Barrack Heights Public School Week 9 Term 1

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

As mentioned earlier this morning, the NSW Premier and Minister for Education have announced that

NSW schools will remain open. They have advised if you have the capacity to keep your child at home,

please do so. At BHPS we are working with the Department to decipher what online learning will look

like and how it can be accessible for all our families. As a school we have made a number of movements

to ensure this online platform works the intended way for our students and teachers. We also

understand that accessing online learning may not be possible for all families and are making arrangements to help families continue with learning at home.

From 2pm tomorrow we will have take home packs available for families for this week. Other packs will

be available next week for future learning. Depending on the Stage your child is in the work packs may

look different. Some stages have more online components whilst others will have games and activities

suited to the learning development stage of the child. These packs will also include timetable examples

of what your child can be doing at each part of their day. These packs and online platforms will be an

excellent resource to keep their brains sweaty. These packs should be able to be completed

independently by your child, however there may be elements parents and carers will need to assist, especially in the K-2 years.

The time frame we can complete these resources is tight as we are still teaching lessons for those

students who are currently at school. I would ask that you are patient as we are working around the

clock to ensure these packs are individualised for your child. The way our learni ng is structured everyday

is based on students individual needs so it is not as simple as printing off whatever we can get our hands

on. We are tailoring these packs to support the learning they would be engaging in at school.

Some bodies have still called for school closures and the matter is continuing to trigger significant public

debate. This and other health responses to COVID-19 are being considered daily in meetings between

Australia’s chief health officers, drawing on advice from industry leaders. For now, the strategy is

working to minimise the spread with a variety of intervention measures in place across our community.

This is part of the government-wide strategy to ‘flatten the curve’ of confirmed cases so that our health

service can meet the needs of those who require care.

If you do need to send your child to school, we will be open and are more than ready to continue your

child's learning. With the dwindling amount of students, our classrooms do look different, however our

learning is certainly 'business as usual'. If you are sending your child to school, here are some measures

we have put in place to ensure all students and staff are safe.

Etiquette

• We are reinforcing to students and staff importance of coughing into elbow, no handshakes, avoid touching face.

• Teachers are explicitly teaching this to all students and are expecting students to wash their hands when they use the bathroom and clean their hands each time they re-enter the classroom.

• Soap is available in every classroom and bathroom.

• Hand sanitizer is continually re-stocked and is available in every classroom.

Daily Organisation

• Classrooms, where possible, have been opened up to enable the 'social distancing' structure.

• All whole school assemblies have been put on hold until further notice, this includes the cancellation of the Easter Hat Parade on April 9.

• School playground supervision will remain the same, students will be eating with their

classroom teacher or supervising teacher as per normal arrangements.

• Scripture has been postponed until Term 2

• All planned excursions will be postponed.

• Large scale sporting, cultural events postponed - this means our Harmony Day gathering Celebration will be postponed, however students can still wear orange to school this Friday.

• All knockout and gala day events and the McKeons Swim Scheme will also be postponed until further notice.

• P&C Meetings have been re-scheduled.

• School staff unable to attend conferences.

• Staff meetings have been altered to be smaller groups and social distancing in the staf f room

and meeting areas is being followed.

Student Absence

• If a child is showing symptoms of illness, please keep them home.

• The health and safety of our students and staff is paramount. If your child are unwell with

respiratory illness, they should remain at home until symptoms resolve and, where appropriate,

seek advice from a medical practitioner (and call ahead first).

• Remember to also advise your children how to clean their hands thoroughly for at least 20-seconds with soap and water and cover their nose and mouth when they cough or sneeze.

• If your child is away due to illness the school is able to provide educational activi ties for them to complete at home. Please speak to the office if you require this.

We will continue to provide updates on any new developments. Please keep an eye out on school

stream and our Facebook Page for new and updated information.

Once again, thank you for your continued support and patience in this unprecedented time.

Things to look out for in this week's newsletter:

• Most recent update on COVID-19.

• School Value focus for the week.

• School Uniform expectations.

• Library News.

• Community News.

Have a wonderful week!

Warm regards,

Skye Seymour

Principal

Update on COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus)

Current advice from the NSW Government for parents and affected staff is:

The situation with COVID-19 continues to develop and I wanted to confirm with all of you directly what will be happening through this week.

Schools remain open...

The health advice on schools is unchanged. It is safe for our schools to be open and continue to operate, however if you have the capacity to keep your child at home, please do so .

It is vital that our doors remain open for those parents who cannot make that choice. Those parents

who work in our health system, education system, emergency services and other essential workers need to be able to access suitable supervision of their child’s learning on school sites.

Schools continue to operate, but with much fewer students. These students are receiving supervision as

they complete units of work and learning opportunities, however these will not be traditional classroom

experiences due to the amount of students in our classes and social distancing measures being put in place.

