Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you so much for your awesome support and positive feedback regarding the learning at home materials we have been providing. It is so heartening to receive positive feedback from a range of families across our school. We opened an email this week from our Regional Office letting us know they had received very positive feedback from one of our families. Our staff were over the moon! Our teachers are in daily contact with every family of our students who are learning from home and the great stories we are hearing have made getting through this difficult time more bearable. If you would like to share some feedback, please let your child’s teacher know or feel free to give us a call.

We know that many of you are wondering, “When will they actually go back to school?” and as I write, we do not know the answer to this. Our government has let us know a decision will be announced in mid-May. This does not stop us thinking about what it will be like for each of our students when they do return, and considering how best we will support their transition back to full time formal learning at school. Children like to know what they are doing and what will come next and for many of our students, the loss of their daily routine and structure related to coming to school, and the loss of connecting with friends and staff through social interactions has been difficult.  Be assured, we will work together to support all our families during this time.

Keep an eye on our Gympie Special School Facebook posts. We will endeavour to post more storytelling, good news, and photos to keep our families updated over the coming weeks. This is a great way for our students and families to stay connected. Have you seen Ardy, our school PBL mascot helping at school this week? Ardy, has been helping to take out our Wheelie bins and is now famous on the Facebook page “Bin Isolation Outing.” Well done Ardy! 

On Friday, we encouraged all of our students at home to dress up as their favourite “Super Hero” and either send their photo into their class teacher via email or add it to the post on Facebook.  

As restrictions begin to ease over the next few weeks, I will continue to provide further information as it becomes available. Stay safe! We are missing you all!

Sarah Lester