Page 3102 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 9 November 2021
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a huge part in keeping our children and young people as safe as possible during the pandemic and have required a significant rethink of business as usual in education.
We are fortunate to have expert health advice to follow. The ACT’s Chief Health Officer developed a comprehensive set of health guidelines to keep our students and staff safe, drawing from the latest international and national advice. School staff have worked hard to implement these guidelines, developing a COVID-19 assurance plan for each school.
Key measures include the phased return of students to school in order to maximise physical distancing on campus while the ACT reached important vaccination milestones; vaccinations for students older than 12; priority vaccination appointments for school and early childhood staff and mandatory vaccinations for staff working around children under 12; well-known measures like using the Check In CBR app, wearing masks, ensuring good hand hygiene and additional cleaning; improving ventilation in classrooms—all 3,500 learning spaces in ACT public schools have been assessed and every school now has an indoor air quality plan to ensure the circulation of fresh air; and, finally, physical distancing.
While distancing in schools posed an obvious challenge the Chief Health Officer suggested a system to achieve this goal. Schools have divided students into groups or cohorts which remain physically separated from others. Groups may have their own gate to enter school. They might use different toilet blocks, have their own designated part of the playground at lunchtime, and staggered break times. The measures help contain an outbreak to one part of the school and keep the number of potential contacts to a minimum. What is remarkable is that this extraordinary reorganisation of schools has been achieved in a matter of weeks. Our school staff have done this planning during lockdown while continuing to teach their students online and looking after the children of essential workers and vulnerable students on campus.
The education of our children and young people is one of the ACT government’s highest priorities, and we have made available an additional $5.7 million from the COVID-19 response fund for the fourth term this year to assist this safe return of students and staff. There is funding to improve ventilation and pay for more relief teachers, as well as for extra masks and hand sanitiser.
Importantly, as we renew our focus on student and staff wellbeing, there is funding for additional counselling staff. We have just announced $12.63 million to continue these measures through the first half of next year, including the continuation of additional cleaning. An additional $2.232 million is expected to be recovered from the commonwealth to fund cleaning costs.
The pandemic may be a significant challenge but it is one that is being surmounted by a whole-of-government approach. We have seen that through the remarkably smooth transition back to school witnessed around the territory.
The ACT scaling test was successfully staged for year 12 students wanting to attend university. Thousands of students sat the test without incident or COVID-19 cases.
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