Dear Parents,

Welcome back as we commence Term 4.  I hope that all families have had the opportunity to enjoy a relaxing break together under the challenging circumstances.  It is wonderful that the children are returning to onsite learning over the next few weeks, however, please be aware that this will be a staggered approach for the safety of all. 

Please note that when your child’s year level returns to school there will not be a remote learning program operating at the same time. Essentially, we cannot teach two different programs at once. Therefore, when your child’s grade is scheduled to be onsite the expectation is that the children are at school.  If your child’s grade is not rostered on to be at school they will be remote learning at home, unless they are one of the very few children who meet the essential worker criteria to be onsite.

Initially, to ensure the safety of children, parents will have to drop their children at the gates (staff will be on duty) and not enter the school.  All COVID safe procedures that have been employed by the school will continue to remain in place.  Further details of the return to school procedures will be provided to families next week.

Below is a table that outlines the return dates for the different year levels culminating, in all students returning on Friday the 5^th of November.

2022 Enrolments

If you know of anyone looking to enrol their child at St Pat’s for 2022 please encourage them to contact the school Office on 5943-9000 or email office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

2022 Parent Requests

The process of planning for 2022 has begun.  As per last year any parents who have any special requests will need to put them in writing and email them to office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au by Monday the 11^th of October. 

Please note that requests from last year, or any other previous year, will not be considered as circumstances change.  We are blessed at St Patrick’s to have a professional and committed staff that plan together to ensure that the same learning opportunities are afforded to the students regardless of what class they are in, so please do not request individual teachers.

All requests will be given the appropriate consideration; however, it is not a guarantee.

Sacraments

The Parish is still awaiting the easing of restrictions before new dates can be organised for any of the Sacraments.   Noleen Chalmers (REL) will inform families of the new dates once they have been arranged.  If you have any questions please email Noleen noleen@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

Reimbursement for Activities Not Undertaken / Fee Assistance

Currently we have rescheduled many activities that have been missed throughout the year for Term 4.  At this stage we are hopeful that they will go ahead.  If they cannot proceed parents will be reimbursed the cost.  If you are experiencing difficulties due to the pandemic please contact Fil at the Office for a confidential discussion regarding fees.

Remote Learning / Onsite Restrictions

Again, I remind families that to restrict movement and keep us all as safe as we can strict requirements are in place for students to attend school.   Next week the school will be open only for the very few students of essential workers who meet the following criteria;

• Children where both parents and or carers are considered authorised workers who cannot work from home, work for an authorised provider and where no other supervision arrangements can be made.
• Where there are two parents/carers, both must be authorised workers, working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision.
• For single parents/carers, the authorised worker must be working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision.
• Children experiencing vulnerability, including: in out-of-home care, deemed vulnerable by a government agency, funded family or family violence service, and assessed as requiring education and care outside the family home
• Identified by a school or early childhood service as vulnerable, (including via referral from a government agency, or funded family or family violence service, homeless or youth justice service or mental health or other health service)
• Where a parent/carer indicates that a student with a disability is vulnerable because they cannot learn from home, and/or informs the school the student is vulnerable due to family stress.

Classroom Google Meets operate between 9.30-11.30am and 1.00-2.00pm each day.  On Wednesday the Specialist Google Meets will continue at 9.30 -10.30am and 1.00 - 2.00pm. Once again, all work will be uploaded to Google Classroom. If you have any questions about this, please contact your child(ren’s) classroom teacher.  We ask that parents remain within the vicinity of where their children are on the Google Meets and that parents please support their children to submit the required tasks for each learning area, including specialists.

If you are one of the few families who need to send your child(ren) to school, you must have completed your intention to send your child(ren) to St Patrick’s Primary form that was distributed to families supported by your essential worker permit form. This will enable us to ensure that we have sufficient staff on duty to supervise students in attendance.

Please note that if you choose to send your child(ren) to school, your child(ren) will be supervised whilst undertaking the Remote Schooling program which has been designed by our school.  As such, your child will be undertaking the same program as those children learning at home.

In addition, I wish to advise you that your child(ren)’s teacher will not be supervising your child(ren) on-site, but will continue to support your child through the Remote Schooling program as previously advised to you.

The following COVID Restrictions remain in place when anyone visits the school site;

• Masks are required to be worn by parents at all times when in the school.
• The limited number of children at school must be dropped off and collected from the Church carline.
• Please communicate with staff via phone or email.
• The Office is physically closed to all but essential visitors, however, contact can be made by phone 5943-9000 or email office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au  
• All extra cleaning and hand hygiene that was in place is still being adhered to.
• Please do not send food items to share with others when it is your child’s birthday as they cannot be handed out.
• If your child is sick, or displaying symptoms, please keep them at home. Children that present as sick or displaying symptoms at school will be sent home.  It is our preference that they gain a medical clearance or negative COVID test before they return to school.
• Bubble taps are operational at school.
• An ample amount of sports equipment will be provided at school so we ask that students do not bring equipment from home.

Regards,

Simon

Please read the article below in regards to helping children to cope with uncertainty during  COVID.

