Dear mums, dads, carers and colleagues

Thank you for an awesome restart for Prep and Year 1

You can see by the attendance numbers in the table below that a large majority of students in prep and Year 1 have returned.  We will continue to respect the difficult choices that families make about this.  

YEAR LEVEL ATTENDANCE EACH DAY THIS WEEK

This week has been a taste of the new normal and I am so excited for the full school return very soon.  Please know that our school is not excluding any student whose parents meet the requirements to attend school.  Please be honest in your communication with us directly and about us on Facebook.  We only want to do the right thing by our families while still meeting our accountabilities as set by the Queensland Government.   

Getting back to a new normal

Special announcement for Years 2-6 students

The Queensland Government has announced today that students in Years 2–6 will return to school on Monday 25 May, 2020. This announcement means that from 25 May, all of our students can return to school.  

Visit the Department of Education’s website for more information to help you understand how we will implement a safe transition back to school. This includes additional cleaning of bathrooms and high frequency touch points, cleaning of playgrounds and equipment, hygiene practices such as effective hand hygiene, cough and sneeze etiquette, and restricting visitors to the school.

Drop off and collection each day 

We still need Prep students to be delivered to the classroom door after the 8:15am bell but other students can be dropped at the front gate. If your child in Years 1-6 needs additional support to make their way to class, please discuss this with school staff and we will make this available to you.

If your child is unwell

If your child is unwell, it is essential that you keep them at home. In accordance with Queensland Health directions, parents of any child showing signs of illness will be asked to collect them immediately from the school.

School attendance

While we would love for every student to start back on the 25th, we will respect your decision to keep your children at home should you choose.  However, if you choose to keep your child at home, it is important that you understand that you remain responsible for their supervision and learning.

COVIDsafe App

The Commonwealth Government’s COVIDSafe app will help to slow the spread of COVID-19 and protect the community. The more people that download the app, the better contact tracing capacity will be and the sooner governments can look to further ease restrictions. I encourage you to review the information regarding the COVIDSafe app, including FAQs.

Social distancing for adults

It is so difficult to maintain social distance from those we care about and people we know, but at school I need all adults to try to remember to practice it - just in case!  Double arms distance or 1.5m between adults is the distance the Chief Medical Officer recommends.  

Car park habits

Now that our student attendance numbers are rebuilding, the afternoon and morning traffic is growing too.  It is time to practice patience and courtesy in the school car park and Kiss n Go zones again.

Remember to:

• Stay in the line of traffic as you enter the school - one car at a time.  
• Never push into the line of traffic.  Go to the end of the line instead.  This is only fair.  We will wait with your children until you get into the school to collect them.
• Always show patience and courtesy to all others in the zone.  Wave to say thanks to others and smile a lot.  
• Stay in your car when using the Kiss n Go.  If you need to get out, please use the parking bays instead.
• Where the car park and Kiss n Go exits meet, we need you merge like a zip.  Please thank the driver who let you in with a wave and smile.

And we have a new requirement now. 

• Please do not gather to chat with other parents in the car park as we need you to demonstrate social distancing requirements.  

Cleaning iPads at home

Like everything we use, we need to keep them hygienically clean.  This includes our smart phones and of course, iPads.  The best way to clean an iPad is to gently use an antibacterial wipe. Please do not spray any liquid (water, soap or hand sanitiser) directly onto the screen as this can make its way into the crevices and can damage the iPad.

We will have some additional wipes at school should devices need it here but we strongly recommend you grab some in your next shopping trip.  They can be a bit hard to find at times so keep a look out for them.  

Best practice would also include washing or sanitising your hands often.

Home programs can be challenging for parents and children

Our home programs have been really successful in terms of:

• Maintaining a learning routine
• Allowing children and teachers to keep connected with each other
• Being different and novel ways to learn
• Helping the government implement its restrictions

But we also recognise that they also come with challenges.  It is extremely difficult for families to balance home, work, family, schooling and sanity - all in the one day - 5 days each week.  That alone is the Everest of all busy days!  The challenges are different for each family so we are constantly checking in with families and scanning challenge trends so that we can help in some way.  

In our research to provide good advice we have found an article on kids refusing to work at home.  Is it complaining or avoiding, or is it something more?  Click on the title below to read more about

School Refusal: What It Means When Kids Won’t Do Schoolwork

Congratulations to all of our home program tutors - you are amazing!

Collection during the school day

While we love students at school on time everyday ready to learn, we understand that sometimes they have appointments during the school day that cannot be avoided.  

