Term 1 Week 2 2022

Important Updates for families

Dear families

Thank you to those who were able to join us for the Meet and Greet on Friday. We certainly enjoyed seeing you on site and know there may not be as many opportunities to do so in the near future.

For those who were unable to make it, I wanted to share the information discussed with families about our COVID-19 arrangements and Request for Therapy services at Malibu.

COVID-19 

All of our staff are following the vaccinations and mask wearing requirements. Staff may remove their masks when providing instruction in class.

Our ventilation needs have been assessed and we are following the requirements for the use of our windows, doors and are using air conditioning and air filters where required.

Our Junior block students still arrive through our main student entry though our Middle and Senior cluster students now access the side gate to get to their classes. This is helping us to reduce the movement of many people through certain areas of the school.

We are keeping to our Cluster groups as much as possible. All students and staff do access some areas of the school – such as the Science, STEM, Art and Music Room as well as the Library and Health Centre. We have prioritised extra cleaning for these areas.

We are thinking of ways to reduce the risk of whole-school exposure. Our planned assemblies are now on hold while we consider new ways to celebrate our students’ achievements. During the Meet and Greet, many of you said you were supportive of online options – videos that we can share with you via Seesaw. Small group or class events, filmed and sent to you, is likely the way our future assemblies will be held.

At this stage, planned events like the Middle School Open Day, Harmony Day and Colour Run will still go ahead and you will be notified if this changes.

Quarantining and isolating – As things progress, more of us are likely to be at an exposure site or be close to someone who has been.  Up-to-date information on quarantine and isolation can be found at www.healthywa.wa.gov.au. Please continue to monitor this website for updated advice. You may also be eligible for a Test Isolation Payment – please click here.

Your help please - Our biggest request to our families is to keep your child home if they have any symptoms. This includes if they have a runny nose, cough, sore throat, fever. WA Health advice requests that anyone who has symptoms gets tested and remain home until a negative COVID-19 test result is received. We know many of you work and ask that you please help us to keep everyone as healthy as possible. Further information about symptoms can be found at www.healthywa.wa.gov.au

Therapy at school

During the Meet and Greet on Friday, I discussed with those present the planned changes to our Therapy Request review processes and have attached a copy of the presentation for your reference.

In summary, over the last two years therapists have been encouraged to work with the students away from the classroom. This has resulted in little communication between the therapists and teachers which seems a waste of a valuable resources and expertise. I believe we should all be aware of and working together on common goals and we are now looking for new ways of working with parents and therapists.

Our hope is by forging greater connections with therapists, we can work together to build our skills too, so that the children are getting exposure to targeted strategies every day - where appropriate. This is particularly relevant if COVID-19 restrictions or therapist absences prevents continuity of service on site.

Cluster Deputies have started reviewing this year’s Requests for Therapy forms (developed and made available via our website to families and therapists early last year) to ensure goals and strategies are robust and meaningful. Where we can, we will consider alternative ways of working with therapists (in collaboration with teachers and parents) to eliminate any strategies that we already provide or strategies that are not reasonable or necessary. In determining what is considered reasonable and necessary, we are also guided by what is described by the dot points found on the NDIS website which states a support or service:

• must be related to a participant’s disability
• must not include day-to-day living costs not related to your disability support needs, such as groceries
• should represent value for money
• must be likely to be effective and work for the participant, and
• should take into account support given to you by other government services, your family, carers, networks and the community.

Ultimately, this will be a very case by case process as all of our children have very unique abilities and need. 

Please follow this link to the Request for Therapy form for your reference. If you have not yet reviewed the document, please do so with your therapists at your earliest convenience. The requests must be signed by parents or carers to evidence that our families are informed and  seeking permission for the therapist to visit their child at school.

Our main aim is to educate and empower our families and strengthen the alignment of goals through a valued working relationships between teachers and therapists. The staff and I believe very strongly that this is a very positive approach which is founded on improving student outcomes.  I can assure you that no child or family will be disadvantaged as a result to our planned changes to the Request for Therapy practices.

We hope you will take the opportunity to learn more at the upcoming IEP meeting with your child’s teacher. If you have not yet arranged a time to meet, please do so soon. 

In the meantime, you are most welcome to contact your child’s teacher or Deputy if you have any questions about the Request for Therapy process or would like to discuss support strategies and resources that may benefit your child.

Enjoy a wonderful week.

Kind regards

Merrilee