Week 5 & 6 COVID Operational Changes – key messages

School Pick-up – tips to ensure a smooth pick-up at the end of the day

NAIDOC postponed

Enrolment – information regarding enrolling and acceptance of out-of-catchment enrolments

Prep Enrolment Sessions – process and booking system

Thank you to the Wondall community for your recent support of our staff and the altered arrangements during the Learning@Home period.

It is no easy feat to go from face to face learning in a structured school environment to preparing resources that students can continue with at home.

There was a lot of weekend and late nights for all of our staff in putting the processes in place and we sincerely thank them for this. Thanks to those who also shared their positive feedback to the staff.

Well done mums, dads and carers for facilitating the Learning@Home around your own busy schedules!

Whilst we have now returned to face to face onsite learning there are a number of restrictions that will remain and we ask for your continued patience and support as we continue to navigate these. As we do so, the focus is on student, staff and community safety!

The remaining restrictions in schools are directed by the advice of the Chief Health Officer and Department of Education. You are welcome to review the Departments COVID arrangements at: https://qed.qld.gov.au/covid19/

WEEK 5 AND 6 COVID OPERATIONAL CHANGES

Please refer to Operations Email 6 sent on Sunday 8 August for full information.

• All adults onsite are to wear masks.
• No parent/visitor access to school grounds. If you must come onto the school grounds, it is to the office only. Do not go to classrooms.
• Restricted entry and exit points – gates are staffed in the mornings and afternoons include: Wondall Road main pedestrian gate, senior oval gate, Miles Crescent gate, and Lewis Place gate. The gate near the Wondall Road bike racks will be open for bikes and scooters 3-3.10pm
• Drop off and Pick Up – please see section, below.
• Early Departures / Late Arrivals – please call the school office on 3906 6444 and a member of staff will meet you and your child at the gate.
• All classrooms will have access to either hand washing or hand sanitiser- students will be encouraged to use these when entering classrooms, changing activities, eating and toileting. If your child is sensitive to these, you may provide them with their own hand sanitiser or soap to use at school.
• Lunch breaks have been altered to provide increased spacing, where necessary, in areas.
• Students are not to share food- please do not send any food for celebrations eg- birthday cake. These will be sent home with your child and not distributed by school staff.
• NO toys/ sporting equipment are to come to school.
• Assemblies and other large group activities including instrumental music groups, choirs, performances, extra curricula sporting activities, and dancing are not permitted.
• Interschool sport and excursions will not be permitted.
• Sick students will be sent home immediately and asked to return only when symptoms disappear.

 SCHOOL PICK UP

Thank you for your patience this week at the pick-up zone. We realise the gates become busy areas of the school and as always, we look for ways to improve how we operate for the safety of our school community.

Some tips to help with the afternoon pick up. We know this is a very busy time with over 680 students trying to leave the school.

• Make sure your child knows where they are being picked up in the afternoon. We suggest a bag tag so they know/as do staff where to direct them.

1. Stop, Drop and Go- students will wait in the bus shelter as normal.
2. Top Carpark- students who are waiting to be picked up from Wondall Road will wait here- parents- spread yourselves across the frontage of the school (socially distance) and your children will be able to see you. A staff member will release them to you.

1.  Lewis/Miles/Oval gate- spread yourselves along the fence line (socially  distance). Again, students will be released to you.

•  We would really suggest for parents waiting at the gates, to bring a name card  with your child’s name similar to STOP, DROP and GO and hold this up for  staff/students to see.
•  BE PATIENT- We will have staff supervising areas. Stagger your pick up-  DELAY BY 5 minutes and avoid the peak traffic!!! The students will remain  supervised.
•  Parents it is your responsibility to socially distance, please respect this and  also our staff who are at the gates.

We know that these temporary changes to pickups might cause a small amount of inconvenience however, this is about supporting a safe school environment for your children and our staff. All schools are putting in measures based on directives from the Department of Education!

We thank you moving forward for your patience and support.

NAIDOC POSTPONED

We have postponed our NAIDOC celebrations that were set to take place this week. Given the current restrictions within the school setting, it would not be viable for our planned activities to go ahead. A new date is yet to be determined. Students can still complete the colouring in competition and hand their entries into the office. Prizes will be awarded at our NAIDOC celebrations.

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO ATTEND WONDALL HEIGHTS STATE SCHOOL IN 2022

In catchment students can currently enrol at the office during office opening hours.

Out-of-catchment students can join the waiting list, please contact the office.

A decision will be made for out-of-catchment enrolments in early Term 4, as per the departmental guidelines.

Please share this information with family and friends living in the catchment area!

PREP ENROLMENT SESSIONS

As advertised, we are due to start our Prep Enrolment Sessions in early September. Please find some information on the Prep 2022 Enrolment Sessions, below.

All children must attend an Enrolment Session before starting Prep in 2022. The Enrolment Sessions are designed to create a sense of community and for children and families to meet and establish connections in preparation for 2022. This format also allows our staff to spend more time getting to know your children.

All parents will be required to book a one-hour timeslot and bring their child to this session. During this time, parents will be attending an information session led by the Principal and P-2 Deputy Principal.

Children will be nearby, where they will be able to interact with other children and have hands on activities, guided by some of our support teachers. The teachers will spend some time with the children individually, and collect some data about their knowledge of a variety of concepts (eg shapes, colours, number and letter recognition). This is not a test, but provides us with some information about children’s needs so we can cater for them in the best way when they start school. There is no preparation required for this process. We hope that this will be a positive way for parents and children to meet new friends in our Wondall family.

This week, the school was hoping to send out booking details for these sessions; however, due to COVID restrictions currently in place in Queensland schools, we will need to delay opening the booking system until we receive further notice as to when we can invite external visitors back on school grounds. The advertised dates may need to be rescheduled.

Dougie Rewards Session this Friday!

We will be celebrating our first Dougie Rewards Session for this term on Friday 13.8.21. This is to reward our Wondall Learners for being safe, respectful and responsible!

Teachers will be holding a movie session with individual classes on this day. The choice of movie is to be up to individual classes! Parents may receive a permission form to sign if the movie is of a PG (Parental Guidance) rating. If this is the case, please sign and return promptly.

Check-in with your child to see how their Dougie Stamp sheet is going! As we were unable to be at school last week, teachers are handing out Dougies generously this week to enable student’s attendance to the rewards session. Double Dougies are on hand!!!

Hopefully this will be a great reward for us all after a crazy couple of weeks!

Dougie Dollars Update

We have reached a total of 1675 Dougie Dollars. This means we are well on the way to reaching our total goal of 5000 Dougie Dollars to achieve our whole school reward. I am sure our student’s will be motivated to work extra hard to get to our goal by being safe, responsible and respectful at play, transitioning, lining-up, in the toilets, before school and in all other situations outside of the classroom!