Covid Update
Thank you for your work in ensuring schools remained safe during Term 1.
The Victorian Government has announced it is extending the RAT screening program for the first 4 weeks of Term 2. Thank you to all students and families who have played their role in regularly testing – we know that hasn’t been easy. Your work has seen COVID-19 cases being picked up at the earliest opportunity, meaning less cases in our school and more time in the classroom for our students.
The testing recommendations will remain the same next Term for students and staff with: Mainstream schools – recommended to test at home twice a week. If the delivery of RAT’s arrive on Friday we will distribute them, otherwise we will have a collection window on the curriculum day Tuesday 26th of April.
As we approach winter and flu season, the vaccination of children aged 5 to 11 and booster shots for students 16+ remains the best way to ensure protection for students and staff. The Easter break is a good opportunity to get your child vaccinated ahead of this, with many options across GPs, pharmacies and the state run vaccination clinics.
If you have any concerns or worries about getting your child vaccinated, please get in contact with your GP or another health professional who can answer your concerns.
Thank you again for all your support over Term 1, we couldn’t have done it without you.
Enrolments
A reminder for families that we would appreciate it if enrolments for prep 2023 could be lodged with the office as soon as possible. It would be greatly appreciated if we could have all local families enrolling by the end of April. Enrolment forms can be found via the school website or if it’s easier, we can send home a form with a sibling, just give the office a call to arrange it. To follow the selection priority order, we need to know how many in zone and sibling families are enrolling before we can offer places to those residing outside our area.
School Nurse
At IEPS we are fortunate to have a school nurse working every day. I want to acknowledge the hard work that our nurses do and the care and support they provide our students daily. Please note that in relation to the management of COVID, our nurses are abiding by the DET guidelines around managing illness in schools. These guidelines directly state if a child has any symptoms of COVID, however mild, they should get tested and remain home until they receive their results. A child must stay home until they are symptom free, even if their COVID test is negative. For children with persistent symptoms, that may overlap with symptoms of COVID due to underlying conditions, they should get a medical certificate from their GP and present this to school so it can be placed on file. We understand that it may cause families an inconvenience if they receive a call from our nurse and are required to pick their child up. However please note that any disrespectful comments directed towards our nurses will not be tolerated as they are doing the best possible job, in line with DET guidelines, to keep our community as safe as possible during these times.
Tabloid Sports Day this Thursday (Tomorrow)
All students are welcome and encouraged to wear their house colours to the tabloid day tomorrow.
To find out which House you child is in:
- Visit Compass homepage
- Click on students Profile
- Next to students photo, see ‘Group’
House names and colours are as follows:
Cross Country
The IEPS cross country will be taking place on Thursday the 28th of April (Week 1). It will be taking place for all 3-6 students from 1pm to 3pm down at Chelsworth Park. It would be great to have a few parents help out as course markers. If you are able to help out please fill in the Google Form link below. Thanks!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd6iSbAvW_hb-
O7hOj191CTnTuKInyb6pXbgyYQQ-funSSW3w/viewform?usp=sf_link
Important Cyber Safety Message
It has been brought to our attention that some students have been using online platforms, such as
Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft in an inappropriate manner. These incidents are occurring outside of school hours, at night, and over the weekend. We strongly encourage you to have a conversation with your child about their digital footprint. Please note that many of these platforms are 13+, however, if your child is accessing any of these applications we recommend that you sit with them and make sure all privacy settings are turned on and have a conversation about how to use these apps safely and appropriately.
We are currently doing the following to educate our school community to ensure a safe online environment for all our students:
- As per the DET Policy on Mobile Phones, we are proactively collecting devices from students in the morning before the start of school and returning them at the end of the day. This is to ensure no transmitting devices are accessible throughout the school day.
- We have engaged with a company called Interrelate. They will be running parent and student sessions early in Term 2. This will then be followed by in-class curriculum-aligned lessons for students around using online tools safely.
- Senior School students will also be working on receiving a digital license to become eSmart students throughout the next term.
On top of this, the following website https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents is free to access and has great resources to support parents in all the big issues around the use of digital technologies and we urge you to read through this information.
We also ask that you familiarise yourself with the following information which outlines, based on each specific application, how to protect information and report any harmful content https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/esafety-guide. If you are aware of a Tik Tok or other online platform page, video or comment that you believe is inappropriate or targets a specific student you can report this on the platform.
Below is an example of how you can report a Tik Tok video.
If you see a video on Tik Tok that you believe violates community guidelines please report it by:
1) Go to the video you need to report
2) Press and hold on the video
3) Select Report and follow the instructions provided
We thank you for your ongoing support and awareness of this issue.
Parent Formation of the Fair Committee
Every two years (pre-Covid times) IEPS holds a school fair that brings together the school and the local community to have fun and raise money for the school. This is a major fundraising event and in previous years has raised $50-80,000 for important school improvements such as facility improvements and further resourcing classrooms to support student learning. On fair years a committee of parents is formed to plan and implement the fair. We are currently looking at dates in November 2022 - subject to rides being able to be booked with providers.
We need volunteers
The committee needs a number of roles to be fulfilled to ensure that it is a success. Without these roles we may not be able to put on a fair. In previous years we been lucky enough to have parents with large event, project management food and beverage experience donate their time.
We are looking for parents who are willing to put their hands up to fill the following roles. These roles will then be able to form sub-committees of interested parents to help them out.
- Project management - Developing and tracking the project plan for the fair to ensure all comes well together on the day. This will include liaising with the PTFA and School Council as well as Local Council on any decisions that need to be made.
- Finances - ensuring that budgets are maintained, sponsorship and ticketing money collected and managing cash on the day of fair.
- Sponsorship and fundraising -Liaising with the local community businesses as sponsors for rides, raffles, lucky door prizes and brand sponsorship.
- Market Stalls- managing the allocation of IEPS year level stalls as well as community business stalls (at a cost)
- Marketing and communications - developing the look and feel, marketing materials as well as billboards, social media sites and communications materials for the IEPS parents and stakeholder groups
- Event Logistics - Bringing everything together on the day takes planning and risk management activities with suppliers, contractors and the local council. This is an important role.
Got these skills? Click here... https://forms.gle/TUStojbsYmNuSMZ3A
Please note - Once these roles have been filled with members of the community who have expertise in them we will then be able to form sub-committees of each role so interested parents can also help out.
We appreciate your support with this and thank you in advance if you are able to put your hand up whether it is to lead a role or if you plan of putting your hand up once these roles have been finalised.
Regards,
Tom Boyle
Acting Principal