EPS Newsletter Week 4 Term 1
First E-News 2022
From the Principal
If you are reading this, it may be on our new newsletter format. Thank you for your patience in the first couple of weeks as we tried to get this working. Thanks to Alicia for her work behind the scenes to learn and pass on some new skills. We hope it will provide an easier method for reading the newsletter and important school information each week. In the coming weeks it will most likely be sent out on Sundays which may give families a few reminders of what is happening that week. It may take a couple of weeks for everyone to get used to it – we will be seeking some feedback at the end of the term. Families are always welcome to call the school if you are not sure of something or need to find out what is going on.
The last couple of weeks I have mentioned the positive start all students have made on the return to school. This week a visitor to our school commented on the wonderful manners of our students and how polite and friendly our students were when he arrived to drop something off. The visitor mentioned that students at our school always greet him with a friendly welcome and offer to open the door and gate for him if he needs to bring something in. A wonderful thing to be said about our students from a regular visitor. Well done to all of our students for being so kind and welcoming.
We did have some values presented at assembly on Friday. Apologies to parents for not making you aware if it was one of your children, we will be including this information in the newsletter each week, when it is up and running in its new format. So look out for that information next week.
Students who received a value award on Friday were – Jett, Charlie M and Charlie B. Well done to these 3 students, I know all 3 have been working hard in class and around the school to show our school values.
Our PA card system is up and running this term. Students have been able to have a say in the whole school rewards for the start of the year. Through student voice and agency they have chosen, a school disco, a school swimming afternoon and a school day of PE activities. Whenever a student receives a PA card they get to place a pom pom in the jar/reward of their choice. The whole school gets to do whichever jar fills first. Each coloured pom pom represents a school value so that we can see which value we are being acknowledged more for around the school. These will be on display in the assembly area for all to see and observe as the term progresses. Individual student totals are also being recorded.
RA tests were sent home again on Friday. This process is being continued until the end of term 1 at this stage, unless something changes. A more detailed communication about the extended CovidSafe strategies was sent out via educateus this week. Sundays and Wednesdays are the recommended days to complete the voluntary tests at home with your child/ren. If you have any concerns about this process I am happy to have a conversation with you if you would like to contact the school.
There is a proposed Community night for Friday March 18th. More details will be out soon, however it could be a date to keep free in your diary if you are interested. We would love to see as many parents as possible attend the evening to say hello to each other and meet a few new faces. These events are always voluntary for families.
Swimming Program
Notes were sent home during the week to obtain permission for your children to participate in the whole school swimming program. Please check your child’s bag for this and return to school when you can. We will need all notes back by next Friday the 25th so that students can all attend on the first day, Monday 28th February. A reminder that the program will run every day of that week, which is different to in the past. All students will need to be at school by 9:00am each day to ensure they are on time for the bus. Unfortunately the bus cannot wait for any late families on these types of days. If you are late to school you will have to drive your child to the swimming centre.
School Council
We have only had the one new nomination for school council this year. We do require at least another two people from our school community to nominate and be part of our school council group. Please let me know asap if you would like to be part of the group this year. School council is the best place for you to be able to have input into aspects of the school operations so I would encourage you to come forward and be part of the fun. All executive positions become open at the Annual General Meeting in March. This will take place on Thursday March 10th at school.
Proposed Election Timeline for 2022
Monday 21st February 2022 - The date by which the list of candidates and nominations will be posted
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 - The date by which ballot papers will be prepared and distributed (if required)
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 - Close of ballot
Thursday 3rd March 2022 - Vote Count
Thursday 3rd March 2022 – Declaration of poll
Thursday 10th March 2022 – First council meeting to elect office bearers (the Principal will preside)
School Leader Badges
We have held off presenting our badges for the past two weeks however we will need to push on this week no matter what. Presentations will be made to those at school on Friday at the assembly. If we have anyone missing, we will present theirs at another time. We hope we have everyone at school on Friday. Parents are welcome to attend if they can make it.
2022 School Captains are – Katie and Annemieka
2022 House Captains are – Will, Mikaylah & Miller
Junior School Council speeches will be done this week at school under Miss Sherwells supervision. We look forward to having our Junior School Council in operation again this year. This is another avenue for student voice and agency in the school.