Supporting continuity of learning for all students

School teams have been working hard to develop learning options for students to undertake from

home. At the Department level, they have developed and continue to develop resources to help

teachers with this task.

In the event of students or teachers required to be off campus, teachers will be supported to teach

online through a virtual platform, or materials and packages of materials provided to students electronically or in hard copy. More information can be found here:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/learning-from-home

If the current advice from NSW Health continues, schools will reopen for Term 2 after the Easter break. This model of teaching delivery may continue in Term 2 if necessary.

At risk staff

Any staff who identifies as at additional risk from COVID-19 by NSW Health or who are pregnant are not

required to attend work on site from tomorrow. These staff will be supported to work from home.

Barrack Heights Public School will continue to update our community as this scenario unfolds. Please stay tuned.

School Value of the Week

This week we are concentrating on our school value: Safety

At Barrack Heights our students are encouraged to always keep their hands and feet to themselves. This is a basic expectation that we speak about with our students on a daily basis.

To be a learner who is engaged, students must know how to interact safely in day to day school life. This

week we are explicitly teaching our students how to keep their hands and feet to themselves, what it

looks like and feels like. If your child is learning from home, this is a great topic to be sharing with them and what this looks like in your home environment.

School Uniform

If your child is attending school, wearing school uniform is still expected. Please make sure all students

understand this and know this expectation still continues, even though school looks a little different at

the moment.

Wearing a Barrack Heights Public School uniform is an expression of pride in our school and fosters a

feeling of belonging. It helps to build confidence and a sense of connection with our commu nity. It is

also vitally important in ensuring all students have equal access to affordable, practical clothing that

does not restrain students from participation in daily school activities.

At Barrack Heights, we pride ourselves in creating a community of inclusion and our school uniform is an

integral part of this. We have a wonderful collection of new and pre-loved items in our uniform shop

and I encourage all families to take a look. You may also purchase other items from Kmart or Best&Less,

but please make sure they are in line with our uniform guide.

As there has been a change in weather lately, with some days a little chillier or wet, many students

across the school are currently wearing non-school uniform including, but not limited to: hooded

jumpers, long sleeved shirts and non-school caps. These are not part of our uniform and should not be

worn to school. If, for whatever reason, your child does not have access to a school jumper (lost, in the

wash etc) just pop into the front office and the school is happy to find a jumper for the day.

Our school uniform requirements are listed on our school’s website if you are ever unsure. If your child

is unable to wear school uniform for any reason, please send a letter in with your child to the class

teacher. I have asked all staff to be vigilant in monitoring their students for corre ct uniform, as

mentioned it is an integral part of having pride in our school.

As you can see in the photos above our school uniform is as follows:

Girls: Red polo shirt with BHPS emblem, blue shorts or skorts, white socks and black shoes or joggers. Blue jumper if cold and a blue school bucket hat.

Boys: Red polo shirt with BHPS emblem, blue shorts, white socks and black shoes or joggers. Blue jumper if cold and a blue school bucket hat.

Library News - Book Club

The 2020 NSW Premier's Reading Challenge

The Premier's Reading Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in

students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely.

The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is available for all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 9.

Students must finish between 20 and 30 books (depending on their age) to complete the challenge before it closes on August 30.

The NSW Premier's Reading Challenge is proudly supported by media partner News Local

and supporting partner Dymocks Children's Charities.

In November last year as part of the Dymocks Children’s Charities (DCC) ‘Library Regeneration’ program our school received a donation of $4,000 to buy new books to help populate our school library.

Dr Simon Winder who runs the Illawarra Women’s Specialist Centre donated $2,000 and this was matched by the DCC.

Most of these books have now been delivered to the school.

A great big thank you to Mrs Kemsley, Mrs Roach and Miss Smith for giving up their time helping to getting all our new donated books ready to be available to be borrowed.

If anyone is able to help in the mammoth task of getting these books ready to be put on our library shelves it would be very much appreciated. Please contact Ms Holloway if you are able to help .

Thanks Ms R. Holloway

(Teacher) Librarian

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

EVENTS COMING UP @ BHPS!!!

Thursday 26/3 - Easter Raffle handed out to families - still going ahead. P&C will provide

the prizes for baskets.

Friday 27/3 - Harmony Day - students wear orange (parent and carer visits postponed)

Thursday 9/4 - Easter EGGstravaganza to go ahead for classes.

Friday 10/4 - Good Friday (school holidays begin)

COMMUNITY NEWS

For the attention of the Barrack Heights Community

SCHOOL STREAM

Download the School Stream app and stay up to date with BHPS latest News and

Events!!!

CALENDAR

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CONTACT US

25 Hunter Street

Barrack Heights NSW 2528

PH: 4295 4222

email: barrackht-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au

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