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Dear Parents
As we reach half way through Term 3, it is lovely to see so much genuine engagement across the school in teaching and learning. As much as we are missing the community aspects of school life, the clearer calendar means that students are truly covering the content of the curriculum as well being involved in rigorous assessment. STEM, Digital Technologies, Music, French and now Dance break-up the classroom routines but all classes are established, settled and calm.
One of the wonderful events that is currently in progress is the Year 4 class preparing for their First Eucharist celebration which is due to take place at the end of this term. Due to COVID-19 restrictions and the inclusion of the parish school of Religion, we are offering masses for this occasion both during the week and on the weekend. Most of our students are opting for the Wednesday celebration at the cathedral which will make it intimate and special.
Kindergarten will celebrate a ‘hundred days at school’ next Friday. With lockdown and remote learning early in the year, it has taken a bit longer this year for the students to reach this milestone. Mrs Trow has some enjoyable activities organised and the dress theme for the Kindergarten students is dressing up ‘like you are 100 years old’.
Due to the uncertainty around community transmission in NSW, our easing of restrictions are still at level 2.2. This means that the mass gathering of adults is not encouraged. Because of this, it is with great disappointment that I announce that a few more school activities have been cancelled for this year. Grandparents Day as well as Year 4 and Year 5/6 camp will not go ahead for 2020. Catholic Education has granted that curriculum based activities may still continue. This would include our water safety program. Whilst there is a COVID plan and a risk assessment in place, we are unsure whether families are interested in participating. Consequently, a survey using the following link will help us gauge the viability of proceeding this year. We ask that you respond by Monday 31 August.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOjSVfKYPcYimJFzOI-eFGrhI3s1qhNK2Cn-aJfK1tnUwxfA/viewform
To cheer the children up, the Parents and Friends Association through class contacts are sponsoring a donut and flavoured milk morning next Monday at recess. Due to COVID, many classes haven’t been able to meet for shared activities so this is just a special treat to show just what a special community we have at St Bede’s. Thank you to Emma Bozic and Clare Heffernan for organising this event.
We have had both School Board and P & F term meetings in the last couple of weeks. Both these bodies are vitally important to our school and I wish to thank those who give up their time voluntarily to share their talents and ideas to support the school in many endeavours. I wish to congratulate Rys Kyburz on his appointment as the financial advisor for the Board beginning in Term 4.
Thank you to all those who completed a satisfaction survey at the beginning of this term. The results will be released shortly. These annual surveys are a valuable tool in assessing our successes and highlighting areas of development. We are very proud of our academic achievements and are always open to reassessing areas for future planning.
Whilst class teachers will not be announced till Term 4, our current enrolments are looking very promising for 2021. We currently have 20 enrolments for Kindergarten and quite a few in the other classes across the school. This is an exciting prospect and confirms that our enrolments are slowly increasing. Our staffing allocation should be released shortly and then the planning for next year can begin. I hope to announce classes and teachers early next term.
There is quite a bit of sickness around at the moment amongst both students and staff. If your child is unwell, please keep them home for a couple of days to recover. It is better to be at home resting than being unwell at school and infecting others at the same time. This is imperative during this unknown period. If students become ill during the day, we will contact parents to collect them based on an informed assessment of how unwell they are at the time. Children with corona virus symptoms should stay at home until the indicators have disappeared.
I would like to personally thank the school community for their support and patience in the last two weeks while our phone system was down. During one of the heavy storms recently, water accumulated in the Telstra pit in Red Hill and it has taken over two weeks to be rectified. Two lines are now back working and our back-to-base security is now working.
I would also like to apologise if there has been any confusion about school photos. Due to the restrictions with visitors in the school in Term 1, school photos had to be re-scheduled for this term. School photos are now taking place on Monday 7 September 2020 beginning with the whole school photo at 9am sharp. We do realise that a few families had already sent in their photo envelopes. However, we also assumed that other families may have discarded or misplaced their envelopes. To remind families, we sent home new envelopes, with the new date, to all families. Your current orders still stand. You can either transfer the details to the new envelope or staple them together to assist the photographer to track your order and payment.
Next week is Sabbatical Week so I hope everyone enjoys spending extra time as a family. Happy Father’s Day to all our dads for the 6th September.
Have a lovely weekend.
Regards
Julie
Year 1 attending the ‘Start Smart’ financial literacy session today.