School Uniform
It was great to be able to look out at assembly and see almost 100% of students in our official Eppalock PS school uniform. While we do understand the odd occasion of some different items being worn at school, we encourage every effort to ensure compliance with our school uniform on a regular basis. Green polo tops (with or without the school emblem) and black sports shorts, or the school dress are the key elements of our uniform in summer. We also have an official Eppalock PS hat to be worn in term 1 & 4. Please check in with your children at home to ensure they have the items they need. Enclosed footwear which enables students to take part in PE sessions is also recommended.
Footy Tipping
This little friendly competition will be running again this year. The prestigious ‘Steve Becker Footy Tipping Award’ will be up for grabs if we can pry it away from Steve’s hands. Keep an eye out for login details in the next couple of weeks. Everything is done online and is completely free. All going well we will have a small kick to kick event later in the year to present the trophy to the winning tipster. Hope to see everyone involved.
Mental Health Links
These will now be referenced from the school website. Please take the time to check them out if you need some assistance in this area. Please don’t hesitate to make contact with the school if you need someone to talk with.
School helpers
It was great to see a couple of parents stay at school on Friday to help in the school in some way. Parents are able to help out in the classrooms now if they are available. We would love to have a few regular parent helpers. Mr O’Neill is looking for one or two parents who feel confident helping with some grade 456 maths from 10-11 each week. Guidance and instructions will be provided, no experience necessary.
Annual privacy reminder
Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy
For more information about privacy, see: Schools’ Privacy Policy – information for parents. This information is available in nine community languages.
Thanks
Mr O’Neill
Parent Community News
- Trivia Nights
- Frizbee Golf
- 10 Pin Bowling
- Bike Rides
- Parents Nights out
- Community Nights including Crazy Bingo!!!
We are aiming to have two social activities each term this year.
We will be using the results from the survey to plan events that suit the times & interests of our parent community, giving us the best chance to come together again.
Community Night - Friday evening 18th March
A very exciting community night with a picnic dinner, music & bingo.
See Community night article for more details on all the fun.
Term 1 Fundraiser
Easter Fair BBQ
Absolutely fantastic news!!!
We have been given the opportunity to work the Rotary Club BBQ at the Easter Fair again this year. This fundraiser is one of our biggest earners for the year, raising up to $5000 in one weekend!!!
A roster will be coming out this week, if you can donate as little as 2-4 hours of your time for this one weekend, we can raise a large percentage of funds needed throughout the year.
Unfortunately if we do not get the required amount of volunteers, we will not only miss out on this years opportunity, but potentially miss out on future years also.
Just one parent from each family, donating a few hours can make all the difference to our little school.
Traing & supervision from the very supportive Rotary Club is provided on the day.
“Many Hands Make Light work”.
Any form of assistance from our parents really does go along way.
School ground - Working Bees
We will post the working bee roster for each term here as well as any requests from the Grounds & Maintenance Committee Nothing has been requested as yet.
Parent Club Meetings
What’s it all about?
Basically, once a month we meet up & look at what social events & fundraisers we would like to achieve throughout the year.
Simple tasks like showing up & being the contact for a gathering, to booking the bowling club or organizing sausages or bread are typically as hard as it gets.
Again, please send back your survey with your preferred availability if you would like to attend these meetings and social events. Meetings are typically is held in the old school building or at the pub & always involve a chat & either a cuppa or lunch depending on time or location.
For more information talk to Kelly Nunns (Lexie and Ethan's Mum) or Alicia Martin (Connor, Jacob & Max's Mum) or Nikki in the office (Charlie's Mum).
Parent Community Reminders & Dates to Remember
Social Events
18th March - Community Night & Crazy Bingo
Fundraiser
18th April (Easter Monday) Rotary BBQ - volunteers required
Community Night - Friday evening 18th March 6pm
Bring along some dinner, chairs/picnic rug & drinks for your family starting at 6pm, music, good company & bingo provided.
Crazy Bingo -
Our Crazy Bingo is a modified bingo game for children of all ages to play.
Each person participating will need to bring two small gifts, to add to the bingo prize pool.
Gifts need to be wrapped, (newspapper is fine) and need only be small eg: chocolate bar/frog, hair ties, matchbox car, fast food toys, even a funny gift like a roll of toilet paper etc
Gifts can be left in the box located in the school foyer. From Monday 28th Feb or bring it with you on the night.
Come along & join the fun of our family friendly Community Night - a great opportunity to meet & socialise with our school families.
