supporting them with Fees during these tough times. Unfortunately, our school costs do not come down during this time with staff salaries and conditions being the bulk of our costs. Any savings through no need for relief teachers has been more than countered from the increase in cleaning costs and decrease of income from sources such as After School Care. We have delayed most excursions hoping we would be able to attend and we are now looking at booking some Virtual excursions as the restrictions continue. So thanks again for your support.
Dylan Wiliam: This Friday we have our second webinar with Leading World Educationalist, Dylan Wiliam. Staff were very enthusiastic after the first session and are keen to learn more from Dylan. Staff will be on the webinar from 9 to around 10:30.
John Munro: Jenny Sutton and myself also took part in the first of a four part webinar with John Munro. The topic of the webinars is "How can we notice and support our high potential learners." John is a very well known Literacy expert based in Melbourne. The webinar was offered to Catholic Schools in the Western and Northern suburbs. The first webinar was excellent and we look forward to the next three.
Stay Safe and God Bless.
Anthony.
There is a government app, The Learning Potential, designed to help Parents with assisting their children at school. It is quite good and worth having a look at.
God of welcome, God of boundary: we give that that each of us can be our full selves in the community you create. And we pray that with your grace, our way of being our true selves will never harm others or prevent them from being their true selves. May we welcome one another as you have welcomed us, so that the lines we draw together trace the image of your love.
Amen
Way of the West
Our Way of the West Campaign has commenced. Thank you to those families who have been able to drop off items on Fr Greg's porch. Next week, there will be a focus on giving tinned food, honey and long life milk.
Listed are items that can be donated to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) in Footscray and dispersed to families in need.
Due to the current Covid 19 restrictions, donationed items can be left on the presbytery porch.
Thank you for your kindness and generosity.
Wellbeing Resource
As we continue to face challenges and remain in lockdown it is important to focus on the positive things in our lives. The poster- Ten Keys to Happier Living has some great ways we can focus on the things that can bring happiness to our children and families.
Update on the Father's Day drawing competition - Congratulations to Tess Trigger on being the winner for 6B