Newsletter – Term 4, Week 7, 2021

We have just ended Week 7! It is the longest length of time we have been at school since the start of the year. We can see that the students are getting tired and adjusting to the ‘new normal’. Four weeks of the year to go! Four very exciting weeks and we look forward to celebrating end of year events including our Year 6 Graduation.

Please see this letter from the Department of Education regarding the latest changes. Please note that there are not many changes to PRIMARY SCHOOL restrictions as our children are not able to be vaccinated. Masks are still required when entering the office area, as well as providing your vaccination status. Students in year 3-6 are also required to wear a mask. As previously communicated to our families in year 3-6, we have had to hand out a large number of masks over the past week. We urge families to please provide your child with a mask from home.

Dear parents and carer

Based on advice from the Victorian Chief Health Officer, some significant changes have been made to how cases of COVID-19 and contacts of cases are managed in schools as we reach the 90% double dose milestone for eligible people in the coming days.

Schools will continue the process of identifying contacts of a confirmed case of COVID-19 at schools; contacts will no longer be contacted by the Department of Health with quarantine requirements. If your child is identified as a contact the school will contact you directly.

Contacts will be required to complete a standard (PCR) test within 24 hours from when they are identified by the school as a contact.

If the PCR test returns a negative result, the student can immediately return to school, with evidence of the negative result provided to the school.

It is strongly recommended that contacts complete five days of rapid antigen tests in the morning before they attend school.

You will be able to obtain these testing kits from testing centres from Monday 22 November if your child is required to complete a standard PCR test.

Where students are currently in quarantine due to an existing school exposure, they will be able to provide evidence of a negative standard PCR test and return to school following the instructions above.

In exceptional circumstances the Department of Health may determine that contacts in significant school outbreaks are still required to quarantine for seven days. In this scenario, students will be notified directly of any additional quarantine arrangements.

Face masks will now only be required by staff, visitors and Grades 3 to 6 students in an indoor space within a primary school (or schools which have primary students such as P-12 school).

The wearing of masks remains recommended elsewhere where physically distancing cannot be maintained.

As we head into the final few weeks of the school year, please continue to care for yourself and those around you.

Thank you

A few newsletters ago I mentioned that we were having a few issues around the trading of Bey Blades and Pokemon Cards. Unfortunately, we are still having significant issues around trading and arguing over Bey Blades and Pokemon cards. We ask that Bey Blades and Pokemon cards are not sent to school for the time being. Thank you for your support with this.

Our School Council have been working extremely hard being the scenes over the past year with creating a master landscaping plan for the terrace area of the school. We are now in the final stages of approval with the VSBA (Victorian Schools Building Authority) and hope to being landscaping works at the beginning of next year. We can not wait to share more information with you soon.

We are also progressing with the Capital Works project. We are currently at the Schematic Design stage and hope to share a plan with our school community soon. The building works is set to begin halfway through next year. The first stage will not impact any of our current classrooms. Lots of exciting things to come!

We were extremely fortunate to complete our Junior Swimming program this week. It was fantastic to visit and see all of the happy faces completing swimming. I am sure they will be extremely tired this weekend!

Yesterday we celebrated our first Prep 2022 transition session. It was wonderful to see all our 2022 Preps and meet their families. We thank our Bellaire Parents group for providing a yummy afternoon tea for the families. We are looking forward to welcoming the 2022 Preps over the next two weeks. Our Year 5 students are also excited to meet their buddies!

This year 22 Year 6 students and three Year 5 students were selected to participate in the Math Olympiad extension program. Every year schools from all over Australia, New Zealand and other neighbouring countries take part. Students are competing against other members from their class and teams from other schools, but primarily are competing against themselves.

The overall aim of the Olympiad is to encourage students to develop important mathematical problem solving skills in an enjoyable environment.

The Math Olympiad had five scheduled contests held approximately five weeks apart.

Of the 25 participants we had

• five students finish in the top 40%
• two in the top 30%
• four in the top 20%
• one student finish in the top 10%

Amazing individual Achievements!!

Overall our team finished in the Top 50%.

Well done to all students involved!

Principal

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