Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to a new academic year. I trust that you and your family were able to celebrate Christmas in a special and joyful way. I’m sure each family found a way to make the Christmas and New Year celebrations meaningful even with the challenges of being compliant with the COVID-19 regulations which still continue to change constantly. I know from personal experience that the Christmas masses were a blessing after a year where you couldn’t attend mass and receive communion.   

We particularly extend a warm welcome to our new kindergarten children and families new to our community. We also welcome our new staff members; Miss Vittoria Lopreiato(2T), Mr Matthew Messina(3F), Miss Megan Price(5F), Miss  Ana Kristo(KF), Miss Jackie Bazzi(PPT) and Miss Rachael Daffara (4T) who is returning to St Paul’s after spending last year at Good Samaritan, Fairy Meadow. We are a “can do” community and I’m sure all will experience the beauty of St Paul’s hospitality which was so very evident when I came to the school at the beginning of 2018. 

I would like to share with everyone our focus areas for 2022. Some, you may notice, begin to happen very early this term, others will become more evident as the year progresses.

1. We will focus considerable teacher training in the area of social and emotional wellbeing and ensure that this is a significant focus when covering the PDHPE syllabus. You will find this most evident in the first term as all classes will be taught the health component of the syllabus that covers this area.
2. At the end of term 1, learning goals for each child will be developed based on assessment data collected throughout the term.  These will be finalised with the child, parent and teacher at a personal meeting.  Hopefully, with the relaxing of COVID regulations, this process can go ahead.
3. St Paul’s plans to continue our focus on improving writing K-6. It is our intention to explicitly teach the writing processes (planning,drafting, editing, proofreading, publishing) to improve both narrative and informative texts produced by the students.
4. There will be a focus on the pedagogy of teaching problem solving to apply the content knowledge in mathematics. In addition we will continue to focus on building student number fluency ability through recall of basic number facts.

Last year, much of our professional learning agenda for staff and the areas of focused school improvement that had been planned were greatly curtailed because of the impact of COVID19 and the regulations we were required to follow concerning social distancing.  It is my hope that our improvement agenda can be followed through and the restrictions created by the COVID19 pandemic are gradually relaxed over the course of the year to better enable the achievement of our goals.

Go gently,

Michael Reardon
Principal

COVID19 Compliance Update

The major changes are outlined below:

When visitors are on-site and interacting with students:

• Reinforce NSW Health messaging to stay home and get a test if showing COVID-19symptoms.
• Consider whether visitors are essential for the activity, spectators or audiences are not essential for example.
• All visitors must check-in using the school’s QR code.
• Consider ways to minimise mixing and mingling of staff and student cohorts with visitors
• Vaccinations – all staff, volunteers and providers on school site must be fully vaccinated.
• Visitors must wear masks indoors.
• Recommend the use of rapid antigen home tests before visiting the school.
• Related advice: Whole school and inter-school gatherings (including assemblies, year meetings); EventsInter-cohort gatherings

For gatherings (such as assemblies and year meetings), choose large well-ventilated or outdoor venues; encourage physical distancing and minimise mingling.

When bringing together large groups or multiple cohorts:

• Choose well-ventilated or outdoor venues and ensure the attendee numbers for indoor venues support physical distancing and ventilation requirements.
• Consider seating plans or separated areas to minimise mingling.
• Minimise the length of interaction between cohorts where possible.
• Maintain physical distancing.
• Ensure masks are worn indoors and encourage masks outdoors if physical distancing isn't possible.
• Provide hygiene supplies (such as sanitiser) and encourage use.

These are the latest directives from  CatholicSchools NSW and Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong.  Should the above change we will ensure you are informed via a school notification, as well as through this newsletter.

COVID-19 Positive Notifications

Parents in Year 3 & Year 4 this week have received notifications informing them that there were positive cases within those grades. As per the advice from NSW Health and CEODoW, if your child is showing any symptoms including fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, runny nose, loss of smell/taste, muscle/joints pains, diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting, extreme tiredness, unexplained chest pain or conjunctivitis (eye infection) your child should not attend school and undertake a RAT. If the RAT is positive, please notify the school and your and household should isolate for 7 days.

I have been asked to name the class that the case/s are in. This is not part of our protocol as the school has been organised in a way that is grade specific. This is to best assist with identifying those particular areas of the school that may be potentially at risk. 

As the children of each grade play closely on the playground, and go up and down the stairs together closely as a grade it would be impossible to limit potential infection to class specific settings. The protocol for CEODoW is to notify all families through a standard letter that you will find is used in all schools and only identifies the grade.

I hope this provides a little more clarity. The challenge is that the requirements, processes and protocols are constantly changing which limits our opportunity to provide all the information on occasions.

