With almost four weeks left of the school year for students, the school is flat out!
Today it’s Australian Band day and this morning we watched a lovely assembly from our year twos depicting Aussie bands through the ages. It was a lot of fun. We congratulated our inter school athletics team who won the district competition last week, launched our ‘Containers for Change’ program, and waved our year fives off to Scitech for the day. From all reports they are thoroughly enjoying themselves – and hopefully learning lots.
On Monday, our year sixes leave for a week’s camp in Bridgetown. Lots of schools have discontinued the traditional week-long camp, but we are trying hard to keep it going through all the OSH and staffing guidelines, as it’s always a real highlight of primary school. My heartfelt thanks to Mr Tifflin, Mrs Sachman and the four parents who are going to supervise.
Next week, our junior students begin two weeks of swimming lessons and our year one and two students continue with edu-dance which will culminate in a short concert.
Year four students are still doing their bicycle education course and will soon cycle into Fremantle for a day’s excursion, and year threes are heading to the zoo.
In upper primary, students are writing their speeches to stand for leadership positions in 2021, and preparing for their graduation ceremony and final assembly.
Kav Temperley from Eskimo Joe continues to workshop with a small group of middle and upper primary students to create a new school song for our centenary. What an incredible opportunity this has been for them – and they are doing really well. Their next step is recording in Kav’s studio… we hope to be able to play the song at the end of the year.
The student council is planning our much loved ‘Richmond’s Got Talent‘ event; staff are rehearsing kindy concerts, and assemblies; and in between all of this we are writing end of reports and planning for next year.
That’s an awful lot to fit into the next nineteen days!
The Education Department has today requested schools continue to remind communities of the ways they can protect themselves and others by washing hands, staying home when sick, covering coughs and maintaining physical distance where possible.
It’s important that we keep viruses in the school to a minimum, and I really thank you for keeping sick children at home so they don’t spread them. We are reminding students to continue good hygiene practices and to tell their teacher if they feel unwell. I have been on sick leave for much of this week too.
With the holidays approaching, people will be making decisions about whether to travel interstate. If anyone travels, we are advised they should continue to monitor the WA.gov.au website for any changes to travel directions during the holidays and to ring the G2G helpline on 1326843 to confirm their pass is valid before returning to WA.
With Western Australia still subject to restrictions, it is incredibly complex to run any organisation. I receive almost daily updates from the government regarding COVID guidelines, ranging from health and hygiene to travel; from event organisation to staff leave; from crisis management to hospitality; and from camps, assemblies and canteens to music lessons, swimming and work placements.
We still have many events to run as you can see, and I thank you sincerely for your flexibility and understanding about phase 4 restrictions like ticketing, physical distancing, food, hygiene and cleaning.
Hope you have a happy weekend, and your children enjoy their last few weeks at school.
Lisa Dentith