Dear Families,

Welcome back to school for Term 2. I hope everyone had a wonderful break. I was lucky enough to travel to the UK to spend time with family who we haven’t seen due to the pandemic. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed the end of term and our Easter celebrations.

Father James was very impressed with our Passion Play, thank you to Mrs Colaciello, Mr Clarke and to the children who took part in this. Easter is the most important date in our Catholic calendar so it was wonderful to hear reports of such respectful participation from our children.

Congratulations to the Easter Raffle winners too. If you are a winner and haven’t collected your prize, please come and see Janelle or Maree in the school office.

Yesterday was ANZAC Day, we had two students – Jack Breheny and Conner Gray attend the ANZAC Day service in Churchill yesterday morning with Mrs Campbell. Thank you to these two leaders, Mrs Campbell and their families for organising their attendance and for laying a wreath on behalf of our school. We have commemorated ANZAC Day with a prayer service in our rose garden this morning lead by our grade 4/5 students today. Again, I am able to comment on the respectful and reverent participation of our children.

As you will be aware, we had changes to our Covid rules just last Friday. Masks are now no longer required in a school setting. However, if your child is identified as a close contact, children in year 3 and above must wear a mask indoors on the days that the infected person is in quarantine at home. If your child has any symptoms at all, they must stay at home. Close contacts may only come to school if they are asymptomatic. It is also a requirement to return five negative RATs during the seven day isolation period. The RATs need to be taken at least 24 hours apart. Parents need to notify the school of positive cases and close contacts and register any positive cases on the Victorian Covid website. 

I think it is also time to formally welcome parents back onto the school grounds. Please come in through the gates in the mornings and at school pick up times to collect your children from their classrooms. We are not required to check the vaccination status of visitors to the school. However, anyone who is on the school grounds in a voluntary capacity must be fully vaccinated (three doses). This includes Parents & Friends, School Advisory Committee and any other voluntary work at the school.

There are lots of exciting things happening in the school this term – remember to check the important dates on the newsletter.

Have a wonderful week,

Sally