From Ms Allum

From Ms Allum

Welcome back, everyone! It has been delightful to see just how smoothly the new school year has unfolded for all of our students K-12, staff and parents – albeit with some adjustments to our usual routines!

I am so impressed with the way our community has been following guidelines and advice in an effort to help keep everyone in our community safe; from students and staff undertaking twice weekly RAHTs, to staff and secondary school students wearing masks indoors. We are slowly starting to restart our usual range of activities in the School, although some of these are still slightly modified to ensure they are completed in a more COVID-smart way. Our Assembly held earlier in the week with some students in the Great Hall while others joined in digitally, and tomorrow’s Co-curricular and Music Expo to be held outdoors (weather permitting), are two examples of how we are settling into the life of the School in 2022.

If parents do need to visit the school, we would again remind you to sign in with the Services NSW QR code, located at each entry point to the School.

As we move into the term, I take this opportunity to highlight some measures for students and parents that will continue to help us maintain everyone’s health and safety.

When does your daughter need to isolate at home, and when can she return to school?

  • If your daughter tests positive for COVID, she must isolate for at least seven days and not return to school until she tests negative and is symptom-free. If your daughter is still testing positive on day nine, please contact the School to make arrangements for a safe return to school.
  • If your daughter has not had COVID but is a household contact of someone who has tested positive for COVID, your daughter must isolate for a full seven days, test negative and be symptom-free before returning to school. In the unfortunate circumstance that an additional (and any subsequent) household member test positive, the seven-day isolation period re-starts.

What to do if your daughter is away (including if she needs to isolate)?

  • Please notify absences@sceggs.nsw.edu.au in the usual way, indicating if your daughter is sick or isolating due to being a household contact.
  • If your daughter is unwell herself, please encourage her to rest and recover first before worrying about catching up on schoolwork!
  • If/when your daughter is well enough to do some work at home, girls in the Secondary School can email their teachers directly to let them know they are feeling up to doing some work and the staff will guide them about the most appropriate tasks to try at home for that subject. Parents of girls in the Primary School can email their daughter’s class teacher for similar guidance.

Notification of positive cases within our school community

I had let you know previously that I would notify parents when a positive case had been onsite. Over the past few days, there have been a handful of new positive cases each day, as well as students who are staying home because they are household contacts, and then of course other non-COVID reasons. I have decided that I won’t email you each day to report new positive cases – I worry that I will just clog up your inboxes and that this will be unhelpful. You should all be super careful to monitor your daughters for symptoms each and every day, and keep them at home even if they have the mildest of symptoms. Please do continue to tell the School when you have a positive RAHT test or PCR test for your daughter (this is a requirement under law from NSW Health), so that we can monitor whether there is any change to the spread of the disease in our community and inform you accordingly.

The School is expecting another RAHT delivery next week. We will let you know as soon as they arrive and send them home with the girls as we did last week.

I will continue to update families as circumstances evolve and new information comes to hand. And as always, please contact any of us at school if you have questions or concerns.

Best wishes
Jenny Allum