23 July 2020

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Report

Welcome back to all of our Manly Vale families. We hope you had a very restful few weeks after a very hectic term. A special welcome to all of our new students who have moved to Manly Vale towards the end of last term and the beginning of this term. It certainly is a difficult time for families to move house and meet new people during the current restrictions, hopefully the Class Coordinators have been able to touch base with the families of the following students to welcome them to our Manly Vale community:

Louis Farquhar 2C, Eva Michaels Kessous 5BC, Nicholas Jenn 1GT, Alexander Jenn 5W, Jack Schulze 2S, Gemma Schulze 4T, Clementine Crewe-Brown 5S.

Class Coordinators of the above classes should receive a slip or notification from our coordinator Kristen Te Pania with the email contact details of the above families.

Current COVID-19 Guidelines - Term 3

At the start of Term 3 with COVID-19 still active within the community, we must continue to all work together to keep our school safe. As the Premier has said, the biggest threat to NSW's success in managing COVID-19 is complacency. In light of this, we ask you to be extremely vigilant in observing hygiene and physical distancing protocols and ensure that your child does not come to school if they are showing any symptom of illness, no matter how slight.

Our pick up and drop off procedures at the school main entry will continue as they did last term with the finish time for all Kindergarten and their siblings to be picked up is 2.50pm. We ask that you leave the school site immediately so the rest of our parents can pick up their children at 3.00pm.

You will no doubt be aware of the closure of the Victorian border as of 12:01am 8 July 2020 and the new public health orders that apply.

All staff and students returning from Victoria after this time must have a permit to enter NSW and are required to self-isolate for a period of 14 days.

To be absolutely clear all staff and students who have been in Victoria in the 14 days before the commencement of school should not attend school until they complete the 14 days self-isolation period since they left Victoria.

NSW Health has requested anyone who has been in Victoria and is unwell or has flu like symptoms arrange to be tested through their local medical practitioner or one of the COVID-19 clinics.

Thank you for your support in these matters in such challenging times for the entire community.

Staff Development Day – Monday 20 July

Last Monday the Manly Vale staff participated in some professional learning as a whole school. With zoom meetings and social distancing, the new normal for our school organisation we were able to discuss and evaluate the current school plan and establish directions and guidelines into preparing a new school plan for the following 4 years.

The dedicated staff at Manly Vale enjoyed the opportunity of giving input into areas of strength and development for our teaching, learning and leading for the future along with hearing from our Executive Directors of the Department of Education Mark Scott and Murat Dizdar (via Live stream) on the strategic directions for the future of education.

We are excited to plan for the next few years and community consultation through the P & C, School Council and community workshops will be an integral part of this over the next 3 terms.

Library Borrowing

We will be allowing the borrowing of limited amounts of library books this term. As per the current guidelines all returned books need to be wiped with disinfectant or quarantined for at least 24 hours prior to reborrowing. Please keep all library books in a safe place at home and take care to sterilise books if they come into contact with anyone ill at home.

Band and Dance Performances

As we will not be able to have a parent audience for performances this term we have decided to film our junior and senior band during their week 3 rehearsal times Wednesday 5 August and Thursday 6 August and sent home to parents via our school website/email. Band uniform will be worn by the students on those days for the filming.

Our annual K-2 dance concert will also be filmed in the next few weeks with the assistance of our dance teacher Ms Vanessa. Parents and grandparents will be sent a link to access the performances via our school website/email.

Some of our students are currently not allowed to be photographed or published in school communications we will be seeking separate permissions for these filming events from these parents so that these students can be involved.

Child Protection Lessons - term 3

This term all classes will be participating in Child Protection lessons. These lessons are designed to keep our children safe and give them strategies to deal with a variety of situations. Permission notes were signed at the beginning of the year for students to participate in these lessons. If you have any enquiries regarding these lessons please email the class teacher through the school email.

Excursions/Incursions

Currently all excursions and camps are not permitted. We as a school have cancelled most of our scheduled excursions and taken them off the fee schedule for this year. However, we are hoping our Stage 3 Great Aussie Bush camp scheduled for Week 7 of this term, will proceed. No payment should be made for this camp until we have confirmation. We will notify parents (through individual notes) as the restrictions ease as to what we are able to run this term and next.

Dancesport for Year 5 students will begin next Monday in the school hall with Hip Hop dance starting for Stage 2 students this term on a Tuesday. Performances for these events will be in-school at the end of term.

Book Week will be done online this year with writing with authors to be a focus over the next few weeks. The author visits originally scheduled for Book Week will be replaced with online zoom interactive writing workshops with children’s book authors. A Book Week character parade will be organised for later in the term. More information regarding these events will be sent home as the events are scheduled.

Kindergarten 2021 Orientation Days

All local families are invited to enrol their children for Kindergarten in 2021 now by downloading an enrolment form from the school website and dropping it into the office.

Kindergarten Orientation days are as follows:

Monday 21 September 2020 9.30-11.00am
Monday 19 October 2020 9.30-11.00am
Monday 26 October 2020 9.30-11.00am

Traffic and Parking

Tina Lee – Principal

Dates for your Diary

Scripture and Ethics

Scripture and Ethics classes will recommence in Week 3.

NAIDOC Week

Science News

Stage 1 will be engaging in a STEM activity as part of Science Week this term. If you have any unwanted shoe boxes (any size) can you please bring them into school. There is a large box outside Miss Fisk’s Stage 1 science room for students to drop them off. Thanking you in advance.

Sally Fisk

Scholastic Book Club

Scholastic brochures were distributed this week. Orders are due Monday 10 August 2020.