Dear families

The new school year is just a few sleeps away. Our teachers have been back at school this week participating in professional learning and preparing for students to return.

There are many questions about the beginning of year and COVID restrictions. To summarise and to ensure Tuesday morning goes as smoothly NPS has the following suggestions:

Arrive as close to 9am as possible. Parents intending to stay more than 15 minutes are required to sign in. We are working on a qr code sign in system to eliminate the need for everyone to go to the front office.
We welcome families to classrooms to support students to settle. As we have a 1 person per 2 square metres rule and we are still required to social distance we are asking families to have 1 adult only enter buildings with students.

COVID-19 Update for Schools in 2021

With the pandemic continuing, the ACT government still has certain restrictions in place across the community. In our school these arrangements are largely the same as in Term 4 last year.

In 2021 we want to keep everyone in our school communities safe and healthy, by operating in a COVID-safe way.

The main restrictions in place for school sites in Term 1 are about gathering size, density and physical distancing.

Gatherings on school sites must not exceed 500 visitors. Students and staff of the school do not count in the 500 person limit
Visitors must not exceed one person per two-square-metres in indoor or outdoor spaces
And all visitors should keep 1.5 metres apart from one another where possible, unless they are from the same family group.

This means, for all activities associated with the normal operation of schools, such as assemblies, the one person per two square metres rule applies up to 500 people using normal school check-in procedures.

For additional school events such as concerts and fetes, visitors must not exceed one person per two square metres in any outdoor spaces. For indoor spaces, the one person per four square metre rule should be applied, however if schools use the Check in CBR app, the density can increase to one person per two square metres.

On day 1, many parents will want to stay a while with their younger children, or escort them to their classrooms. The school is supportive of this with the guidelines above applying. If you plan to stay onsite for longer than 15 minutes, you should sign in at the front office.

If during term 1 groups of staff and students are headed offsite, they must follow the community-wide rules and any restrictions in place at the venue they’re visiting. At present, there are gathering restrictions of 500 people, including staff and students.