No 7. Term 2 Week 1, 27th April 2022

Principal's News

Welcome to Term Two! I hope that the Easter and school holiday break has provided an opportunity to spend time with your family or to find a little time to rest. I also hope you are keeping safe and well as we continue to learn how to live with the Covid19 virus.

Thoughts are now turning to another exciting term ahead as we continue to maintain a pathway of returning to 'business as usual operations' and what this might look like in a world with Covid. As always, we are looking forward to continuing our work and learning together with you and are very appreciative of your words of encouragement and support of necessary changes to routines along the way. Please be assured of our continued dedication and care in ensuring the development of your child/ren is our highest priority.

Jason Micallef,
Principal

ANZAC Day

The Anzac spirit or Anzac legend is a concept which suggests that Australian and New Zealand World War 1 soldiers possessed shared characteristics, such as courage, mateship and honesty, to mention a few. Each of these characteristics should act as a motivator, a reflection point, a challenge and a reminder of all that is good in our lives, and for all which we should be thankful. Motivation should come as we try to live up to these wonderful characteristics. These signposts should offer us a point of reflection on how we live our lives and challenge us to live our lives in this way.  Most importantly, I think we take time out each April on the 25^th day to reflect on the sacrifices these men and women made to ensure our freedom, to secure our way of life and to demonstrate what it means to sacrifice for others, things for which we should be eternally grateful.

Lord God,
Help us to remember the sacrifices of the ANZACs, Australians and New Zealanders, and the generations of men, women and children who have died in the cause of liberty and peace.
Help us to remember those who still bear the physical and mental scars and disabilities of their service.
Help us to remember the widows, partners, parents and orphans and all those who waited in vain for   the return of a loved one.
Help us to remember the mateship, agony, courage and compassion of war service, but save us from ever glorifying the horror and tragedy of war.
Lord God, help us to remember.
Lest we forget.

Students in Prep looked at ANZAC images and stories, brainstormed words about ANZAC day and completed a class wreath where every student got to decorate a leaf and poppy.

Easter Sunday Liturgy

Please enjoy the last installment of our Lenten / Easter Liturgy series. Last term we were led by students to pray in a special online version of liturges celebrating Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. In today's installment, we share with you the joyful liturgy of Easter Sunday led by our Year 3/4s.

Updated Covid-Safe Protocols

There are some important changes to COVIDSafe measures for schools that were announced over the break and will apply from the start of this term.

Face masks

While recommended, face masks are not required. This means students in grades 3 to 6, staff and visitors are no longer required to wear face masks. Any student or staff member who wishes to wear a mask may do so, including those who are medically at-risk.

Rapid antigen test screening requirements

Students who have tested positive for COVID-19, and have completed their 7-day isolation period, now do not need to undertake rapid antigen test (RAT) screening for 12 weeks after their release from isolation. This was previously 8 weeks.

Household contacts

Students who are household contacts of a COVID-19 case no longer need to isolate and may now return to school as long as they undertake rapid antigen tests (RAT) 5 times during their 7-day period. Families still need to let us know if their children are a household contact.

Students aged 8 years and above who are household contacts are required to wear face masks when indoors at school unless they have a valid exemption.

If a student household contact returns a positive RAT result, they must then isolate for 7 days.

Vaccination requirements for visitors to schools

Parents, carers and other adult visitors (not performing work) are no longer required to show evidence their vaccination status.

RAT screening program reminder

RATs will continue to be supplied for the first 4 weeks of Term 2 to support the early detection of COVID-19 in our school.

Thank you for your ongoing support in keeping our school safe.

Uniform

As we are now into term 2, students are to be wearing their winter uniform by the start of Week 3. Students may wear their summer uniform until then if the weather is still warm. Sport uniforms should only be work on days the student's class is scheduled to have Physical Education or Sport.

The winter uniform for girls includes:

• long sleeved blouse
• winter tunic, skirt or pants
• knitted jumper or bomber jacket
• Navy socks and or navy tights
• black leather school shoes

The winter uniform for boys includes:

• long sleeved sirt
• pants
• knitted jumper or bomber jacket
• navy socks
• black leather school shoes

Optional items for girls and boys include:

• soft-shell waterproof jacket
• polar fleece vest

All items are available through Beleza and can be purchased in store or ordered online. In order to preserve the uniformity of our student dress, we ask that students not mix and match sport and every day uniform items. Girls should also not wear leggings under their skirts. 

