Dear families,

This week it was great to receive such positive feedback about our students returning to face to face teaching from the beginning of Week 3.  I would like to sincerely thank all of our families who have all done a fabulous job with remote learning and truly appreciate the impact that this has had on families, whilst this has been the focus of family life.  There will be mixed emotions about returning to school for many of our students who have no doubt enjoyed being at home, liked spending additional time with their family, and simply enjoyed a much slower pace.  The social, academic and wellbeing benefits of returning to school with their peers we predict will be overwhelmingly positive and provide students with some familiarity and reassurance in what has been an extremely challenging year thus far.  All of the St Joseph’s staff are very excited about the return of our students and that we will return to our usual structure and daily routine. 

We understand that there will be some students who will not return to school next week and those children will access their work through See-Saw or Google Classrooms as they have recently.  This work will not be presented as remote learning, rather classroom tasks and activities that are reflective of the face to face classroom.

St Joseph’s is putting many measures in place to safeguard the health of all staff and students:

• Any staff member or student displaying any sign of illness, cold or flu like symptoms needs to stay at home. If your child presents as being unwell you will be contacted to come and take them home.
• On arrival at school all staff and students will have their temperatures checked as an additional safety precaution (if you would not like your child’s temperature taken please notify the school)
• Physical distancing amongst students is not necessary but will be enforced amongst staff and other adults
• The bubblers will not be accessible, so all students are asked to bring a drink bottle and use the tap to fill it
• Pick up and Drop off will be via the front gate and parents are urged to practise social distancing protocols
• If parents must enter the school it should be only through the school office – email and phone contact is preferred
• There will be no assemblies, masses or excursions
• All students will practise increased hygiene and hand washing with hand sanitizer also readily available in all classrooms
• Increased cleaning of toilets, desks, shared spaces and high traffic areas will be in place
• There will be no Monday fruit or Friday canteen for the term.

Children will be encouraged to practice routine hygiene practices such as sneezing or coughing into their elbow, washing their hands after using a tissue and refraining from physical contact such as a hand shake etc.

There are many new things in place so I encourage you to talk these through with your child/ren.  All of these protocols will be explained to all students when they return.

I hope I have answered some questions that you may have, please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss anything further.

I can’t wait to be together as a school community again and look forward to next Monday when this happens.

Have a great week and stay safe.