Bringing with it many new faces, changes and opportunities, a new school year has begun.  Bring on 2022!  I would like to extend a warm welcome to the many new students joining our community, especially families arriving for their first year at St Bede’s, including: the Brightling, Fitch, Hopewell, Katlewski, Sammut, Taylor, Tench, Bywater, Guffogg, Hannah, Konarzewski, Santos, Mierendorff, Bitters, Cappellari, Goranov, Hantas, Fegan, Thompson, Casey and Brooker families.  A very special welcome goes to our 28 new Kindergarten students who started school enthusiastically last Tuesday. 

We also have multiple new staff joining us across the school: Mrs Tea Austin part time in Year 2, Ms Joanna Filardo temporarily working part time in Year 2, Miss Ellen Fletcher in Year 3, Mr Luke Morwitch in Year 5, Ms Caroline Kontny in Year 6 and Mrs Deb Deighton returning to Music after a posting overseas. 

Many areas of our school have also had a face lift over the break.  Our multipurpose room has been transformed into the new Kinder Gold classroom with fresh carpet, a lick of paint and a new Smart Screen; Year 2 have new desks; our trees have been checked and trimmed following storms in the holidays; donated logs and tree stumps have been relocated to the yarning circle on the playground; and the new shade sail, generously donated by the Donaghue Family and the P&F was erected over the sandpit in late January.  We hope to update you on the timeline for future projects and minor works to come very soon. 

Our school takes directives from ACT Health and Catholic Education to assess the risks related to the transmission of COVID.  Whilst COVID is inevitably present in the Canberra community, we are following all of the recommended procedures and protocols to avoid transmission.  Some of the ongoing procedures include: cohorting of classes, regular cleaning of high-touch surfaces, supply of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) for all students and staff, social distancing, restricted visitors on site and monitoring for symptoms of illness.  We will continue to distribute RATs as our weekly allocation is delivered.  Unfortunately, we are unable to specify set days for distribution as we do not know when to expect the next delivery.  Where possible, we encourage home testing on Mondays and Wednesdays to track cases across the week and provide routine.

New notification procedures now require schools to report daily on positive COVID cases within cohorts, rather than Year Levels to provide confidentiality.  Our junior cohort consists of Kinder/Year 1/Year 2 and the senior cohort is Year 3/Year 4/Year 5/ Year6.  Each cohort is approximately half of the school.  Whilst the school will post negative or positive results on the school website and specifically notify cohorts of possible exposure, student and staff names will remain confidential.  I ask that parents also respect the privacy of students and staff when discussing cases, including social channels such as WhatsApp.  If you have questions or concerns about positive cases within the school community, please contact me directly for more information about the appropriate procedures and your personal circumstances. 

As expected, we do have increasing reports of positive cases across the school, including staff, and we are doing our best to maintain routine and structure for all students.  As you can appreciate, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to secure casual staff as the demand increases across the system.  This does mean that there may not always be consistent teachers in the classroom and we may not be able to provide notice of changes.  We are constantly updating our circumstances with Catholic Education who are assisting us to monitor the situation and assess risk and strategic management.     

Worryingly, I have seen multiple near misses in the school carpark since school has returned.  In order to keep our children safe, I ask that you follow a few safety protocols:

1. No parking at the top of the driveway, in front of the gate – this is not a drop off zone. Students are opening doors and jumping out directly onto the driveway with cars that are reversing from carparks and children are out of line of sight.  Alternatively, students are running across the driveway to get into cars temporarily parked in the middle of the driveway.  This also causes congestion for other cars. 
2. No parking on the red kerb – this congests the carpark creating a hazard for reversing cars.
3. Students are encouraged to walk down the path on the playground side (not the hall side) to meet parents in parked cars. Children are discouraged to cross the carpark independently to meet their parents.  Parents can meet their children on the path outside the hall.
4. Please do not walk down the middle of the driveway. Model safety by walking on the paths with your child. 

A massive thank you to Jen Maher and her merry band of volunteers who have gone above and beyond to provide uniforms to begin the year.  Whilst contactless click and collect orders were not ideal, Jen has made accommodations to ensure that everyone had something to wear for their first weeks of school.  Even though school orders were placed well in advance last year, supply and delivery are very unpredictable in the current climate.  Stock is slowly arriving at school in dribs and drabs and orders are being distributed as quickly as possible.  Thank you for your flexibility and understanding of factors out of our control.

The Term 1 calendar is looking a little bare with the cancellation or postponement of many events.  Whilst the swimming carnival is unable to be rescheduled prior to regional carnivals that were also scheduled in Term 1, we are looking for options to move our Athletics Carnival to Term 2.  Our school leaders will be presented with badges during a small school presentation next Wednesday 16^th February and a more formal induction will be held in Term 2.  Some important notes to make on your calendar include start dates for Terms 2 and 3:

Term 2 resumes – Wednesday 27 April (Monday 25 April ANZAC Day; Tuesday 26 April Pupil Free Day)

Term 3 resumes – Tuesday 19 July (Monday 18 July Pupil Free Day)

Whilst it has been a rocky and uncertain lead up to starting school, the students appear very settled and thrilled to be back with their mates.  It’s good to be back.  Classes are quickly establishing routines and are resuming our core business of teaching and learning.  We will continue to keep you updated with information as it comes to hand and we look forward to seeing you all, a little closer, during Parent-Teacher interviews and 3-Way Conferences in Week 6, 7-10 March.  All of these meetings will be via MS Teams this term.  More information about bookings will be available in the coming weeks. 

Keep safe.

Breen Fox

Acting Principal