Nerae Preece Principal

From the Principal’s Seat…

Dear Families,

It is coming closer to everyone coming back on site, and we are so excited to have all of our students back from Monday the 12th of October. With all of our students returning, as a community we need to be really mindful of how we can stay safe, so we will need to follow some processes, and I know that you will support us with these.

Morning Drop off

Like last time, you can drop your children off anytime from 8:45am. Your child will make their way straight to their classroom for their “Calm start”. There will be no play before school begins.

If your child is finding it difficult to separate from you, please drive to the staff car park, come to the office, and we will support you. If this is an ongoing problem (eg. happens everyday for a week) we will create a plan with your child’s teacher to support them.

Attendance

Friday will be our last day of remote learning. From Monday the 12th of October ALL students will be completing their learning at school. Therefore we will no longer be using the blog as our platform for learning. If your child has medical concerns or is refusing to attend school we ask that you get in contact with us as early in the term as possible so we can support them in returning to school.

Creating COVIDSafe Spaces
Make hand hygiene easy

We have purchased sensor based soap dispensers in all of our toilets for students. We are aware that in the past these have been broken by students. We will be teaching students how to use these safely and respectfully. There should be no need for children to touch the machines. Therefore, families will be billed $120 if their child damages these machines. I am pretty sure that our kids will be pretty respectful of our new soap dispensers.

Keep surfaces clean and disinfected

DET have resumed our day cleaning. Ian our day cleaner is back for this term to keep our surfaces spotless and clean.

Promote outdoor air ventilation

We have cleaned our air conditioners and they are ready to go for summer. We are also preparing to keep our doors and windows open, to ensure there is lots of fresh air coming into our classrooms. We also will be trying to use many of our outdoor learning spaces during class time.

Limit school access to outside visitors

Parents will only be able to access school via the office. Please do not walk into any other buildings. We will not be having any excursions or incursions at this point in time. Allied health services will still need to use Telehealth as their way of working with kids. Instrumental music lessons will not be onsite until further notice.

Reduce mixing between groups

Our Junior School and Senior School students will be playing in different parts of the school.

We will be providing supervised activities that are non-contact sports, to support play.

Stay home if your child is unwell

We ask that you if your child is unwell, please keep them home. Reducing illness across our school is important. We will contact you when your child is unwell, and ask that you organise for them to be collected within 30 minutes. Please update contact details with Mel or Brogan in the office.

Masks

Please ensure you are wearing a mask at all times. All staff members will be wearing masks unless they are teaching, where this is optional. Students in grade 6 that are over 12 years of age are not required to wear masks in school.

Sports

At this stage no contact sports are allowed to be played onsite. We will encourage sports like cricket, volleystars and rounders.

End of day routine

As much as we love seeing you all, and how much you would like to catch up with each other, unfortunately this can’t happen at this point in time. We ask that you please, collect your child, and stay by your car if possible, or ensure that you maintain social distancing, with your mask on. We will be discouraging any play after school with kids. Like last time we will be dismissing our students by their surnames.

3:20 A-H

3:25 I-M

3:30 N-Z (Plus, any child travelling home independently or attending OSHC)

Please ensure that your child knows where to meet you. If this changes contact the office and we will ensure that your child is informed

THIS WEEK IN ART

In P.E this week

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Hi Badger Creek Community.

Welcome back to term 4! I am so excited of the the news that of all our students starting back onsite at school next week!

I have missed seeing all our wonderful students in Physical Education and can’t wait to start up our PE program again!

Based on the new guidelines, we will be focusing on a range of different activities that are non-contact and all our lessons will be outdoors.

Students in our junior levels will be learning and developing their fundamental motor and movement skills in a range of different activities, including throwing, catching and striking skills.

Our Senior students will enjoy a range of Net/wall sports at school, including tennis and volleyball. We will also enjoy participating in striking and stick sports, including cricket, lacrosse and golf!

Thank you to all our students that have been proactive and participated in the lessons during remote learning.

I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Kind regards

Mr David Pitts

PE Teacher

Around the Year Levels

IN PREP THIS WEEK

Hi mrs G,

I can’t wate to go back to school. How are you doing? You are the best teacher ever. I love 💕 reading.

Love Vedra❤️🤩🤞🥳🤗👍

To Mrs Griffiths,

I can’t wait to come back to school on Monday. 🥳

I remember going to assembly with you. I can’t wait to do this again.

Love Oliver 📝

IN GRADE 3 / 4 THIS WEEK

Dear students, what a journey we have been on together. We cannot be more proud of the attitude, work ethic and growth mindset you’ve shown through the past 2 terms. We CANNOT WAIT to have you in-front of us again on Monday. Know that although we are excited, we are also a little nervous – these are normal feelings to have when something is changing, particularly something important to us. You might feel nervous on Monday too, even if it’s only a little bit so remember… you’re not alone with your feelings. We are all in this together and we are going to support each other on Monday to be the best we can be.

We cannot wait to see your faces and wish you a restful weekend before we are back together again 🙂

SEE YOU SOON!!

From Miss Kean, Mrs Riley and Mr Clingin

IN GRADE 5 / 6 THIS WEEK

The 5/6 classrooms are all ready to go, there’s only one thing missing…our students! We can’t contain our excitement to finally reunite with them next week. We have so much to get through before the year is out, starting with our annual speech contest. Students have been researching their topics this week, with the contest commencing on Monday 19^th October after a week in the classroom to add the finishing touches. This week we also began our investigation of what scientists do out in the wide world, with a private virtual tour of a medical science lab where brain cancer treatments are tested (it’s on Thursday’s blog if you’re interested). That’s enough for now – see you on Monday, 5/6s!

Sean’s garden philosophies

The Welcoming Garden

There’s a lot growing on in the school’s veggie garden at the moment. It’s an incredibly exciting time in the gardening calendar, with fruit trees bursting into blossom, seedlings popping up out of the ground everywhere I look, and the over-wintered veggies like broccoli, kale and silverbeet ramping up their growth to the next level.

It’s also an exciting time for the entire Badger Creek Primary School community. With classes returning on Monday, I’m looking forward to continuing the gardening journey with students, teachers, parents and carers. It’s the perfect time to get back into the swing of things in the garden, and there will be lots of fun and rewarding activities for the students to get involved in. The focus will be on the continued creation and development of a garden space which is highly productive, joyful, welcoming and comforting. There will be seeds to sow, seedlings to plant out and care for, and plenty of delicious and nutritious veggies and herbs to harvest. It has been wonderful to witness the joy that the crops of snow peas and sugar snap peas have brought to the students in the past few months, and I hope to encourage that healthy browsing behaviour further by growing plenty of cherry tomatoes throughout the warmer months ahead. To add a splash of colour to the garden and a generous amount of joy, we will also be growing a variety of flowers, including sweet peas, zinnias, dahlias, calendula, marigolds and sunflowers. Over the next few weeks, we will be ramping up our summer crop seed sowing schedule to include zucchini, bush and climbing beans, sweet corn, cucumber, beetroot, eggplant, pumpkin, basil and lettuce. All going well, we’ll soon have green thumbs galore and a veggie patch bursting at the seams!

I wish everyone well in these challenging times and look forward to brighter days ahead.

Happy gardening!