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Dear Families,
I trust you are keeping safe and well during this time of difficulty in our country. Current advice from our Prime Minister and Chief Medical Officer is that schools remaining open is in the best interest of the public at this time: the Department for Education are following this advice. If advice from public health officials changes, the approach of the Department will change, and you will be advised. Be assured that if there is a confirmed case of COVID-19 for someone at our school we will close for a minimum of 24 hours to allow health officials to identify and contact people who need to self isolate, and for us to conduct a thorough and professional clean of the site. If this occurs, it will be critical that you are contactable immediately to arrange collection of your child. As such, please make sure the school has the correct contact details for yourself and emergency contacts. At school, we are taking precautionary measures including increasing the frequency of cleaning and promoting good hygeine practices. In addition, the students are reminded of social distancing and we are canceling any non-essential gatherings. Staff and students are also actively encouraged to stay home if they are unwell: any person presenting to the office unwell, will be sent home.
If your child is home during this time, the most valuable part of their education to uphold is daily reading. In the event of school closure, or prolonged home isolation, teachers will prepare work for your child to complete at home. As so much of daily teaching and learning is hands on, explicit teaching, we are hesitant to send worksheets home unless they are valuable for practise and application of learned skills. Please ensure you communicate with your child's teacher throughout this time.
For your information, NAPLAN testing has been cancelled for 2020, in light of the current situation. Please rest assured we will continue to teach the students problem solving strategies, in line with good teaching practices to develop our students as assessment-capable learners.
Remember this is an 11 week term! Three weeks to go. If you are experiencing any concerns or heightened feelings about COVID-19, the potential impact on your child's learning, or just want to chat, my door is open.
Morwenna Stanford
Principal
Last Friday the Junior Primary students travelled to Roxby Downs to participate in Splash Day. We completed a variety of water themed relay races, including throwing wet sponges for others to catch, emptying buckets of water with squirt guns and dress up races. The students’ favourite activities were playing on the Splash Pad and squirting each other, being splashed by the big bucket and using the waterslide. We were lucky to have warm weather, which made the day even more enjoyable. Thank you to Nancy for driving the bus and to the staff and students of RDAS for inviting us to Splash Day.
For the last couple of weeks students have been learning about lifecycles and how animals adapt to their environments. They then used this information to create informative posters about their favourite animals.
While we are learning about zoo animals, the early learners showed a great deal of enthusiasm creating their zebra ball paintings.
This week the Pre-schoolers joined Mel’s class and made ginger bread people.
We played a number game called ‘catch a fish’. First you spin a number, then find a matching number on a fish card that you can then place in your jar. Be careful not to spin a shark, or he’ll eat all your fish. Fun was had by all while we developed our numeracy skills.