The restrictions for coronavirus have resulted in a change to our early collection procedure.  While parents remain in the office, the staff are contacting the class to send your child down to you for collection.  This works smoothly during the day but break times are problematic.  We usually need to wait until the children are back in class before we can send the message up.  

If you need to collect your children early, please note the following break times as these are not good times for collection.  Breaks include 15 minute eating times.

This week's home challenge

Send in your best cubby house photo.  It can be indoors or outside in the garden.  Make sure that you are in the photo too.  To be part of this collage, you simply need to email a photo of your cubby to weeklychallenge@coomerariversss.eq.edu.au .

** Please note that we will be uploading the selected photos to Facebook. Sending your photo to the challenge is automatic permission for us to use the image. Images will be selected at random.

Your feedback to improve our processes

Can you see an improvement we can make or another way we can do something that will be efficient and promote public safety?  Please let us know by emailing me directly.  

2021 Enrolments are open

Kind regards

Vic

Congratulations to all of this week's recipients of our Excellence Awards.

Prep and Year 1

Year 2&3

Year 4

Year 5&6

Prep and Year 1 are back to school this week.  Check out our photo galleries.

Prep

Year 1

Did you know the staff at Coomera Rivers are amazing singers?!

We are about to launch into our 3rd episode of Coomera Rivers Masked Singer this Monday 18 May.

The episodes are located in 'Activities' in your child's Music tab on Seesaw. To access your child's Music tab, go up to the top left corner and tap on your child's name and it will slide open to reveal the other Seesaw tabs. In the 'Music' tab, there will be an activity with an answer sheet where you can fill in your guesses!

Don't forget to switch back to the 'Evidence of Learning' tab before you post any work for your child's class teacher as we can't move student's work between the tabs as we only operate and can see our own tabs.  The answers will be revealed at the beginning of the next week's video.

Enjoy and good luck!

The school gates will be open:

• Before 8:00am and closed again at approximately 8:40am
• At approximately 2:25pm in the afternoon

School times will be:

• 8:00am Supervision commences. Students should not arrive before 8:00am.
• 8:15am Best time to arrive. Move to classrooms at the bell.
• 8:25am Class begins
• 2:30pm School finishes for the day

Morning tea and lunch breaks are taken in what we call a ’Split Lunch’. This means that approximately half the school is on break while the other half is in class. Then they swap over. We have used this process for quite a few years already and it is a great strategy for minimising the number of students on playground areas at the one time.

We don’t use (or need) bells during the day as it all becomes too confusing. Split lunches will start when the whole school returns.

The split lunch program times are:

Prep & Year 1

• Prep and Year 1 students need to be in class by 8:25am for roll marking.  If your Prep / Year 1 children are not at school, please notify the office in the usual way.

Years 2-6

• Children of essential workers / vulnerable students need to be in class by 8:25am for roll marking.
• Children in Years 2-6 who are working at home need to check in each morning before 10:00am as they have been for the past few weeks.
• Please notify the office if your child is not doing home learning on any school day.

Welcome back Prep and Year 1! This week was filled with an abundance of positive emotions as we welcomed our youngest students back into OSHC and their classrooms. After learning from home or coming to an unfamiliar school routine, our students were ready to jump in and get going. Of course, amongst all the positivity there were some nerves creeping in about the change. We were so proud of our students for their bravery and courage entering the classrooms once again and know they are going to achieve amazing things.

Educators were beyond excited to have some of our students back at OSHC, their presence and giggles make the mornings and afternoons so enjoyable. We've had the pleasure of listening to their incredible stories from isolation. Some of our students even talked about the videos we had created and posted on our newsletter. If you are still at home, we are making (hopefully funny) videos for you to watch and interact with us every week - take a peek!

With more children in our service this week, educators have loved seeing them interact with their friends, playing make-believe or racing in the stadium. The competitive streak was real, although students did well to ensure they were displaying good sportsmanship to their peers. We are looking forward to seeing everyone back in the next few weeks.

It can be difficult to know where to go for help if your child needs support in the areas of social emotional wellbeing, mental health and behaviour. If your child is showing difficulties in these areas at home or at school, there are a number of good quality services available in the local area. The following information has been compiled by our school’s Guidance Officer and is a snapshot of some of the services commonly used by families.  Many of these options are free or low cost and all prefer parents to get in touch with them directly.  Where possible, scanned copies of brochures have been included for further information.