Welcome Back,

Those of you who have been able to pop in would have seen the demolition of the 8 transportable classrooms and the Uniform Shop. As the children note, it certainly has opened up a larger space for our new building and Nature Play.

We anticipate that the demolition will be completed by Thursday and then there will be a period of quiet before we begin the earthworks for Stage 1D the next 7 new classrooms, STEM area and Junior Nature Play.

On ‘opening up’ we feel confident that we can safely revert to offering parents the opportunity to come into the school at the beginning and end of day to visit classrooms etc. but of course maintaining social distancing protocols. If the newer routines of drop off at the gate continues to work for you, there will be a teacher on duty to see that children get to their designated space in the playground ready for line-up.  

Over the break we put the finishing touches on the new building so please feel free to drop in and have a close look at our new building.

Modified Sports Day

As you know we have held off Sports Day for as long as possible in the hope we could offer our normal St Pius X Sports Day. The most up to date advice is as follows

Social distancing and density requirements re School events

• Adults need to continue physical distancing of 1.5 metres whenever and wherever possible. This requirement does not apply to people who live together.
• Physical distancing requirements do not apply to children / students; however, they are still strongly encouraged to maintain good hand hygiene and use non-contact forms of greeting.
• In order to control attendee numbers, we strongly recommend that you ask guests to RSVP to your event. An attendee list will also more easily allow for contact tracing, if necessary.

Even though we have decided to split the Sports Day events into a Junior and Senior Sports day over 2 days and utilise the Mega Courts Space, it is clear that we cannot have all of the children competing on the courts and oval with potentially 150- 200 spectators. Nor would we be able to open up Mega-Courts to the many families who would like to spectate.

I have spoken to my colleagues in Catholic Schools and general practice has been to hold a Modified Sports day for the children to enjoy, but unfortunately for 2020, without family spectators. Thus 2020 St Pius X Sports Day will be a school personnel and children only event. We will take lots of photos and video footage and upload these to Seesaw so that you will at least see the children in this way.

Details of Modified Sports Day

Thursday October 22: Modified Sports Day for R-2’s. (School personnel and Students Only)

Friday October 23: Modified Sports Day for Year 3-6 (School Personnel and Students Only)

We will film the Team Chants, final presentations and awards so that you will be able to enjoy the results and the holding up of trophies. Again I apologise for the horrible restrictions that this COVID-19 has brought to our ongoing experience. However, let us be thankful that the children are able to take part and enjoy, unlike children in Victoria and many other countries. And may 2021 return us to school life that we have come to know and appreciate prior to 2020.

God Bless