Virtue of the Fortnight : Respect
Welcome back to our families and another year of learning and growing opportunities for our kids to experience. I am so grateful to be back in Derby and feeling very blessed to be able to start the school year so normally when there are schools around WA who were forced to stay closed due to floods, fires and of course Covid. We’ve had a fantastic first week back at school, with lots of new faces and families to welcome to our school community. Our 3 year old kindy is also filling fast so I urge parents whose children turn 3 before July 1st to ensure they have secured their spot in the program.
Our Virtue of the Fortnight is Respect and we again start the year with reminders that our school is a safe place for all, we say kind words to each other and treat others as we would like to be treated, as Jesus taught us. I urge students and parents to email me if they feel their child is being bullied in any way, as we have a zero tolerance towards bullying behaviour and our approach is to deal with it as soon as it arises so our school continues to have a healthy and safe culture and atmosphere.
I would also like to congratulate our school community on the healthy growth we’ve seen over the last year. This time last year, our numbers from 3 Year old Kindy to Year 6 were 105. Today our enrolment numbers for the same cohort are 136. We also have more students on our list who are waiting to start 3 year old kindy because they haven’t turned 3 yet, so this number is due to expand.
This wonderful growth is due to the huge amount of support shown by our families, the hard work our staff do everyday to ensure our kids love coming to school and feel safe in our school environment, and of course due to our kids themselves making Holy Rosary such a caring and friendly place to be.
Schools receive government funding based on their enrolment numbers (in our region, it is approximately $17000 per child from 4 year old kindy upwards). For a low fee school such as ours, this government funding is vital.
These increased enrolments will later this year translate into more funding for our school, which in turn will translate into improved facilities, resources, training and possibly more staffing for our school.
One of our Year 6s said to me this week that “Holy Rosary is the best school out of all the schools, I don’t ever want to leave…The teachers here really understand me.” What great feedback to receive, which is of course testament to our dedicated and caring staff.
Parent information evening
Next Wednesday evening we will be having our Parent Information evening, and details from your teachers and the evening are about this are here:
We urge all parents to attend so you can make contact with your child’s teacher as well as other parents in your children’s classes. Research shows that involvement in your child’s education improves their academic outcomes and social emotional well-being.
You should have already received a welcome letter from your children’s teachers with their contact details, please feel free to contact them with any queries relating to your child at school.
1-2 Ipad Program and technology upgrades
I am also proud to announce that very soon our school will soon have one Ipad for every 2 children. This means that over the day, each individual child will have sole access to an ipad for at least half the school day. This has been enabled by some generous funding from the Catholic Education office who are trying to ensure that Kimberley Catholic schools have access to the same technology and resources that our metropolitan counterparts have. On the holidays we also had our wifi cabling upgraded.
New staff
Another welcome to our lovely new staff members, Michelle, Yolanda, Andrea and Iman, who we are so excited about joining our team. They have brought an abundance of skills and life experiences to bring to our school and this will translate into even better outcomes for our kids.
Covid plan
The current situation in Perth reminds us that we are still vulnerable to the threat of Covid and schools need to be prepared if there is community transmission. The preparation which Holy Rosary has in place is as follows:
- Catholic Education schools in WA are all required to have a COVID plan ready for a situation in which a member of our school community tests Covid positive.
- Children are required to wash their hands when they enter the classroom and when they leave after each session, or sanitise where sinks are not available.
- Adult visitors to the school, apart from parents at pick up and drop off times need to sign in at the front office.
- Teachers have prepared a small package of initial revision work that we will send home in case schools are closed, to allow teachers time to prepare work tailored for the students at that particular point in time, if the situation arises.
- Physical distancing between staff is required to be 1.5 m
- Staff who travel back from Perth this week before the 14th February will be required to wear a mask at school until Perth mask restrictions are relaxed.
- We will ring home if children are showing symptoms at school and ask parents to take them home.
Bushfire plan
The school is required to submit a Bushfire plan and communicate this to the community at the beginning of each year. A link to our updated plan can be found here: Bushfire plan
Please have a quick glance so you are aware of the procedures in case a fire occurs while the children are at school.
P and F and Parent Class Reps
The P and F will be having a meeting next Wednesday afternoon straight after school in the kindy classroom. All are welcome. Again we encourage as many parents to attend as possible to see how you can be involved with the school this year. We are still looking for parents to be class reps to facilitate communication between parents in your child’s class. Please email your child’s teacher if you are able to help.
Derby Dance Group
Derby Dance group are starting Dance classes again on Monday, and will be using our multipurpose room on Monday afternoons for the Kindy/PP class. Please let you child’s teacher know if your child is enrolling and our staff will walk your child over to the dance class. Please contact Derby Dance for details on how to enrol, more info on the Dance classes are here :