Temporary Election Jobs Available
Elections are a fundamental part of our democratic process in Australia and require around 100,000 temporary workers.
Pay ranges from $25.54 to $48.29 per hour, depending on the job.
Working at elections
The Federal election will be held on Saturday 21st May 2022 and the AEC needs to be ready to employ around 100,000 people right across Australia.
Most jobs are working in polling places on election day, but there are also jobs before election day, such as working in early voting centres, outposted centres and mobile polling. People are also needed after election day to help count votes, manage election materials and complete a range of administration tasks.
COVID-19 safety measures will be in place at polling places and other workplaces to protect AEC workers and voters.
Click on the link for more information and to register
https://www.aec.gov.au/
Out of School Hours Care (OSHC)
Our patch – Our Patch
Mental Health Links
MENTAL HEALTH LINKS
Resources for your health
The following external resources are available to support your mental health and wellbeing:
Headspace – for family and friends
Beyondblue – COVID19
Lifeline – Mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 outbreak
Additional resources
To share with children and young people
headspace – how to cope with stress related to Novel Coronavirus
ReachOut – coping during the coronavirus
For up-to-date information and advice on coronavirus (COVID-19), visit:
DET coronavirus website
DHHS coronavirus website
F U R T H E R I N F O R M A T I O N A N D S U P P O R T
External support is also available to staff and students, including:
Safe Steps Family Violence, Victoria’s state-wide family violence support service, available 24 hours a day, seven days a
week
Kids Helpline, children and young people counselling support service, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Parentline, parenting counselling support service, available 8am to midnight, seven days a week
The Lookout website with information on family violence supports and local services across Victoria
What’s ok at home? website for children, young people and adult allies to support their safety when family violence is
occurring in the home
1800 Respect, national family violence support and counselling service, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Vaccination Requirements
Vaccination requirements for parents and carers attending schools.
A reminder of our Term 2 Covid guidelines.
- Face masks, while recommended, are not required in any school setting. This means students in grades 3 to 6, staff and visitors in primary schools are no longer required to wear face masks. Any student or staff member who wishes to wear a mask may do so, including those who are medically at-risk.
- Students who have tested positive for COVID-19, and have completed their 7-day isolation period, now do not need to undertake rapid antigen test (RAT) screening for 12 weeks after their release from isolation. This was previously 8 weeks.
- Students who are household contacts of a COVID-19 case are not required to quarantine. They may return to school as long as they undertake rapid antigen tests (RAT) 5 times during their 7-day period. They are required to notify the school that they are a household contact.
- Students aged 8 years and above who are household contacts are required to wear face masks when indoors at school unless they have a valid exemption. If a student household contact returns a positive RAT result, they must isolate for 7 days.
- Parents, carers and other adult visitors (not performing work) are no longer required to show evidence of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
- RATs will continue to be supplied for the first 4 weeks of Term 2 to support the early detection of COVID-19 in our school.
- The testing recommendations will remain the same this Term for students and staff recommended to test at home twice a week.
Classrooms will still be promoting and using the strategies around hand sanitising and air flow and will still be making use of the air purifiers which have been supplied to schools.
Child Safe/ Cyber Safety Information
school children. While school can’t dictate or control what students watch or have access to at
home, these types of things can impact the school yard. Last week I came across some students
playing their version of Squid Games. They may not have seen the whole show but kids are very
clever with navigating online platforms and may have seen snippets or clips through youtube or
other various media. Please check in with your children at home and have some conversations with
them about what they do access and what is and isn’t appropriate to bring into the school yard from
home.
Fire Preparedness Information
Our school will be closed on Code Red days. The school will be contacted in advance about this and communication will go home to families to let you know what is happening. On extreme fire de-rating days the school will be open.
We are given up to date information at school about weather conditions and will communicate this to families via UEducateUs, email, phone tree or Facebook, depending on the time of day we are informed. On these days we do require that families respond or acknowledge the contact so that we can confirm you have received the message. We understand parent concern on these days, however it is important to try and keep the school phone lines open for emergency service information. Some information about this will also be placed on our School Facebook page and parents Facebook page. If you have any questions about this, please come and see us at school. We have included the fire rating symbol, which most families are already familiar with. All families should have their own home fire plans in place
Our school bus route will not be operating on Code Red days. This is a new consistent process across the State and an important one to ensure the safety of everyone involved.