Under the direction of the Victorian State Government, the school holidays will be brought forward in Victoria, starting on Tuesday 24th March. This means St John the Apostle will close as from 3:15pm Monday, 23rd March.
What does this mean for our school families?
We thank families for their support and understanding as the school, along with all sectors of the community do their best to put in place contingency plans to cope with the challenges we face with the COVID-19. With the details currently available to us, this is what we can share as we plan the way forward.
- The final day of school for students and staff is Monday, 23rd March.
- The school under direction of the Catholic Education Melbourne will take two student free days on Tuesday, 14th & Wednesday, 15th April. On these days staff will test online learning platforms in readiness for an extended school closures should this be deemed necessary by the government.
- Students in Year 3 to 6 will take home their Chromebook and charger tomorrow (Monday, 23rd March)
- Families who have chosen to self-isolate can collect their child’s Chromebook from the school anytime between 9am and 4pm Monday, 23rd March or Tuesday, 14th April.
- The Google Suite Platform (Google Classroom, Google Meet and Gmail) will be disabled over the school holidays and reactivated after the holidays should continuation of learning online be required. (This is to prevent unmonitored use of these online tools by students over the break)
Ongoing information updates – School Website
The school collected parent emails for the purpose of adding parents to the Google Classroom as guardians. We have decided that these will not be the mode of communication during the closure as responding to individual parents emails in this situation is unsustainable.
Instead we ask that families check for updates under the News & Events section of the school website. An update will be posted on Thursday, 9th April and another on Monday, 13th April to keep families informed of the return to school dates.
Prayer and Community Support
It is during time such as these that our Catholic faith calls us to prayer and to reflect on scripture. We must remember the words of Jesus upon appearing before his disciples after his resurrection: Again and again he said ‘peace be with you.’ (Jn 20:19) Let us not panic, nor be anxious, nor reduce ourselves to caring only for ourselves. This is a time to be sensible, practical, prayerful, and to share Christ’s peace with those who are struggling to feel calm and safe.
Once again, I would like to thank all school families for the way they have worked to support the school in managing this challenging situation. We look forward to your continued support in the coming weeks.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. Simon Dundon
(Principal)