6th September 2019

Dear Parents and Carers

This week is Child Protection Week. The theme for 2019 is on the development of children. The new framework works on the premise that to raise thriving kids parents need support to navigate the choppy waters.  They further develop the story of families navigating the seas:

“For healthy development, children need life to be on an even keel. But for families experiencing poverty and stress, raising children is like sailing in rough waters. Helping parents with counselling, quality child care and financial support makes sure that they have the lighthouses and safe harbours that they need to navigate these rough waters.

To develop in healthy and positive ways, children need life to be stable, even when families face rough times. Just as a strong skipper learns to be adaptable and to seek help when they need it, we can help parents to navigate life’s storms.” Napcan (the Nation Center for Child Abuse and Neglect) has some good resources for parents. These resources can be accessed at the Napcan website

Topics range from: 

• Keeping children safe from sexual abuse
• Listening to children
• 30 ways to boost a child’s confidence
• When a child feels sad

In class this week the children have all had lessons on their year’s focus for Child Protection Week. Each of those has a developmental focus around keeping children safe from abuse. 

A reminder to all parents that your child should not be at school before 8.10am. (Unless in before-school-care. Siblings of children who are attending practice cannot be left unsupervised in the playground at training times either in the morning or afternoons. Students who are waiting for later training may stay with a designated parent who is responsible for them having afternoon tea, staying in the correct areas (away from the training area) and having a warm up for their training. 

There have been a number of cases of Influenza B in the school as well as a large number of children with the stomach “bug”. Please keep children home if they are showing any of the symptoms. 

Influenza viruses are mainly spread by droplets made when an infected person coughs or sneezes.  Influenza can also be spread through touching surfaces when infected droplets have landed. Those infected can be infectious from the day before their simptoms starts. Adults are most infectious in the first 3-5 five days of their illness, while children remain infectious for 7-10 days, and people with weakend immune systems may be infectious for longer.  It helps a great deal if we have all parents contact details up to date at all times.

With the implementation of new school expectations there are some wonderful rewards (congratulations to 2Gold who had the most PAWS tokens the last two weeks.). There are also consequences for not meeting our expectations. If a child is given a Long Time Out as a consequence they will miss some play. This is often for not keeping their hands and feet to themselves or not being kind to each other. If this happens, parents will be informed either with a phone call or email. This process is so that you can help us reinforce the behaviour expectations at home. If the child has a number of Long Time Outs in a short space of time then I will request a meeting with the child’s parents to problem solve regarding the behaviour expectations that the child is not meeting. 

Cowen & Lewis will have a summer uniform pop up store at school on Tuesday 17th September from 8am till 9.30am.  Please note that the weblink for SHM uniform shop is currently under construction, for the timebeing please contact them for uniform orders via the phone or at their Turramarra store: https://cowanlewis.com.au/contact/

Congratulations to our students who will make their First Holy Communion this weekend and next. Thank you to the teachers, parents and the parish leaders who have walked with you on this journey.

You are all welcome to attend the next P and F meeting in the hall at 7pm on Tuesday the 10th September. I was hoping to give a report on this years Naplan results at this meeting, but as they have not been shared with us as yet, I will give this report in Term 4.

Regards

Julie Caldwell