St Joseph's Kingswood
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33 Cambridge Terrace
Kingswood SA 5062
Subscribe: https://sjkingswood.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

Email: enrol@stjk.catholic.edu.au
Phone: 08 8273 3300
Fax: 

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

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Dear families and community members,

Unfortunately, we have COVID cases in the school. I have outlined below how we have been working towards keeping COVID at bay. Our aim is to keep students at school, to keep our staff well so they can teach and to enable parents to attend work.

 The information provided to us is as follows:

Please monitor your child for any COVID -19 symptoms. If any symptoms develop (even mild symptoms) students and children must not attend school, preschool or childcare and must access a PCR test for COVID-19 and follow SA Health instructions.

Questions & Answers

  1. Why do my children need to stay home with mild symptoms?
    1. It is a requirement we need to follow as detailed above from SA Health
    2. To enable individuals to go for a PCR test (not RAT) to test for COVID. As per SA Health Guidelines HERE.
    3. As you may be aware, in some incidents, COVID has been detected after a second PCR test, or a PCR test following a negative RAT. 
    4. Stop the spread of colds and flu. This will help keep children and staff well and hopefully reducing the number of parents needing to stay home looking after unwell children.
  2. What are we doing to help?
    1. Keeping children’s separate groups while indoors (i.e., not mixing classes)
    2. Staff are wearing masks
    3. Hand washing/sanitising in the morning and after breaks
    4. If children develop symptoms, they are sent home straight away
    5. Keeping staff at school to teach children through ‘test to stay’ process if cases are in classrooms as per SA Health in school settings (more info here). Staff also stay home if they have mild symptoms.
  3. What about my child’s continued learning while at home?

If your child is absent from school due to COVID-19 or for any other reason, the school will make best endeavours to support their learning continuity.

  1. Staff are not required to provide a full day of learning as they cannot simultaneously teach with both models of learning i.e.: in school and home learning.
  2. Staff will provide learning that is occurring at school and can be sent home and accessed by students. This differs from year level to year level as for older children it is easier to send home learning, for younger children much of the work is with equipment and not on ‘sheets’.
  3. To support home learning you can also access CESA online learning and Our Learning SA. These sites are available to supplement the classes/subject’s learning program.
  4. Obviously, this is only if you and your child are well enough to continue learning.

Thank you for your understanding and support in implementing these measures which are in accordance with the current SA Health advice. 

AGM and School Board

Please save the date: AGM 7pm Wednesday the 6th April (format to be confirmed, it may be a video call via Microsoft Teams).

Calling for new members: In the coming days, we will provide information for you to put forward a nomination for School Board membership. This is a significant role and great way to be involved in planning the future of our school. Joining this year will enable members to be involved as we finalise and bring to reality the new Strategic Plan.

Tuesday is International Women’s Day. We are proud that at St Joseph’s School we encourage diversity and inclusivity for the girls and women in our community. I would like to acknowledge the work done to help build a more equitable world for the girls and women in our community. The students at St Joseph’s are fortunate to have such great role models at school and in our parent community. 

As we work through week 6, I am mindful of the events happening in our community, Australia, and the wider world. The conflict with Ukraine and Russia, floods in our eastern states, passing of Shane Warne and Rod March and locally the recent COVID cases in our school and in SA. The staff and I are working to support children and families as needed, particularly reminding everyone to be kind to others and yourself. 

As we begin the season of Lent, consider what can you avoid doing/saying or do/say more, to be more Christ like in these challenging times.

And in the words of Mary MacKillop:

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Kindest regards,

Jodie Higgins
Principal