• Mandatory mask wearing for staff in all schools, and all high school students unless they have an exemption.
• Masks supplied if they wish to wear one for students in Years 3 to 6 but not mandated.

Provision of RAT and Process for Students and Staff who are unwell:

• There will be priority access to Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) at Queensland Health testing clinics for students and staff who have COVID-19 symptoms.
• RATs will be available at school for students and staff who develop symptoms while on site. Staff will not be administering RATs with children. The parent/carer will be required to collect the student. Upon collection the parent/carer will be given a RAT to administer once off site.

The school should then be notified of the result. If an administered test is positive then home isolation must commence. The same process will be followed by staff if they become symptomatic whilst on site.

Provision of Education

• Teachers have begun face to face teaching and learning cycles from the 7th of February 2022.
• If students are at home in isolation for a period of time or if a parent/carer decides to delay their child’s start to school, learning can continue via Learning@Home online resource.
• Teachers will only be operating in Face to Face education delivery at this time.

You can access the Back to School plan here, and further information and FAQs on the Department of Education COVID-19 website.

Face Masks- All Adults in Schools

When to wear a mask

All adults are required to wear a mask while on school grounds unless you are seated or physical distancing of 1.5m can be maintained. It is very difficult to maintain a distance of 1.5m in our school before and after school as there are a lot of children, parents and staff moving around the school and our walkways do not allow us the opportunity to safely distance without a mask on. For this reason, I ask you to keep your masks on, at all times, when in the school grounds.

Unwell children

Essential to the success of these measures is that if your child is unwell or displaying any COVID-19 symptoms, they must not attend school. I cannot emphasise this message strongly enough – it is critical to keeping our school community safe. Your child, if they have COVID-19 symptoms, can visit your local Queensland health testing clinic and will be given priority access to a free RAT.

Communication

If you have any questions or need support in any way, please ensure that you contact the school via phone or email between the hours of 8am to 4pm. Our contact details are:

Phone: 49 758 333

Email: admin@calliopess.eq.edu.au

FINAL THOUGHT

Regards,

Coralie Ditchmen

Acting Principal