Holbrook Public School

Hello to all Holbrook Public School community members and welcome back to Term 2.

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable break after a busy start to the year. I am very excited to be joining the team at Holbrook Public School. Last term, I was fortunate enough to visit and meet the amazing staff and students, who made me feel very welcome. I also enjoyed attending the ANZAC Day march and ceremony in town and seeing the staff and students represent the school with pride.

I have worked for the NSW Department of Education my whole teaching career and I loved my time working in the classroom, and have also worked in roles as Assistant Principal, Instructional Leader, and Relieving Principal. This is my first appointment as Principal, and I am looking forward to the challenge ahead and building relationships with the staff, students, and the community.

I grew up in Albury and returned after moving away to attend university. Since starting my teaching career, my family and I (husband and 3 children) have lived in Albury. As a family, we are very active and heavily involved in lots of sports and committees. Most of my time outside of school is spent following or coaching my children in their sporting interests and playing (or rather, attempting to play) touch football and hockey.

Other important information:

NRL team – Canterbury Bulldogs

AFL team – Carlton Blues

Cricket team – Sydney Thunder

I am passionate about ‘every student being known, valued, and cared for’ and having the opportunity to work collaboratively with staff, students, and the community to provide high-quality learning opportunities.

I look forward to meeting all of you and please let me know if there is any way we can support your child or your family.

Kind regards

Louise Purss-Semple
Principal

Our COVID-smart settings in Term 2 have been developed in consultation with NSW Health and are aligned to the NSW Government’s general community settings.

Many of our existing COVID-smart measures continue into Term 2, including:

• rapid antigen testing for symptomatic students and staff
• vaccinations – including booster shots (from 3 months after your child’s primary COVID-19 dose) are encouraged for all eligible students and their families.
• ventilation
• good hygiene practices
• enhanced cleaning.

What’s new in Term 2?:

• Change to close contact isolation requirements - The NSW Premier has announced changes to requirements for close contacts which means that from Week 1 of Term 2, students and staff who are identified as close contacts will be able to attend school with certain risk mitigations in place.
• Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) – which the department will continue to supply to students and staff in Term 2 to support symptomatic testing and testing of close contacts returning to school.
• Masks – particularly a new recommendation from NSW Health for people who have recently recovered from COVID-19 to wear a mask for an additional 3 days following their 7-day isolation period (from days 8 to 10).
• Responding to local COVID-19 conditions – outlining the temporary reintroduction of some additional COVID-smart settings if local conditions require it
• Ventilation – how we’re maximising natural ventilation in classrooms and learning spaces while balancing thermal comfort during the cooler months.
• Reducing the risk of illness this winter – general advice from NSW Health to protect our school community as we head into winter.

Thank you again for your ongoing support.

Congratulations to the following winners of our Easter raffle, and a huge thank you to everyone who donated prizes.

Our school will be holding our ANZAC Day service on Thursday, 28 April, at 11:00 a.m. Donations of flowers would be most welcome, as are visitors to our school. If you wish to attend this ceremony, please remember to scan the QR code and sign in.

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a point in time assessment of literacy and numeracy skills. Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in the annual tests in writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. All NSW schools will sit NAPLAN online in 2022.

Our school will be participating in NAPLAN between 10 and 20 May 2022.

In preparation for NAPLAN, our school will also be participating in practice tests prior to the test dates. The practice test is a trial run and key preparation activity for NAPLAN in May. It is not an assessment of student ability, and the tests will not be marked. Excessive preparation for NAPLAN is not recommended. Students can use the public demonstration site (https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site) to familiarise themselves with the types of questions and tools available in NAPLAN.

If you have any questions about NAPLAN, please contact your child’s teacher.

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