WILLIAM DUNCAN STATE SCHOOL · 28/5/2020 · • Year 2-3 students will meet in the Top Undercover Area (area near toilets near Year 2 and 3 classrooms). • Year 4-6 students will

Email: [email protected] Website: www.williamduncanss.eq.edu.au Phone (07) 5581 4888

William Duncan State School

WILLIAM DUNCAN STATE SCHOOL

28 May 2020

Term 2 Week 6

_____________________________________________________

Dear Parents and Carers

This week, we have welcomed back to William Duncan State School our entire student population. It has been an

exciting time for everybody as we welcomed their return. Whilst school is largely ‘business as usual’, we have a

number or procedures in place to ensure we are doing all we can to ensure the safety of our students and staff and

we thank you for your understanding and support in following these guidelines.

After weeks of greatly reduced numbers of students at school, drop off and pick-up times have quickly returned to

quite hectic times with the return of all of our students. At these times, we remind our community that we all need

to be patient, observe the road rules in terms of parking and driving through the carpark and ensure that the safety

of our students and each other needs to be our highest priority. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it’s that life is

precious and we can all afford to slow down a little. Please exercise patience at drop off and pick times.

I have included some repeat messages in relation to our operating guidelines and the need for social distancing.

Please take the time to familiarise yourself with these messages. As restrictions are changed, we will update our

guidelines and communicate them through our newsletter.

Operating Guidelines

Where parents elect to keep their child at home, the parent or carer is responsible for the student’s safety at home

or elsewhere. Teachers will not be expected to lead dual (face-to-face and home-based) modes of teaching and

learning.

Schools will return to ‘business-as-usual’ roll marking arrangements.

If the parent or carer is supervising their child’s learning, failure to attend processes will not be initiated.

All suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases will be escalated (via the Public Health Unit) and any measures such as

self-quarantine/contact tracing will be reported through existing reporting channels. As per our usual protocols and

in accordance with health authority advice, schools may be closed for a short time if there is a confirmed case. This

time will be used to support contact tracing and specialist cleaning as required.

With an increased number of students attending school it is essential that we continue to implement strict hygiene

measures such as:

• Regular handwashing and hand sanitising, particularly before and after eating, and after going to the toilet;

• Increased cleaning of school classrooms, particularly high frequency touch points including water fountains or

bubblers, handrails, desks, etc.;

• Regular cleaning of play equipment and materials (our Prep and Junior play equipment are being cleaned twice a

day and our Senior play equipment remains closed).

Queensland Health advises it is safe to use water fountains or bubblers. However, as always we encourage students

to bring water bottles for personal use.

Schools have also been advised that we must continue to not conduct assemblies, interschool activities, camps,

excursions, sports, swimming or arts events.



The Department of Education and the State’s Chief Health Officer have been made abundantly clear to us that

unwell students are not to attend the school site and the school must ask parents/carers to collect their child from

school if they are unwell.

Social Distancing

As you would be aware, schools have been advised that social distancing is a requirement for all adults and should

be practised wherever possible on school sites to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission in our workplaces. One

of our greatest considerations is around interactions between adults. The advice to schools has been to provide

supervision and direction at entry points to the school to ensure physical distancing is maintained during student

drop off and pick up and to ensure parents/adults do not unnecessarily enter school grounds.

We ask parents and carers to pay particular attention to the requirement for adults to maintain physical distancing

of 1.5m at all times if you need to be on school grounds. Parents and carers should avoid gathering in areas around

the school during this time.

Drop off

• Prep students will continue to meet at the hall.

• Year 1 students will meet in the Junior Undercover Area.

• Year 2-3 students will meet in the Top Undercover Area (area near toilets near Year 2 and 3 classrooms).

• Year 4-6 students will meet in the Tuckshop area.

Pick up

• Prep A and B students are being released to parents waiting on the grassed area near their classrooms.

• Prep C and D students will be walked to the Junior Undercover Area for release in the afternoon.

• All other students (Year 1-6) will be released from their classrooms in the afternoon.

We are asking that for the majority of our students, parents only drop off or collect their children at the drop off

areas and students can make their own way in to and from the school. This might be at the hall or at the front of

the school. Parents should make arrangements with their child about where they will meet their child after school. If

your child is in Prep or Year 1, please communicate this information to your class teacher(s) so they can reinforce the

arrangements with your child(ren).

We would ask parents to be aware of these arrangements and ask that people respect the social distancing rules and

our staff who are supporting students and families.

Please note that at all other times, visitors are expected to come through the main office.

School Uniforms

We are pleased to announce that our uniform shop has reopened and welcome the School Locker team to William

Duncan. The uniform shop is operating out of the LIC where they have previously operated. At this stage the Uniform

Shop will be cashless until further notice due to COVID-19.

Uniform shop operating hours are every Wednesday between 8:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. in the morning and again

between 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon. Uniforms are also available to be purchased from their website

https://theschoollocker.com.au/schools/william-duncan-state-school. Orders can be placed online for click and

collect or delivery to a home address.

At present we have limited stock levels in the jumpers (fleecy) in sizes 4, 14 and 16. Sizes 6, 8, 10 and 12 are the

popular sizes and we are expecting our new Zip-up Jacket to arrive in all sizes in a couple of weeks’ time. We do have

a limited supply of our current Zip-up Jacket in size 4 and a few left in the Microfibre Zip-up Jacket in sizes 12, 14 and

16.



