Dear Parents and Carers,

I am hopeful the beautiful weather continues over the weekend so we can get outside and enjoy the magnificent outdoor spaces we are surrounded by in the Manning Great Lakes region. What a beautiful way to celebrate with our Mother's over the weekend - Happy Mother's day to all our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and all who mother our students in some way. We love and apprecaite you! It was so nice to hear all of the Mother's Day songs traditionally played at our liturgy, sung throughout our community today as classes were rostered to celebrate with their mothers via zoom. This was a great initiative by our Religious Education Coordinator, Mrs Genevieve Williamson - we hope you enjoyed it too.

All members of our community have truly risen to the challenges presented in education over recent weeks and I am very grateful for the support provided by your families to our staff and your children. In a time that is quite stressful in varying degrees for different families, the positive way we have interacted is a true indicator of the strength of the partnership between home and school. Well done to everyone!

As you know, the State government requested we begin to transition students back to school from next week. At Holy Name, the graduated return of students to face-to-face teaching in the classroom will include:

1. Monday and Tuesday - All Kinder, Yr 1 and Yr 2 students return to regular lessons in class. Siblings, children of essential workers and children who need to be at school are also welcome.
2. Wednesday and Thursday - All Yr 3, Yr 4, Yr 5 and Yr 6 students return to regular lessons in class. Siblings, children of essential workers and children who need to be at school are also welcome.
3. Friday - Children of essential workers and those students who need to attend school are welcome each day.

Friday is a day for teachers to prepare, monitor and upload learning, continuing to provide for both modes of learning – class and home. There will be minimum supervision on Fridays and we need the continued support of our families to ensure that only those students who need to be at school on this day are at school.

The learning program for home and in class will be the same and all students are expected to continue to engage in the online learning on Friday and any day they do not physically attend school. If your child is not able to do this then I would advise they need to attend school each day. Your teacher may make contact with you if this is the case.

It is our hope that the processes the school has had in place to support our students during the pandemic, minimise the negative impact on student learning growth overall. Our success in achieving this goal depends on the commitment of our teachers, students and parents to collaborate and ensure the best practice is in place for each child. Please make contact with your child’s teacher or myself if you need support.

Yesterday you received a letter from the Director regarding the safety measures in place at our Diocesan schools. Holy Name School is following these guidelines and will be stepping this up to align with the increased numbers of students attending from next week. 

1. Parents will drop-off and pick-up at the gate – preferably the back gate on Carawa Street.
2. Hand washing and hygiene practices will continue to be reinforced and used at school.
3. Additional cleaning of desktops and surfaces, including door handles & bathrooms will occur.
4. Most parent meetings will occur via phone or in a Zoom meeting.
5. Parents are welcome to the office to speak with our Clerical staff, purchase uniforms etc.
6. Both playgrounds will be in use to balance the number of students in each area.
7. All students and staff must be in good health to attend school. If a student develops flu like symptoms, they will be isolated and the child’s parent or carer contacted to collect them.

The end of an era - farewell Miss Teasey!

This week our staff held a special socially distanced lunch to celebrate and honour Miss Teasey, who drew the curtain on 40 years of teaching in the Manning Region. It was beautiful to hear the recorded words from past colleagues and to hear repeatedly the gift that Miss Teasey was to so many of our students, families and colleagues. Liz was one of our gifted educators, who for the last part of her career supported students with English as an Additional Language or Dialect. Prior to this, Liz Teasey was the Religious Education Coordinator and at times acted in the role of Principal and Assistant Principal. Throughout her career, Liz exemplified the importance of positive relationships with students and the impact of tangible experiences to engage students in the learing process. Liz always tapped into student interests, current issues and helped students to discover their own talents and gifts along the learning pathway. As one of our ex-parents said in an email, 'I would always hope that my children were in Liz's class...our children... all loved Liz as a teacher and developed close bonds with her. They all flourished under her guidance academically and socially...she gave the children a sturdy rudder they could trust". What beautiful words to say out loud to Liz as she moves into the next stage of her life. Our staff are looking forward to farewelling Liz with our parent and student body in the future. We wish Liz well and look forward to hearing stories of travel and farm life as she sets off on a new adventure. (The celebration also acknowledged a special birthday of one of our staff...hence the reference to 50...you'll have to guess who!)

Pick-up and Drop-off in Carawa Street

Our staff are keen to encourage families to minimise the need to use the Lake Street entrance to school for pick-up and drop-off. We would like Lake Street to be used for the arrival of buses and walkers/riders only. In more recent times, the traffic has escalated and due to the safety concerns we have about the crossing and general busyness of the intersections around the entrance, we are looking for new procedures that will support the safety of our students, their families and our staff. We will discuss this at our online P&F meeting this coming Tuesday from 6pm.

At a recent staff meeting, we discussed introducing two waves for pick-up in the afternoon from Carawa Street. The first wave from 3:00-3:10pm would be for those parents who needed to pick-up at this time. Parents could park and we would meet parents at the back gate as we are doing now. Parents would need to leave promptly to ensure space for the second wave of pick-ups. If we can manage to get into a good pattern, we were wondering how parents felt about the second wave of pick-ups commencing from 3:10pm. Please join our P&F meeting this Tuesday if you have some good ideas to discuss in regard to pick-ups and drop-offs. 

I hope you all have a wonderful day with your mothers on Sunday.

Regards

Brooke Stephens