It is impossible to escape media discussion about the fast-spreading Coronavirus and if your children haven’t yet begun to ask about it, it is only a matter of time before they do. Many of the stories and rumours that circulate around schoolyards have little to do with the facts. For this reason, it is important to talk to your children, so that you are the source who they turn to, to understand how to be safe and to alleviate anxiety. Ensure that you are well-informed from government sources and do not spread misinformation (https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov). Be truthful but recognise that at different ages, children’s capacity to understand varies. What you say must be age-appropriate. Be reassuring. Even if the virus should spread widely within the community (and we need to be realistic that it may), for most young people, the symptoms are usually relatively mild. Encourage your children to pray for those who are sick. Prayer is not an alternative to healthcare; it is a reminder that this is God’s world and He is in control, even at difficult times.
As a school, we will be preparing for the possibility of an outbreak and following government recommendations and instructions. In the meantime, we will be working with students to train and remind them of the importance of personal hygiene, including handwashing, using tissues and sneezing or coughing into their elbows, not their hands. Please reinforce the same standards at home, so that these become normal practices. Please make sure that you keep your child at home and seek professional advice at the first sign of a fever, cough or cold.
Our message to children is simple. We need to care for one another by looking after ourselves and having good hygiene. We have no control over whether the virus will enter the mainstream community, and therefore worrying about it just makes people sad and anxious. We need to pray that God would be gracious, but remember that grace takes many forms. I do not know what the course of the virus will be, but I am confident in a God who is Lord over all.
Ms Sharon Sopher
Principal