We are alerting everyone in the St Ita’s learning community that we have had an outbreak of Chickenpox across our school. Chickenpox can be a serious disease in adults and babies. It is very contagious. Vaccination is the best protection against chickenpox.

Chickenpox (also called varicella) causes an itchy, blistering skin rash and mild fever. It is usually a mild disease that lasts for a short time in healthy children, but it can be more severe in adults.

What are the symptoms of chickenpox?

The main symptom is an itchy red rash that turns into blisters, which then burst and crust over. Chickenpox can also cause flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache and sore throat. Symptoms usually start about two weeks after catching chickenpox. The symptoms stay from between 10 to 21 days.

How do you get chickenpox?

Chickenpox spreads:

• When an infected person coughs or sneezes, and you breathe in virus particles
• By direct contact with the fluid from someone else’s chickenpox blisters.
• Chickenpox is very contagious. It spreads easily through families, childcare centres and schools.

How do you prevent chickenpox?

Vaccination is the best protection against chickenpox.

The chickenpox vaccine prevents most, but not all, people getting chickenpox and complications caused by the disease. Immunised children who get chickenpox generally have a much milder form of the disease. They have fewer skin lesions, a lower fever and recover more quickly. Chickenpox vaccination also protects you from developing shingles later in life.

If you have chickenpox, you can help stop the disease spreading by:

• staying away from childcare, school, work or other places where you could spread the infection – your doctor will tell you when you are no longer infectious
• washing your hands often
• covering your coughs and sneezes.
• How do you know if you have chickenpox?
• If you think you or one of your family members has chickenpox, see your doctor. Chickenpox is usually diagnosed by looking at the rash. It is important to let the receptionist know of your concern so that you can be separated from other people in the waiting room.
• Your doctor may ask about your symptoms and whether you’ve been in contact with someone who has chickenpox. If your doctor thinks you have chickenpox, they can test some of the fluid from the blisters to see if it has the virus in it. 

NAPLAN ONLINE

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) will take place on line this year between Tuesday 11th May and Friday 21st May 2021.

Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 participate in the annual NAPLAN tests in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy.

The assessment provides parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests.

NAPLAN is just one aspect of a school’s assessment and reporting process – it does not replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about student performance.

NAPLAN also provides schools, education authorities and governments with information about how education programs are working and whether young Australians are achieving important educational outcomes in literacy and numeracy.

NAPLAN assesses literacy and numeracy skills that students are learning through their regular school curriculum. All government and non-government education authorities have contributed to the development of NAPLAN materials. Students are assessed on the same literacy and numeracy curriculum content, regardless of whether they complete the tests online or on paper. Results for both formats can be reported on the same NAPLAN assessment scale.

All students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are expected to participate in the annual NAPLAN assessment. Students with disability may qualify for adjustments that reflect the support normally provided for classroom assessments. You should discuss the use of any adjustments for your child with your child’s teacher.

A student with a disability that severely limits their capacity to participate in the assessment, or a student who has recently arrived in Australia and has a non-English speaking background, may be granted a formal exemption. Your school principal and your local test administration authority can give you more information on special provisions or the process required to gain a formal exemption.

If a child is absent, schools may arrange for individual students to complete missed tests at another time during the school’s test schedule but not outside of it.

NAPLAN TIMETABLE 

ETIQUETTE FOR KIDS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PATIENCE

We spend a lot of our time as parents teaching our kids how they are expected to behave at home, at school or a somebody’s house; but what happens when we take them out to public places, maybe to a restaurant, or an important social event. When we go to these events, we want to have a pleasant time, eat and drink while enjoying a conversation and we have a picture in our minds of having well-behaved children, right? So our first thought is to give them specific rules of behaviour that they must follow.

This is where my mixture of psychology and etiquette go into play. It is crucial to start educating our children in good manners starting at an early age, but keep in mind that a child’s cognitive and behavioural ability is very much related to their age and development, children are not robots, while we teach them manners we must also keep in mind that they are kids, this is why it is so important to learn as much as possible about discipline techniques, emotional intelligence, what can we normally expect from their developmental age, most importantly we must work on ourselves as parents! I can’t tell you how much of their future behaviour is going to depend on our behaviour as parents, what environment are they growing in, how do we talk and behave in front of them, how do we discipline them, our level of patience, do we build or shatter their self-esteem (At times without even realising it). All these aspects go into play when we are teaching our children social skills. It is really a long-term process which requires, repetition and a lot, A LOT of patience.

When it comes to taking my kids to public places, I want to work not only on social rules which believe me require repetition! But also, I want to work on patience.

Patience

OK so let’s get patience out the way first, why? Because impatience is something very typical in children. Their concept of time is different than ours; to begin with, small children don’t even understand how to tell time, and secondly, for them, the process of waiting takes forever! Teaching them to handle the frustration that comes with displaying patience is a process that takes time and will be acquired with lots of practice.

On the other hand, it is important as parents to help them learn how to handle frustration and learn positive and appropriate ways to wait patiently, and I say this because we are raising kids in a technology era in which they have iPhone, iPads, and Nintendos. Although we might sometimes give these to them, we have to be aware that if we don’t expose them to situations in which they have to practice patience and learn to deal with the frustration that comes with waiting without giving them the iPad or Nintendo, they won’t learn how to do in a positive way, so we have to put limits.

Here are some strategies to help you teach your child how to be more patient:

1. Set an example. Always! kids learn by modelling

We always need to keep in mind the concept of modelling when raising kids. They are watching and listening to every word we say, so be aware of how you behave in times in which you need to wait patiently (In traffic, at the doctor, in a long line, when our child takes a long time to eat) How many times without even realising do we display attitudes that do not really show them how to handle frustration but on the other hand shows them anxiety? It really starts with us as parents and when we make mistakes and we lose our patience, we must apologise and use those moments as learning experiences.

2. Be flexible

We are dealing with kids so we must work on our patience ourselves. There will be situations which will be extremely hard for your child to practice patience (If your child is hungry, tired, sleepy, cranky) In these cases we also must be a little understanding and breathe. I also highly advise to use routines and schedules, program your day according to what you need to do in advance.

3. Expose them to situations that require waiting

By age 2, we can start teaching them how to wait patiently. It can be as little as two minutes and in everyday situations like waiting for a toy or waiting for a sandwich. You see kids are raised in an environment in which they get everything right away so how can we expect them to learn to wait patiently at a restaurant when they have been used to get what they want as soon as they ask for it.

4. Teach positive behaviours.

How to ask for things in a courteous way, and most importantly do not give your child what he/she wants in the middle of a tantrum. Remember it is with our daily interaction with them, that we teach them how the world works.

5. Be consistent with what you say

When you promise something, do it. If you tell your child to wait patiently and “After eating, we will play” then do it, this way your child learns that the positive outcomes are worthwhile.

6. Prepare them in advance

Things will be a lot easier if we tell them what we behaviour we are expecting. If you are going to an important event make sure you go over the appropriate behaviour they must have. Also, during a situation in which your child is feeling frustrated, explaining why they should wait really helps. “We have to eat first and then play because if not your food will get cold” 

7. Get creative

Get creative and make up games along the way. “How many blue cars can you see?”.  Also, take toys or colouring pages to teach your child how to get entertained while waiting. 

8. Be aware of their age and developmental level.

Small children will find waiting a lot harder than older kids. Starting at an early age we can teach them to take turns and explain the advantages of taking turns, this goes from waiting for a toy, to not interrupting a conversation. With time and repetition, they will understand it.