Dear Parents/Caregivers,
Welcome to the first principal’s news snippet for 2021. After a disrupted start, it was great to see the kids at school last week. This year we welcome 133 new students and their families to the Centre. The new and past students have mostly settled into the routines of their new classes. It is a very busy period with lots of assessment and establishment of class routines.
Covid-19 is still with us and we are still in an a ‘state of emergency’ where the situation can change at any time. Hopefully we do not go into another lockdown. The phase 4 restrictions do have imposed limits on numbers that can be in a room at any time so we will not run the larger parent workshops this term. We will look to recording something and putting it online. The Pre-primary and Kindy sessions can be face to face.
Parent Involvement
In the context of the Covid restrictions, we are still committed to offering a range of programs that provide information and strategies that will enable parents to provide targeted support for their children and have the knowledge to advocate for them when returning to mainstream settings.
The Kindergarten parents have had their class meetings in last week and the Pre-primary and Year One will conduct their sessions in the coming weeks. This is a time when parents learn about individual class teacher expectations, set-up and routines that relate to home-school communication. At this stage, parent rosters are on hold while we are in pandemic mode.
The Pre-primary book sharing will start in Term 2 for Padbury and Quinns and Term 3 for Poseidon. East Hamersley depends on numbers. Information flyers will be sent to parents. This course is extremely valuable and places are limited to 15. If we have enough people interested we can run additional sessions, including an online program.
School Attendance
Student attendance at school is a critical factor in long term student success. Our students also have the compounding factor of their language disorder. Obviously if your child is unwell, they should not be sent to school. You can minimise the absences by avoiding holidays in school term times or limiting the days that you might have your child away from school. If you do plan holidays in-school time, the last 2 or 3 days of term would be less disruptive than the start of term. If planning holidays, you will need to complete the Student Non-attendance Request slip. The Deputy Principal for your site will review your reason for the requested student non-attendance and will let you know if approved or not. A specified reason of just ‘taking a vacation’ will not be authorised and will result in that being recorded on the attendance register. In accordance with Department Policy, parents of students who are absent for an excessive number of days will be contacted and may be required to attend a case conference.
Ms Shelley Blakers
Principal