Change to Meet and Greet Meetings/Information Evening

Due to the above plans and COVID restrictions, the Leadership Team are again seeking more effective and less time consuming ways to provide you with the information you seek about your child’s progress and well being at St Paul’s. We need to do this in a way that alleviates both parents and staff having to add additional evening meetings to your already busy work life and family schedule. Due to this, we have decided not to have the Parent Information Meeting held in previous years in about the third week of school. However, we will be having a progress and data meeting towards the end of the term to outline your child’s progress in term one, their particular strengths and needs and strategies that will assist your child in moving forward for the rest of the year. This will mean that we won’t have to ask you to come in for an additional meeting in term one.  

Meet and Greet Meetings are still available for you within the first four weeks of the term either at your request or the request of your child’s teacher. If you would like a Meet and Greet meeting it will need to be a phone conversation.  Please contact the office as soon as possible to arrange a time with your child’s teacher. Quite often these meetings are beneficial should your child suffer from anxiety, there has been a significant change or loss to the family or simply because you would like to directly meet your child’s teacher at the beginning of the year to create a positive working relationship. I am very aware in most cases, such a meeting is not needed either by the parent or the teacher and this is why we have chosen to make this on a needs only basis. You may find that it is necessary to arrange a Meet and Greet Meeting for one of your children but not the other, and that is perfectly fine and understandable. Due to this meeting not being formally timetabled, the same information about homework, timetables, sport days etc will be sent home in a thorough Grade Outline for term one.

Student Supervision

A reminder to all parents that morning supervision begins at 8.30am, when the school gates are opened and afternoon bus supervision ends with the last bus leaving at 4.00pm. Supervision on area two, in front of the canteen finishes at 3.40pm.

Your child should not be dropped off at the office area on a regular basis before 8.30am. Last year some children were at school at 8.00am and were sent to the office. This is beyond our regular hours and is an unreasonable expectation. It would be expected that you take them to ASPIRE like other parents do and pay for this service that is available to you. If you are going to be late for any reason ,when picking up your children, please contact the school office. The phone is attended until 4.30pm, after this time it will go directly to the message bank and will not be followed up until the next morning. Ringing after this time to make appointments to meet with teachers or members of the Leadership Team would be an unreasonable expectation and will need to wait till the next morning after 8.30am. Teachers have considerable administrative responsibilities to attend to, various meetings, lesson planning to complete and unfinished marking that weighs heavily on them. Please be mindful of this when you ring and expect to speak to them beyond these times.

Protocols When Seeking To Meet With Staff

Last week, even with it being the first week, I had a situation that reminded me to make sure I explicitly state the hierarchy we follow when dealing with matters at the school. Naturally, as a parent, you would usually seek out the teacher first if you are concerned about any matter to do with your child. Should this not be resolved at that point then you would seek a meeting with the Middle Leader assigned to your child’s grade to discuss how to move forward with your concern. Only after this point, should Mrs Brunetta or I be involved. At any point, Mrs Debrincat, our Religious Education and Wellbeing Coordinator is available to support children and parents for many of these matters. If everything went to either the Assistant Principal or Principal first, nothing would be resolved effectively as there simply would be no time to do so with 620 children and 470 families! Also, usually such meetings are not five minute matters and our time needs to be prioritised to the more pressing or high end immediate matters. 

In summary:

Below are the Middle Leaders responsible for each grade:

Kindergarten - Mrs Donna Rae

Year 1 - Mrs Maria Debrincat

Year 2 - Mrs Catherine Hatter

Year 3 - Mrs Angela Mourinho

Year 4 -  Mrs Angela Mourinho

Year 5 - Mrs Kristen King

Year 6 - Mrs Andrea Martin

Haircuts

Please ensure your child's haircut meets the requirements outlined in our school handbook as stated below.

HAIR

Students are required to wear their hair in a neat and tidy manner.  Haircuts should be of an even grade. Hair should be well brushed and combed and it is assumed that hair will not be in such a condition as to invite comment. Ribbons must be school colours. No oversized bows and hair embellishments.

BE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING:

• Extreme styles, bleaching, colouring or dyeing of hair are not permitted.
• Gel, mousse and hair spray or other substances should not be used.
• There will be no undercuts, steps or shaved lines within the hair.
• Nothing shorter than a Number 3 comb is acceptable.
• Hair should not extend to cover the eyes or touch the shirt collar (boys).
• Boys hair should be of a length not to attract attention. ‘Man buns’ are not permitted at St Paul’s.
• Students who do not abide by the haircut requirements will be asked to fix the identified problem.
• Long hair is to be tied back or plaited. Ribbons and bands of school colour are to be worn. 

I will be monitoring students this week and approaching any student who does not meet these requirements.