Holbrook Public School

It has been a great start to the Term, with students settling back into routines easily. A huge milestone was celebrated last Wednesday with our Kindergarten students celebrating 100 Days of Kindergarten! All had a fun day, and it was so wonderful to see so many parents, grandparents and friends joining our students to mark this occasion. Many thanks to our hardworking P&C for providing the cupcakes and Miss Hemphill for making this day so special for our students.    

Kindergarten 2023  

We are so excited to welcome our new Kindergarten students in 2023. Preparations for a smooth transition are underway, and we look forward to visiting the Greater Hume Children Services next Monday. We invite all parents/carers who would like to attend one of our Open Day sessions to come and see what our school offers on Wednesday, 10 August at 10:30 a.m. or 3:45 p.m.  

A big thank you to Miss Hemphill for coordinating our Transition Program and to Ms Mullins for her outstanding support in this process.  

Professional Learning 

"In schools that excel, professional learning is aligned with the school plan, and its impact on the quality of teaching and student learning outcomes is evaluated" (School Excellence Framework, 2017).  

At Holbrook Public School, we pride ourselves on implementing the most effective strategies to improve teaching and learning. Last week, K-2 engaged in their planning day to analyse student assessment data and collaborated to plan highly engaging learning opportunities to support individual student growth in mathematics. The 3-6 Planning Day is tomorrow and will focus on student mindset in mathematics and embedding Number Talks into our classroom practice.  

Thank you to the fantastic K-6 Team of teachers for their commitment to continuous improvement.   

Tomorrow afternoon, the leadership team will attend a Middle-Leadership session in Albury with Dean White, Executive Director, Rural South and West Operation Directorate. We are looking forward to this opportunity to strengthen our leadership capacity through collaborative practice.  

Boccia Competition  

Congratulations to Chayse Ross, Liam Mohr, Blade Maher, Oliver Pendrick and Jett Coates, who did an outstanding job representing our school at the Boccia Competition in Wagga Wagga. It was a fantastic day, with our students relishing the opportunity to connect with their peers from other schools. When chatting with Jett about the experience, he said he enjoyed meeting the high school students and helping other kids get involved in the day.  

We are so grateful to our outstanding School Learning Support Officers, Mr Earl and Mrs Jones, for coordinating this opportunity.  

School Beautification  

Sonja and her crew of gardeners did a stellar job building new wheelbarrows for us to use in the garden. Thank you to Thomas and Ned for their handiwork and Sonja for the great work she does with our students and garden.   

Congratulations!  

Well done to Ollie Cardile, who represented Riverina at the State Cross Country event in Sydney. Ollie came 35th out of 80 competitors and ran the 3km race in 12:25. We are so proud of your fantastic effort, Ollie!  

Best of luck to Sybil Triggs, who is off to compete at State for AFL in Adelaide next week. We look forward to hearing about your adventures! 

Southern Riverina Athletics 

We have the Southern Riverina Athletics Carnival on Thursday (weather permitting!). Good luck to our team attending the day. We know they will represent our school with great pride, upholding our values, honour, perseverance and sincerity.  

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." 

Michael Jordan 

May we all continue to take risks, make mistakes and grow as a result of the challenges that we are faced with.  

Have a wonderful week! 

Amelia White
Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Instruction  

Congratulations to Larny Dodds and Fergus Glass, who have completed this year's Premier's Reading Challenge. For those amid the Challenge, you only have 19 days to go.

Mrs Biar
Co-ordinator

Dear parents and carers

Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about support provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).

Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:

• year of schooling
• category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
• level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.

This information assists schools to:

• formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
• consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
• develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.

The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly to support students with disability.

The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child, and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government so that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.dese.gov.au/about-us/resources/department-education-skills-and-employment-complete-privacy-policy-0).

Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).

If you have any questions about the NCCD, please get in touch with the school.

Kind regards

Louise Purss-Semple
Principal

Dear parents and carers

Welcome to the start of Term 3, after hopefully enjoying a safe and enjoyable winter break. I want to give you an overview of how we are continuing to ensure our school remains COVID-safe throughout this term.

As we continue to prioritise student and staff learning and wellbeing while at school, our layered COVID-smart measures will continue for Term 3. These ‘baseline measures’ are aligned to the NSW Government’s general community settings and include:

• staying home and getting tested if unwell, and only attending school when symptom-free
• strongly encouraging mask-wearing for all staff and students, particularly in the first four weeks of term
• rapid antigen testing for symptomatic students and staff, and close contacts attending school to learn and work
• strongly encouraging COVID-19 vaccinations for students, staff and their families, including a booster shot (when eligible)]
• strongly encouraging students, staff and their families to get a flu vaccination
• strict requirements for close contacts attending school
• good hygiene practices
• maximising natural ventilation
• boosted cleaning during the day, with particular attention given to high touch surface areas
• responding to local COVID-19 conditions when necessary by working with the department’s Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing team.

