Principal
With learning@home underway this week, the school year at Nudgee College has officially started for 2022. Welcome to all new families and welcome back to those who are returning.
It is stating the obvious that this is not how we expected the school year to begin. However, I am grateful for how well the community has adapted to the changes and challenges of this interrupted commencement. The boys across all year levels have been engaged and cooperative and the feedback, thus far, has been overwhelmingly positive. I want to congratulate all the new boys, particularly our Year 5s, who have coped so well with the disrupted start. Overall, it has been a very promising sign for the year ahead.
I do wish to acknowledge the teaching staff for what they have done over the past fortnight that has enabled online classes to go ahead. The plans that they had in place have had to change and change quickly. Our teachers have done this well and our experiences of learning online in the past two years has served us well in this endeavour. The innovative work of teachers in preparing classes online means that we return to school next week with some momentum.
We are certainly looking forward to the return to face to face schooling next Monday. Many of the details of that return were conveyed in our letter to parents last week as well as through various other channels this past week. On Sunday, all our boarders will return to the Boarding Village and boarding families have received communications from Mr Casey Brealy and the Heads of Boarding House about those details.
In welcoming everyone back to school, it is important to draw your attention to the following matters. We return to school while the wider community is learning to live with COVID-19. This means we have to operate school as normal in some regards while also managing the likely presence of the virus in the school. In this context, we are focused on keeping students and staff healthy while also mitigating the risk of further infection.
The fundamental step in this regard is to be clear about our processes and protocols in the Health Management of our community.
In essence:
If your son shows signs of illness before school, do not send him to school. Have him tested and communicate positive results to the school.
If your son shows signs of illness at school, he must report to the Health Centre and we will contact you immediately to take him home and to be tested. Again, please communicate positive results to the school.
If your son is deemed to be a close contact, do not send him to school but please communicate this to the school.
If your son is a boarder, we will communicate with you about how we will manage COVID-19 illness in the Boarding community. At the time of writing, we are still awaiting some more detailed guidelines from Queensland Health.
Further details about our Health Management are contained here. It is clear to us that numerous students will fall ill, as will staff, in the coming weeks. Consequently, we anticipate disruption throughout the first term.
As of next week we will return to face to face teaching and it is not our intention to continue learning@home for students who are close contacts or who are ill with COVID-19. For those in the latter case, the best thing for them is to recover from their illness with rest and recuperation.
We will support the learning of all students who are away from class in various ways. They will have access to all links, resources and activities on their Google Drives. Teachers will ensure this is the case and they will also be available via email to support those who are away from school. Further specific details of ‘Managing Absences and Student Learning’ can be found in Mr Jason Sepetauc’s (Dean of Learning and Teaching) article in this newsletter.
In conclusion, over recent weeks there has been extensive planning from the College Leadership Team for the term ahead during what is likely to be a time of considerable uncertainty. I am grateful for these efforts and their commitment to looking after the health and safety of the school community.
Whatever lies ahead, as we set out on the journey of the 2022 school year, we do so as a Catholic school in the Edmund Rice tradition. Part of that tradition is to know the value of prayer at all times in our lives, not just in times of uncertainty. But at this time, our collective prayer is to remain a hope-filled community that places our humble needs in the hands of God.
With every best wish for the week, term and year ahead.
Mr Peter Fullagar
Principal