PROFILE
Meet the Victorian school
leading COVID measures By Sheetal Singh, Industry Reporter
Firbank Grammar School’s rapid response to pandemic protocol made headlines last year as the first school in the country to mandate Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) and one of the first to set up onsite vaccination hubs for students and staff. School News caught up with Principal Jenny Williams in December to find out what Term 1 preparations the school had underway for 2022.
Confident and undeterred Located in Brighton, Victoria, Firbank Grammar School started RAT testing everyone entering the senior school site back in October. Students and staff were tested twice-weekly in a move to maintain COVIDsafe teaching and learning environments on school grounds. Principal Williams said the school will be back to normal in Term 1 with all the extracurriculars still taking place. “We have a group of students going on rowing camp, and we will be testing them before we go so we’ve still got a supply of
Firbank Grammar Principal Jenny Williams updates the press
tests so we’re going to make sure that each staff member and student are going on that rowing trip are tested, so that we can be assured that when they have been together for five days, they will be COVID-free,” she said. Williams said setting up the vaccination clinic and opening the school’s testing site came as a big relief to parents and students alike. She told us: “It not only maintained a healthy and safe classroom but also gave our students and parents confidence
that the schools won’t shut down. “We were really keen to ensure, particularly for our senior students who were about to take their VCEs, that they would have some confidence [and] they’d be safe to complete their exams without schools having to be shut down.” Determination to give their senior students as conducive an environment as possible to complete their studies seems to have paid off. Despite spending
more time ‘at home learning’ than in the classroom in their final two years, the school’s class of 2021 received excellent VCE results: 90 received a score of 40 or above in at least one subject, and 58 students among the cohort received an ATAR of 90 and above. Over the school holidays, the school quickly set up booster clinics for staff and opened vaccination clinics up for primary students, aged 5-11. Williams remarked: “I’m really
Images courtesy of Firbank Grammar School
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EDUCATION
Term 1, 2022 | school-news.com.au
