Executive Director's Update to Principals #46: COVID Update - 6 Aug 2021

God of our longing, we "are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time," and yet, what we feel is You:

Walking with us.
Breathing life into our tired hands and hearts.
Demonstrating daily how we all might be brought to redemption in the weaving together of our lives.

Updated School Operations Guide

An updated Term 3 School Operations Guide is now available to download from CEVN. A summary of pertinent changes is below. 

Student attendance on site

Consistent with previous arrangements, schools must continue to provide on-site supervision for students in the following categories:

1. Children where both parents and/or carers are authorised workers who cannot work from home, work for an essential provider and where no other supervision arrangements can be made:

• Where there are two parents/carers, both must be authorised workers, working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision
• For single parents/carers, the authorised worker must be working outside the home in order for their children to be eligible for on-site provision.

2. Children experiencing vulnerability, including:

• children in out-of-home care
• children deemed vulnerable by a government agency, funded family or family violence service, and is assessed as requiring education and care outside the family home
• children identified by a school as vulnerable, including via referral from a government agency, or funded family or family violence service, homeless or youth justice service or mental health or other health service.
• Where a parent/carer indicates that a student with a disability is vulnerable because they cannot learn from home, and/or informs the school the student is vulnerable due to family stress, the school must provide on-site supervision for that student. This may apply to students enrolled in specialist schools and students with a disability enrolled in mainstream schools.

On-site supervision must be available from tomorrow Friday 6 August at all Catholic schools, but only for students in the categories listed above, for the purpose of providing continuity of teaching, learning and support.

Students attending on site must be supervised at all times by staff with either current Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registration or a Working with Children Check.

COVIDSafe principles for schools should continue to be followed for on-site supervision, including staying home when unwell and getting tested, practising good hygiene and wearing a mask both indoors and outdoors when outside of home.

With these COVIDSafe measures in place, schools continue to be safe environments for staff and students on site.

School enrolment census

The deadline for submission of the 2021 School Enrolment Census has been extended to Friday 13 August.

VRQA exemption

I have received a letter from Jonathan Kaplan, CEO of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA), advising that Catholic schools have been given an exemption from the requirement for a registered school to have a curriculum framework in place that substantially addresses the learning areas set out in Schedule 1 of the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic.). 

The exemption will continue until the end of Term 3, 2021 unless the VRQA receives advice from the Victorian Government that the model of flexible and remote learning is no longer required. 

The  letter is available on the CEVN website.

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