Dear Parents and Carers,
Normally at this time of year I am writing about how busy the end of Term 1 one was and how we have a busy term ahead planned. This has certainly been a different experience to our normal school routine and has had all of us on a steep learning curve. I could not be more proud of our students and families for the way they adapted first to online learning and then to remote learning, and always with such a positive outlook. Both the staff and I have been inundated with emails of thanks and positive comments from parents. The students are responding well, although missing school. The staff have done an amazing job to provide remote learning to all students, despite the uncertainty of the direction we were headed in. I thank the staff for all they have done and for the many hours (including school holidays) they have spent preparing the remote learning. I thank the students and families for their flexibility, understanding and efforts with remote learning.

Students Return to School
At this stage Catholic Education, and in turn St Benedict’s, are planning for a return to face to face learning in the near future based on health and government advice. We expect the timetable for this will be clear by early next week. National cabinet are meeting on this and other issues on Friday. Information from this and other government advice will inform further decisions made by Catholic Education.

Mr Ross Fox, Director of Catholic Education, is hopeful that the Chief Health Officer of the ACT, or her nominee, will be available to brief Principals on the health advice covering our return to school. It is Catholic Education’s intention to return to face to face teaching as soon as it is safe and reasonable to do so for students and staff in their local context. Whilst amazing work has been done by all staff in schools to provide a remote learning program that can be accessed at school and home, we believe that face to face teaching offers the best learning experience for students, academically and pastorally. Feedback from parents suggests that as we are able to offer face to face teaching and learning more parents will be attracted to send their children to school.

In developing plans for a return to face to face learning and high attendance levels it is also possible that circumstances, for example the community transmission context, may change at short notice and we will need to adapt our plans accordingly. School community members are also reminded that social distancing regimes need to continue for adults. More information will follow about changes to school routines to accommodate social distancing regimes.

The school is currently putting in place routines to ensure the ongoing care for students and staff. Consideration is being given to hygiene, routine care, physical distancing, environmental cleaning and the potential management of suspected and confirmed cases.

God bless.

Rachel Smith
Principal