We understand that from time to time, students will be out of uniform for a variety of valid reasons. If this is the case please just provide a written note for your child's teacher to let them know the reason and for the length of time your child will be out of uniform.

Please make sure your child/ren's school uniform has their name on all items.

Quadrangle Playground Development

It's happening gradually and slowly, but it's a big job as you can see in these latest photos. Soon we will begin to see the play equipment being fitted, including monkey bars, slides, sandpits and so much more. We can't wait to open part of the playground in the next couple of weeks so that our children can begin to enjoy this amazing addition to the playspaces in our school.

Canteen is back for Term 2!

The canteen is back for term 2 and operates every Thursday and Friday. Lunches can only be purchased by pre-ordering through the Qkr! App.

Orders need to be placed by 8:50am to ensure your order is in beofre the cut off time.

When you place the order, please make sure you enter your child's correct class or they may not get their order. 

See below for instructions on how to order.

PFA Mother's Day Stall and Raffle

Mother’s Day is now only one week away and help is needed to run our Mother’s Day Stall. Help is needed on the following days and times:

Friday April 29 2:30-3:30 to set the stall up 

Monday May 2 9-11am for sales to all classes and stall pack up

All volunteers will need to sign in to the office with their Working With Children Check card and evidence of three CoVid vaccination doses in line with current government requirements. Please contact Rebecca Gage rgage@skhamptonpark.catholic.edu.au if you are able to help.

Classes will visit the stall next Monday where students can purchase an item for the mum or special person in their lives. All items are $5.

Cybersafety Information Night

Parents from across the school in all year levels are invited to attend this very important event to learn how we can keep kids safe online.

To access the webinar you need to pre-register.

Use this link register for this FREE webinar:

www.bit.ly/4may2022

Once you register (with an email address and name), you will be emailed a link to the webinar.

You will also receive a reminder email on the afternoon of the webinar as well as 15min before start time. The following day, you will receive a link to access a replay. Therefore we recommend even if parents are unable to attend the live webinar, you register to ensure you can access the replay.

Chess is back!

It was wonderful to see our Year 3/4s taking part in learning how to play chess again after so long. St. Kevin's has a long tradition of incorporating Chess into the curriculum.

Some of the benefits of playing chess:

• Develops perspective.
• Improves memory.
• Deepens focus.
• Elevates creativity.
• Boosts planning skills.
• Increases self-awareness.
• Protects against dementia.
• Helps ADHD.

Students from 3/4FE in a battle of the mind

School Car Park Procedures

Have you noticed the lines in our carpark have been repainted? All car park lines are now in white with our sports courts marked in yellow. It makes it so much easier to see where the car spaces are and ensures that all of our space can be well used to fit in the maximum number of cars. We've also included some visuals below to show the plans we have to manage traffic flow. We have teachers on duty to help manage this so we ask all parents to follow the directions given by the teachers to keep everyone safe and keep traffic moving.

City of Casey - Safe around schools

As this is the beginning of term 2, we encourage parents and carers to view this video provided for us by the City of Casey, so that every family knows the expectations when driving around schools and keeping children and families safe.

This animation focusses on driver behaviour around the school precinct, 40km school zones signs, No Stopping, No Parking, the Drop off Pick up zone and what they mean as well as road safety education and good role modelling from parents/carers for our children around the school precinct.  When all families follow the signs, the traffic flows better and it is safer for our children. 

OHSC Shortage of places

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought about challenges with labour shortages in many industries including the childcare sector. These shortages have become more critical in recent months. Whilst the sector grapples with these shortages, at Camp Australia are also experiencing unprecedented demand for places for children to attend out of School Hours Care.  As a result, Camp Australia have had to make the required to make some difficult decisions to limit capacity by temporarily capping the number of places available or in some instances having to cancel bookings on short notice.

Unfortunately, there is little we can do about this at a school level, apart from hear your frustrations and communicate them to Camp Australia but it seems this will likely continue to occur until more staff become available. In the meantime, we advise families who use the OHSC service to book as early as possible and have a back up plan for your children in the event that Camp Australia notify you of not being able to offer a place for your child.

2023 Prep Enrolments

We are very excited to be holding actual school tours for families who have children starting school in 2023. If you know of anyone who might be interested to know this, please let them know of the days below and remind them that they need to be quick to avoid being pushed onto a waiting list.

Group tours are taking place at the following times

• Monday May 2 at 12:30pm and 6:00pm 

• Monday May 9 at 10:00am and 6:00pm 

Individual tours are available by appointment.

Does your child play Roblox?