Dear St John the Apostle Community,

Thank you for working together to prepare your child for the return to school next week. Please remember the following arrangements for coming back.

Students who have already been attending school full-time can continue to do so next week. We have provided limited supervision for these students on the days where their classes are at home. Other students are to remain at home on their non-attendance days. Staff are providing a general remote learning program during this time and will not be able to provide class video conferences while they transtion back as well. The Inclusion Assistants will be checking in on some students at home as well as checking in on them on the days they attend.

Choosing not to return yet

If you are choosing to not send your child back to school yet, please email both your child's teacher and myself to ensure their absence is recorded accurately in our attendance records and to help us provide any support we can for their learning at home.

What does my child need to have ready?

In returning to school, your child needs to:

• Wear their winter uniform. We know that stock is low at many uniform shops at the moment. We'll have a 'grace period' for a while until everyone has had the opportunity to source the warmer uniform.
• Bring a drinkbottle with their name on it. We will only be using bubblers for filling drinkbottles.
• Bring back any Library books and readers that were borrowed. These will be wiped down before placing into circulation again.
• Bring back any devices that have been borrowed. These also need to be wiped down before placing them back into circulation.
• In June/July we do not ordinarily wear hats. We will make these optional for students during this transition time.

Drop off and pick up arrangements

Our primary goal for our drop off and pick up arrangements is to follow the current health advice to significantly reduce the number of adults on site that can lead to any spread of undiagnosed COVID-19 cases. 

Morning Drop-off

• All parents are to use the drive through area in the main carpark to drop students off. Students then walk through the gate near the performing arts building and proceed around to the rainbow top to line up.
• Teachers will be on duty on the rainbow top from 8.20am. To reduce congestion please stagger your arrival times between 8.20am and 8.50am.
• We understand that some of our youngest students may need some assistance on the first day or two, however, please keep coming into school to a minimum and train them to be independent in this process.

Afternoon Pick-up

• Again, our preference is that students be picked up in the drive through area. We understand that this can be congested.
• If parents must park and pick up please keep standing together to a minimum and follow physical distancing expectations.
• Kindergarten will be brought up to the pick up area 5 minutes before everyone else to help reduce congestion.
• Teachers are on duty from 3.00pm to 3.30pm. We encourage you to stagger your pick up times during this 30 minutes.

Canteen

The Canteen will run all week next week. There is a special 'welcome back' lunch on Friday and this can be ordered through the Qkr app.

Following next week the Canteen will run its usual hours from Tuesday to Friday.

Student Birthdays

At the moment we ask students to not bring cupcakes to share with the class for their birthdays. This is a precautionary measure for health and hygiene.

The Canteen offers a number of options to share with the class. This can be ordered on the Qkr app.

It's enrolment time!

Just a reminder that it is enrolment time for 2021! We already have a number of enrolments with a few new families looking to join the St John the Apostle Community. Just a reminder if you have a child looking to start Kindergarten in 2021 to jump on our website and complete an enrolment form. 

Please spread the good news about our school. The best marketing a school can do is through their current families. Word of mouth is very powerful when it comes to families choosing a school for their child. Please recommend us and basically, talk us up please. I will be starting to do personal zoom meetings with new families, taking them for a virtual tour and answering any questions they have. I am happy to do this for any new families’ wanting to know more about St John's. I can't talk enough about how great our school is. It's very easy for me to sell the school in the best light possible. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Matthew Garton, Principal