Student Hats

Dear Parents,
We currently employ a "no hat, no play" policy in the first and last term of the year to help protect children's skin and to assist them in learning about the dangers of too much exposure to the sun. The children are wonderfully responsive to this policy and try to be very vigilant about caring for their hat. However we do have ongoing issues with hats. Whilst staff are constantly reminding children about where to store them and assisting them to place hats in the correct locker our first priority must be the educational program, not hat storage. We do not check all hats before the end of the day and do rely on help from both students and parents to help us with misplaced hats. Although hats are currently regularly going missing, rarely do they actually disappear. More often than not the children put them in the wrong bag and the hat goes home with the wrong family for a few days before they realise and bring it back. With all maroon hats and mostly maroon bags it is a very easy mistake to make. Because of flexible attendance patterns, hats that have accidentally gone to the wrong home can take a week to be discovered.
We thank everyone for their understanding to date but recognise this problem is becoming very frustrating for parents. To help with this problem we would remind parents that school hats are expected to stay at school on the hook inside the child's locker overnight. This makes it easier to identify hats that really are missing and means that it is unlikely for wrong hats to go to someone else's house. We will continue to encourage your children to use the hooks and will have an in class focus in both rooms on improving this routine.
In the mean time, because of our "no hat no play" policy we have spare kindergarten hats that are regularly washed through our laundry service for children who have a missing hat to use.
Thank you for your understanding
Regards
Mel Bishop