Welcome to back to school all students of Bowen State School! It has been lovely walking around and seeing everybody catch up and reconnect with their friends after such long time. There is a certain amount of vibrancy that we all have at the beginning of the year that we have now. It’s not too late to make something of 2020 and this is the message that I will be sharing amongst our students.

Attendance

It has been a while since I have had the chance to talk about school wide attendance, but with everybody back there is no better time than now to talk about and celebrate attending school.

The decision to return to school for all Queensland students is supported by the Queensland’s Chief Health Officer and aligns with progressive easing of restrictions as part of the Government’s response to COVID-19.

It is recognised that some parents of students may still wish to keep their children home from school due to concerns about COVID-19. This is an acceptable decision and your child will not be marked as being absent, rather that they are learning from home under your supervision. I do ask that you notify the school via the office each day that this is your intention and access the learning@home website which includes details about Learning@Home TV programs. In these cases, parents and carers remain responsible for their child’s learning. This includes ensuring their child/ren stay at home and continue their learning using the materials outlined above.

If your child is unable to come to school for sickness or whatever reason, please notify the school office each day of absences as per pre-Covid times.

We are open for business and are encouraging all students back to school. This week’s attendance rate was 89.5% which is below our target of 93%. Given the current circumstances, we should take it week by week as far as reaching this goal. For the next 2 weeks, it would be great to see our attendance rate rise to 91% so keep coming to school.

We have had some outstanding attendance amongst certain classes around the school. A special shout out goes to the following classes that achieved an overall attendance rate of 96% and above.

What's Great at Bowen State... Episode Two

Jeremy Callaghan

Deputy Principal