Face masks@school                                                                  24 August 2021 

Weekend announcements from the Chief Health Officer

Principals attended briefings on Saturday and Sunday, following the latest announcements from the Chief Health Officer, and have since received an updated Operations Guide.

The over-arching message we have been asked to convey to school communities is that, to help slow the spread of the virus, we need your support in complying with the new, strengthened restrictions and helping our public health team to get ahead of this virus. We request parents, carers and families continue to do the right thing by following all health directives. We definitely want schools open again, so let's all follow the rules.

Since last week, all authorised workers will require a permit for the workplace, and this has now been extended to accessing childcare arrangements. We have updated our Forms page following announcements, to reflect the strengthened criteria for on-site school attendance applications at this critical time.

Our school will continue to support students to learn from home, with the same emphasis on routine, predictability and a sense of certainty. Feedback from our teachers includes how pleased teachers are with attendance at Webex Essential sessions, as well as for students accessing online resources. We'll continue to utilise that LFH predictaibility to maintain high attendance rates and thank all parents/carers for making Webex sessions routine at home.

Face masks

Based on advice from the Victorian Chief Health Officer, it is now strongly recommended that primary school age children wear masks while indoors and outdoors, including at school. At LPS, we have seen a number of students wearing masks since 2020 (with some pretty cute designs! ) so our students will be familiar with this.

In the interests of maintaining a COVIDSafe plan, we began implementing this recommendation for on-site students from Monday 23 August and thank those parents for the 100% uptake on this.  All on-site students have now joined our staff as mask-wearers, as a protective measure during this critical time. And all of them had a fresh mask on today!

As new things require learning, please explain mask-wearing to your child. These links may assist (and swapping with others is a definite no-no! ).
- An incorrectly worn mask is useless: Are you wearing your mask correctly?
- Face masks must be fit-for-purpose: Face masks: what you can and cannot wear
- Face masks must be cleaned regularly, or disposed of: How to wear and care for your face mask

Please note DHHS advice:

A face mask must cover the nose and mouth. Face shields, scarves or bandanas do not meet these requirements.

Prep Bags Parent Survey

At the beginning of the school year, the Department of Education and Training provided every Prep student attending a Victorian government school with a red Prep bag.

The Prep bags contained 14 items, including children’s storybooks, flyers, stickers, and stationery items, all designed to help Prep students and their parents and carers thrive from the start of Term 1.

The Department is now inviting families of current Prep students to participate in a short survey, closing Sunday 29 August. Feedback will help inform what Prep students and their parents and carers like about the Prep bags and what can be improved in 2022. To have your say, complete the survey through SurveyMonkey.

The survey takes about five to ten minutes to complete. 

 
At last, the shade sail over the Year 5/6 playground has recently been completed.

With the restrictions on visitors to schools, this seems to have taken forever! We look forward to sharing this with our Senior School students; hopefully, soon.

Thank you to families who have supported fundraising efforts and made voluntary contributions, which allowed us to fund this worthwhile project.

Finally, we're adding the 'important links' to the bottom of this LFH eNews again.

Stay safe everyone!

Kim