Things are hard right now and if you need to talk about it or would just like to read some information on how to look after ourselves and our children, the following services will help you and articles will help you. 

If any families are struggling at this time and would like to reach out for a chat or support please contact Meg Escalante, our Wellbeing officer, via email on mescalante@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au. 

You can also visit the Be You website which has contact numbers for you to call. 

On last day of Term 3 the children took part in Footy Day where they were invited to dress in footy colours and take part in footy actvities for the day.  It was a great way to spend the last day of term and the children looked like they had lots of fun.  Here are some photos we took from the day. 

Have you set up your PAM account yet!

From the start of 2022 PAM will be our main form of communication.  All emails, Student Attendance, Sick Bay notes, School Reports, commonly used forms, excursion/camp permission notes and Family Learning conversations, will all be communicated via PAM.  

A new app (SimonEverywhere) will soon be available to download to allow easy access to PAM but for now please save the PAM log on screen to the home page of your device or bookmark it in your browser.  

Access PAM via this link   Link to PAM 

SIMON -  a Learning Management Software solution for schools.

St Patrick’s Primary school is now using SIMON in the classroom to keep track of your child’s progress and learning as well as attendance.  SIMON will also be used for School Reports and Student Wellbeing.

PAM, SIMON’s Parent Access Module

PAM (Parent Access Module) is our new Parent to School communication platform.   PAM will provide real time access to keep parents updated with their children’s progress, important dates and messages. Relevant resources – calendar events, student reports, parent notified absences, absence data and sick bay notes will all be accessed via PAM.

Parents will be able to easily book Parent Teacher interviews through PAM, and access teacher email addresses. 

PAM accounts are linked via your email address that we have in our systems.  If you have recently changed your email,  please call or email us on office@stppakenham.cathlic.edu.au

Click on the 'forget password' link to set your password and then verify your email address.  (Email addresses must be verified for PAM to work properly).  Once your email is verified, your email can be used as the username for your account.

Once you have successfully logged in, you can save PAM to your homescreen on your device.

If you have any issues or need help with PAM please contact the school via email, office@stppakenham.catholic.edu.au

PAM Instructions

Parent Notified Absences via PAM

Once you have PAM set up and saved to your home screen you can easily send in Parent Notified absences.   Please use this platform going forward as this automatically syncs with the class roll.   This will fix the issues of receiving SMS notifications even though you had already notified the school. 

We received this letter of thanks from Fr Janeesh and Siji.

A big thank you to you for sending us all the pictures from the children for Care for creation. It was amazing to see the response and how creative children think. Please thank all the teachers involved and the children for their contribution. Like last year the dioceses reposted some of ours on their Facebook page. I have all of them up on our website.

God Bless all the work you do.

Reconciliation - Grade 3 Students

News from Fr Janeesh

The parent workshop for the sacrament of reconciliation is due to take place on the 14^th of October. I spoke to Fr Janeesh yesterday and he said, that with all that is going on at the moment, we will cancel the parent workshop for this year.

14th October - Parent Workshop - Cancelled

20th and 21st October - Reconciliation - To Be Confirmed

Hi Everyone,

We had some lovely weather over the holidays and were allowed to travel a little further. Let me know if you were able to complete any of the activities from the Fit Kids Calendar. If you have any photos, please send them in so we can inspire each other to keep being active.

Don't forget to SLIP SLOP SLAP SLIDE SEEK when being active outdoors!

STAY ACTIVE!!

Mrs Breeden

Operoo is still our main platform for communication!  All correspondence will continue to go via the Operoo email platform.  In most cases it will be in Operoo that you will first be notified of any upcoming excursions or events.  Most of these events must first be approved before they appear on any calendar.  

Please remember to update any details in Operoo, for example change of address or phone number,  this will send us a message that your details have changed and we are then able to update our database.

Don't forget to upload your child's hayfever letters including symptoms specific to your child!

If you have any problems using Operoo, please call into the school office preferably on a Monday, Thursday or Friday and we will be able to help you.  

Please remember to update your contact details and any relevant medical details for your child.  

This can be either done via Operoo or contacting the school office.

The medical profile section of PAM has also now been turned on.   Please update this at your convenience.  We will still be using Operoo for any medical issues until the end of this year but as of the start of next year we will be moving to PAM for all communication and medical needs. 

Have you installed the new SZapp?   

Skoolbag is no longer being used, install SZapp now! 

 Follow the installation guide below to install the new app on your smart devices.  

Rix Road Butterfly Sculpture 

We need your help to select the colours for the new butterfly sculpture outside the new Rix Road Integrated Family and Children’s Centre in Officer.

 All children are invited to participate.

1. 1. 1. Download a copy of the beautiful butterfly template.
      2. Colour in the wings – the brighter the better!
      3. Take a photo or scan your butterfly and submit.

 Artist Nick Athanasiou from Skunk Control will gather the completed butterflies, and your artwork will inspire the final design!

 Submissions close Monday 11 October so get colouring 

 You can find this information on our website: https://creating.cardinia.vic.gov.au/rix-road-butterflies

 We hope to see your beautiful butterfly designs soon!

 P.S. Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope?

 Kind regards,