Welcome back to our new year and a special welcome to our new families that have joined the Rockingham Montessori School family. We are so delighted to have commenced the new Port Kennedy Primary School campus which has enabled us to provide more children with an exceptional Montessori learning experience. We have three new classes at Port Kennedy with three new names that come from the Noongar language and are after local native flora. Our Children’s House class is Kara which is Milkmaids, our Lower Primary class is Mooja which is our native Christmas Tree and the Upper Primary are Janda which is Harsh Hakea. We are also pleased to announce that in the Adolescent Program we commenced the third Middle School advisory in the Barna Marlak (land animals) Sub-school and this group have named themselves Kwenda which is a small native marsupial.
I am delighted to share with you the fit out progress that has been made over the summer holidays and the first few weeks of term at the Port Kennedy Adolescent Program site.
4th January – Building access was finally granted to commence fit out, the internal fire rated dividing wall was constructed between existing tenant and the school’s tenancy which took for 4 weeks construction time, final design drawings were submitted for building permit application.
4th February – City of Rockingham granted the building permit, the floor slab prepared to erect 60 steel columns for the structure of the mezzanine floor.
10th February – Footings poured for the steel columns, other demolition of toilet areas continued.
14th February – Erection of the steel columns and beams, see layout of beams below for the mezzanine floor below and the actual construction.
Whilst our timeline schedule is currently on track for Practical Completion on 25th April 2022 and Certification & Occupancy for 9th May 2022, we must be mindful we are still subject to any delays due to COVID and deliveries of material. This is certainly an exciting time for all and at our recent staff meeting, staff attended site to continue planning equipment and furniture requirements for the Adolescent Program site.
I would like to thank our Rockingham Primary School families who are now utilising the Rockingham Bowling Club carpark for their child’s afternoon pick up due to the renovations at the PCYC. The patience and precision driving of our parents and guardians during this process can be likened to synchronized swimming! Thank you all for the grace and courtesy you are demonstrating when collecting your children as it ensures the staff can assist every child to the respective car safely prior to any movement of cars from the carpark.
It is with great sadness that we say farewell to David Flack from our Adolescent Program for now. David has asked me to share the following with you “Due to family reasons I have to step away from teaching at RMS to take care of some important family responsibilities back in South Africa. At this stage it is still unclear on when I will return but hopefully I will be back in the near future in my teaching and advisory role. It has been great to teach the Barna Marlak students over the last two semesters. In the mean time I wish you all the best for the rest of the semester.” We too look forward to David returning and are now in the process of recruiting for David’s replacement.
Please find attached the latest Operating Guidelines for Public Schools link for procedures around Covid measures. Although we are not a public school we do follow the public school guidelines that are developed by the Health Department.