Continuing these baseline COVID-smart measures allows us to prioritise student and staff wellbeing while giving our learners a consistent and productive learning environment this term.

What’s new in Term 3? As winter continues, our COVID-smart measures have been updated in consultation with NSW Health to provide appropriate protection to our school community.

Vaccinations. The department has updated its policy regarding COVID-19 vaccination for employees following an independent risk assessment of school (and corporate) settings and consultation with unions and relevant stakeholders. While vaccination will no longer be a requirement for our staff from 1 August 2022, it is pleasing to see that a recent survey highlighted that more than 99% of the department’s active school-based workforce have had at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. We will continue to strongly encourage all our staff to keep up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations to protect themselves, students, and our school community.

Boosted day cleaning. The department has made a slight change to its cleaning process. Cleaning of school sites will now be more concentrated during the day, with an increase in cleaning during school hours and a subsequent reduction outside of hours. Boosted day cleaning will continue to focus on high-touch areas and other hard surfaces, door handles, lockers, light switches and handrails in stairways and movement areas.

What’s continuing for Term 3?

Masks. Masks are an effective way of minimising the transmission of respiratory viruses and infections and protecting our community, especially those at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and flu. We strongly encourage all students and staff to wear masks for the first four weeks of Term 3, particularly in indoor settings or when distancing is impossible. The latest NSW Health advice also recommends wearing a mask for people who have recovered from COVID-19 and recently completed their 7-day isolation period for an additional three days (from days 8 to 10 after receiving a positive COVID-19 result). Additionally, as outlined in the below section on close contacts, mask-wearing is mandatory for staff and high school students returning to school as close contacts for five school days and strongly recommended for primary school students returning to school as close contacts for five school days. Students or staff identified as close contacts who cannot wear a mask will be supported to learn or work remotely.

Rapid antigen tests (RATs). The department will send another round of RATs to our school early this term, which we will provide you in the form of 1 multipack of 5 RAT kits per student. These RATs can be used as required for symptomatic testing, such as if your child is displaying even mild symptoms. Once these department-supplied RATs are exhausted, please continue to access store-purchased RATs, which are now readily available in the community or PCR tests. Alternatively, let the school know that you need more, and we will try and assist. Additionally, our school will maintain a reserve stock of RATs onsite to support symptomatic testing in the event of an outbreak in our school community. Please also remember that positive RAT results must be registered with ServiceNSW, and students who test positive for COVID-19 must not attend school until their isolation period ends and they are symptom-free.

Close contacts. Students identified as close contacts remain able to attend school, providing they are symptom-free, notify the school and return a negative COVID-19 test result daily for five consecutive school days. Primary students, while not required, are strongly encouraged to wear a mask for five consecutive school days (except when eating/drinking or exercising). Please note that students identified as close contacts are still unable to attend overnight excursions, including camps. Visitors identified as close contacts who are engaging directly with students must return a negative COVID-19 test result before attending our school and wear a mask.

Responding to our local situation. We will continue to liaise with NSW Health and the department’s Health, Safety and Staff Wellbeing Case Management team to ensure our COVID-smart settings keep up with the latest developments. If local conditions require it, this may mean reintroducing temporary additional COVID-smart measures to act as a ‘circuit breaker’, including:

• mandating mask wearing for all staff and students in Year 7 and above (high school settings)
• mandating mask wearing for all staff (primary school settings)
• postponing or limiting non-essential activities like excursions, indoor assemblies and visitors to the school
• directing cohorts to learn remotely for short periods of time. 

Maximising natural ventilation. The department has reviewed environmental differences across NSW as part of their winter ventilation planning to ensure that local climatic conditions at each school are considered. The department will continue to provide local guidance to schools, including advice on maximising natural ventilation while balancing thermal comfort and using indoor and outdoor learning areas for school activities to support schools to adapt to local climate conditions throughout the winter.

Reducing the risk of illness this winter. Finally, it is important to note NSW Health’s advice to reduce our risk of not only COVID-19 but other illnesses that may affect our school at this time of year, such as the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), both of which can be serious in younger people. We can all protect our loved ones and our community by:

• staying home and getting tested if unwell or displaying any symptoms
• keeping up to date with our vaccinations – including the flu vaccine, which is available from your local GP, pharmacy or Aboriginal Medical Service now - flu vaccines are free for all children aged six months to under five years, or for a small charge for those aged five years and older
• getting tested immediately for COVID-19 if you become symptomatic and isolating until you receive a negative result and are symptom-free
• practising good hand hygiene by regularly washing with soap and water
• taking a RAT before visiting vulnerable loved ones or attending large gatherings and events.

On behalf of our school, I want to thank you again for your ongoing support and resilience as we continue to work together to support our students.

Louise Purss-Semple
Principal

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