This term we have seen a very substantial number of students and staff being forced into isolation due to becoming infected with COVID-19 or being designated a household contact.

While we were all told to be aware that there would be very high levels of community transmission, I must confess that the magnitude of the spread and the number of people affected has still come as somewhat of a surprise.

Throughout the entirety of the pandemic, the School has tried to meticulously follow the recommended health advice in order to prioritise the safety of our community members. We have purchased air purifiers for our classrooms and offices. We have ensured windows stay open and have instituted outdoor learning spaces. We have provided hand sanitiser stations around the school and in classrooms. We have distributed Rapid Antigen Tests and asked our community to test twice weekly. We have established hybrid learning to allow our students to maintain access to their classes.

Despite all these measures, we are experiencing a surge in students and staff being forced into week-long isolation. The reality is that this is a highly infectious virus that is very difficult to curtail. In fact, the current dominant strain is said to be as infectious as measles which is amongst the most transmissible diseases.

You may be aware that this week we reintroduced indoor mask wearing for Year 7 through to Year 12. Year 3 to Year 6 were already required by the government to do this, but we have decided that in an attempt to curb infections we would undertake this initiative until a decrease in caseload allows us to reconsider.

I hope that you appreciate that the School is striving very hard to support the health of our students and staff. Now I wish to ask for your support. I ask you to consider what you can do to assist in the reduction of transmission of the virus.

We ask that families support the twice weekly rapid testing regime. It is essential that we catch the asymptomatic cases early so that we can prevent them from unknowingly infecting others. We also request that you are vigilant about not sending students to school with COVID-19 like symptoms. There have been a number of cases where individuals have derived a false sense of security from a negative rapid test and ignored symptoms only to test positive on a PCR or subsequent rapid test.

One of the features of living with COVID-19 is that instead of cancelling events we are trying where possible to forge ahead albeit with heightened safety measures. We are working tirelessly to ensure that there is a rich and broad range of curricular and cocurricular learning opportunities available to our students. While some of our students are unfortunately in isolation and have to access these through our Hybrid learning program, we are committed to ensuring that all our students are able to enjoy the peak experiences and full calendar of events that are such an important part of a contemporary education.

I do hope that in the coming weeks the current surge in cases reduces and we are able to experience more normal operation with full in-person attendance. I take this opportunity to wish those who have been impacted by COVID-19 a refuah shlema v’mehira.

Shabbat Shalom,

Marc