S.T.A.R Bonze Awards

This week we continued to present our S.T.A.R Bonze Awards to students who have demonstrated our school values

of Safety, Trust, Achievement and Respect for a period of ten weeks. Our teachers are tracking our students each

week and getting feedback from our Specialist Teachers, Relief Teachers and Playground Duty Staff to ensure our

students are demonstrating our values in all settings.

We will continue to present Bronze Awards each week to students who have achieved 10 weeks of STAR Behaviour.

We have many students who have almost achieved the goal. We encourage these students to keep persisting and

giving their best effort to reach the Bronze Award. We will ensure that students who return to school next week will

receive their awards.

Students who have achieved their Bronze Award are now working towards their Silver Award and then, ultimately,

Gold. Congratulations to all of our recipients.

Semester 1 Reporting

Reporting for this semester will look quite different to other semesters of schooling due to the unusual

circumstances we find ourselves in. Guidance from the Queensland Department of Education is that schools should:

• Report on English, Maths, Science and one other learning area.

• In Years 1-6 provide a grade for achievement. (No grade is required for Prep)

• Indicate that all levels of achievement are based on evidence of work in Term 1, when students attended

school face to face, and the evidence of work from both the home-based learning program and face to face

teaching program in Term 2.

As students return to school, staff will ascertain where students are and ensure that learning for all students

commences. As always, our staff will communicate with families as we move forward and can discuss where our

students are in terms of their learning and discuss our way forward together.

Report cards will be emailed home at the end of this term.

We thank you again for your continued understanding, patience and support. We will continue to focus on the

welfare of our students and our community and very much look forward to everybody returning. Restrictions are

slowly being lifted so please continue to do the right thing.

National Sorry Day

Tuesday was an important day for all Australians as it marked National Sorry Day 2020, a day of recognition for the

treatment of Indigenous Australians over past generations. Sorry Day allowed us to come together as Australians

and share history, stories and steps towards healing for the stolen generations and their families. William Duncan

students set aside some time to share stories and complete activities to acknowledge this time. Thank you to Mrs

Wilkinson for providing resources for our classes to access.

Have a great week!

Regan Gant

Principal



SOME OF OUR BRONZE STAR AWARD RECIPIENTS





MUSIC NEWS

Music Report – Ms Melissa Cole

As the students return to school this week (Monday 25 May) our Instrumental Music lessons have also commenced. Under the present EQ Operating Guidelines we are unable to have rehearsals at this time, so there will be NO rehearsals (before school) for the Choir, Band or String Ensembles, only lessons. I will be hosting a ‘Singing Club’ for the Choir students who wish to come and sing with me each Monday at 1pm (lunchtime) in the Music

Room. This ‘Singing Club’ is only for the students currently enrolled in the Choir; it is not a rehearsal, just an opportunity for students to sing. Attendance is not compulsory, however I would love to see the Choir students there! Term 2 Instrumental Music Fees are due now!

These fees are essential in providing funds for us to repair and care for our instruments to maintain their high quality. Your co-operation in this matter is greatly appreciated. If problems exist, please contact me at the school on 5581 4888.



SCHOOL PLUS NEWS

Well, we are half-way into Term 2. We welcomed back some old familiar faces who we hadn’t seen in a

while, both children and our valuable staff members.

Throughout the week the children have had a lot of fun and exciting activities to participate in, such as:

making their own friendship bracelets and discussing what friendship means, dancing activities, decorating

pot plants and planting vegetable seeds in them, hall games with various children’s choice games

(including the ever popular – paper, scissors, rock) and our Sports Club which had the children extending

their basketball skills from the previous week. It’s been wonderful to see the change in the children’s gross

motor skills.

We were excited to see your happy faces again.

Lucya Pierce

School Plus Coordinator



FINANCE

OPEN MONDAY, TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY

8:00AM – 10.00AM

2020 STUDENT RESOURCE SCHEME FEES OVERDUE

TERM 2 STUDENT RESOURCE SCHEME FEES OVERDUE

TERM 3 STUDENT RESOURCE SCHEME FEES NOW DUE

SCHOOL BANKING NEWS

Following the recent easing of Coronavirus restrictions, we are currently assessing options to resume our

School Banking program. The health and safety of our communities and our people remain our priority and

so we have engaged Principals to complete a short survey to help provide further insights to help us with

this decision. Each state is different and some schools are still operating with a mixture of home schooling

and face to face learning which creates further challenges in resuming the program.

After we receive the survey results, we will communicate the recommencement date of the program. Until

that time, the School Banking program will remain on pause.

Kind Regards,

Veronica

Veronica Howarth Head of School Banking Commonwealth Bank



TUCKSHOP NEWS



Would you like to

thank a staff

member at

William Duncan?

Gift vouchers are

available in the

tuckshop. Order

online or over the

counter!













Documents

WILLIAM DUNCAN STATE SCHOOL · 28/5/2020 · • Year 2-3 students will meet in the Top Undercover Area (area near toilets near Year 2 and 3 classrooms). • Year 4-6 students will