Horsley Herald Term 4 Week 8 2021

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you for your ongoing support during this time as we continue to work together to ensure the health and wellbeing of our school community. It has been a challenging year with many of our usual school events and activities being changed or cancelled.

The school continues to adhere to NSW Health and Department of Education NSW guidelines. COVID safe measures are in place, until the end of the year including student cohorting, physical distancing, ventilation, hygiene and cleaning and staff wearing masks whilst indoors. These measures allow us to prioritise student, staff and parent wellbeing while we keep schools operational. At all times, parents are asked to:
• closely monitor their child/ren for symptoms for COVID-19 and immediately get tested or see a doctor should you have the mildest of symptoms.
• If your child/ren gets tested for COVID-19 because they have symptoms or if you have been directed by NSW Health to do so, your child/ren must isolate at home until receiving the test result. Children at school who present with any COVID-19 symptoms will have parents contacted and sent home and must not return to school unless they have:
• a negative COVID-19 test result and are symptom free
• a medical clearance certificate from the doctor or
• isolated for 10 days, when no medical certificate is available

Changes to Operations for the remainder of Term 4
In order to minimise disruptions caused to schools by COVID-19 cases, and to maximise the time our students have learning in the classrooms a number of changes to operations for schools will be introduced from Monday 29 November for the remainder of Term 4.

Rapid antigen 'test-to-stay' program A rapid antigen home testing (RAHT) ‘test-to-stay’ program will be available to any student who is a close contact of a COVID-19 case in a school setting. This will enable them to get back to school immediately following a negative PCR test and on the basis they do daily RAHTs before attending school across 7 consecutive days. This means that our students' learning is able to continue with minimal interruptions following a positive COVID-19 case. Full support will be available to help you implement this should it be required at our school and many other schools and students are already using RAHTs successfully.
Singing, chanting and instruments that rely on breath allowed outdoors In line with community settings, instruments that rely on breath and singing and chanting will now be permitted if held outdoors, within cohorts, with distancing in place and where there is no sharing of instruments. Under these same conditions music classes, bands, ensembles, group repetition and choirs within cohorts can also resume. An update to our cleaning protocols NSW public schools are cleaned by professional cleaners each day, guided by expert advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), the National Health and Medical Research
Council and NSW Health. As we have already seen in many schools, cohorting and our other COVID-safe layers of protection have been effective at minimising disruption. NSW Heath has provided clear advice, based on evidence that the department's regular clean, day clean and enhanced clean provides a more than sufficient layer of protection in schools for students and staff. NSW Health have advised there is no health and safety benefit to undertaking an environmental clean which is highly disruptive to a school’s ongoing operations and can close a school for up to 2 days. This is another important change that will get students back into classrooms faster in parallel with the ‘test-to-stay’ program. You can read more on the department's website about the different levels of cleaning in place in our schools. Please continue to refer to the department's Advice for families page for the latest information on settings in our schools. 

https://education.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/advice-for-families?deliveryName=DM22524

I thank you for your ongoing support with all the above information. If anyone in your family is feeling unwell, please isolate until you receive a negative result. If someone in your family does receive a positive test result, please notify our school. We will treat this information confidentially but ensure we put plans in place in case of becoming non-operational. We are all working together to keep our school as safe as it can be.

Presentation Day - Thursday 9th December, 2021

Our Annual Presentation Day will look different his year. On Thursday 9^th December we will be holding our annual school assembly under our school COLA and presenting students with awards. We will send out more information this week.

Election Day BBQ - Help needed - Saturday 4th December, 2021

Can parents please support the P&C election day BBQ. Our P&C do a fabulous job supporting our school. The last 2 years fundraising has been impossible due to COVID restrictions. This is a great opportunity to raise some funds to buy resources for your children at school. If you could just provide two hours of your time to help run the BBQ on Saturday 4th December at school it would be very much appreciated. Please contact the school office or the P&C email hppspnc@gmail.com with your availability.

Welcome Kinder 2022 Students!

We are excited to welcome our Kinder 2022 students through our Early Endeavours Afternoon program. If you wish to attend and haven't enrolled, jump on our school website and follow the links to enrol on line or contact our school office who can assist.