Term 4 Week 9 Monday 27th November 2023

Prayer at a child's First Communion

Lord Jesus Christ,

In the Sacrament of the Eucharist , You left us the
outstanding example of your limitless love for us.

Thank You for giving our children the opportunity to experience this love
in receiving the Sacrament for the first time.

Amen.

From the Principal

Key dates for the Diary

Term 4

Tuesday November 28th- Instrumental Students' Performance @ 5:15

Thursday November 30th- SAC AGM at Macs Hotel, 6pm

 Friday December 1st - Kinder Transition Day 3

Friday December 8th - Kinder Transition Day 4

Tuesday December 12th- Whole school transition"Move up Day"

                                                   - End of Year Mass and family BBQ @ 5:30pm

Wednesday December 13th- Abberlea visit and carols

Friday Decemebr 15th- Last day for students (normal finish time)

Monday December 18th- Last day for staff

Sacramental Program

Once again, our school community congratulates the following students on completing their Sacraments of Initiation into the Catholic Church.

Ivy and Sadie Wardlaw, Remy and Adia Herry, Billie and Gus Carmody, Mason and Archie Dale and Cooper and Zoe Francis.

These children will enjoy a celebratory lunch at Macs Hotel this Thursday at 1pm. Father Gary will be joining us and the children will be presented with their completed tri-certificates then.

First Communion 2023

Instrumental Students' Performance

This Tuesday, November 28th at 5:15pm, our students who are part of the weekly instrumental music classes taught by Melanie Pocknall will showcase their talents during an Instrumental Performance.

All parents and other interested community members are invited to attend. It will be held in the Art/Music Room here at school.

2024 Staffing and Classes

We are pleased to announce that Nicole Moulden will be the St Colman’s and St Thomas’ PE teacher for 2024. Some of you will know Nicole from her time at St Colman’s before she went on maternity leave. More recently Nicole has been working at St Pius in classroom and specialist roles. We look forward to welcoming Nicole back to our school community once again. 

With the appointment of Nicole, we can confirm the following information regarding staffing and classes for 2024.

Senior room: Years 5/6. Teacher: Anna Bourke

Middle room: Years 2/3 and 4. Teacher: Rosie O’Connor

Junior Room: Years Foundation and 1. Teacher: Shandell Moloney

Health/ Phys Ed (Wednesday): Nicole Moulden

Art (Wednesday): Stephanie Kennedy

LOTE; Janet Cain (Next year will be introducing Auslan into our LOTE curriculum)

Admin and Learning Support Officers: Jane Lee, Jenny Stapleton, Brianna Barr, Angela Absalom (2 days), Michelle Blain (3 days) and Piper Jarvie

All children will have the opportunity to be in their 2024 classroom during a state-wide Transition Day on Tuesday December 12^th.

8:30 am start of day reminder

Just a friendly reminder that students should not be arriving at school before 8:30.

Supervison duties do not begin before this time, so if you drop your child off before 8:30, please be aware that they are not being supervised. 

Term 4 Sun Smart Policy

Children are required to wear their St Colman's school hat for all outdoor activities during Term 4. The first week was a 'grace period', but now we have implemented our No Hat No Outdoor Play policy.

Please take the time to find your child's hat and check that it is in clean and presentable condition.

Uniform Policy

The school uniform and how we wear it is a reflection on our School. Children should wear their uniform with pride and a sense of belonging to the St Colman’s School community. It is an expectation that all children will be in the correct school uniform, including crew length navy blue socks.

We have had recurrent issues of students being out of uniform, and frequent reminders do not appear to be influencing the choices made by these students.

Therefore, we have decided that we will send daily Uniform Reminder notifications to parents if their child is out of uniform and no explanation has been provided by the parents.

2024 Start of Year Arrangements

Advance notice about starting dates for the 2024 school year.

Monday 29th January: Staff return to school

Tuesday 30th January: Staff attend Structured Literacy Professional Learning (Pupil free day)

Wednesday 31st January: All students (including our Foundations) commence 2024 school year.

School-wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS)

At St Colman's we want everyone in our community to be Respectful, Responsible and Safe. Our school wants us to develop these values so that they become a part of how we live our life at school each day. This will lead to a safer, kinder and more considerate school community and will help everyone to be able to learn and grow to their full potential. 

As a Catholic School, the example of Jesus is at the heart of all that we do. This is how Jesus lived his life and we encourage everyone to be the best versions of themselves each day and contribute to our school in a positive way.  

Our school has developed a School Wide Positive Behaviour Matrix which outlines our core values of Welcome, Learn and Care and how they can be transferred into respectful, responsible & safe behaviours that we would like to see everyone doing. 

Currently we are having a few focusses or what we call blitzes from our Matrix to ensure students are following those expected behaviours.  These blitzes are focussing on the core value of WELCOME:

Wk 1-3: We welcome all visitors to our school

Wk 4-6: We treat all teachers and visitors with RESPECT

Wk 7-9: We use a respectful tone to all staff, students and visitors

When staff see these behaviours being demonstrated children will be acknowledged and receive Double Dojo points.

School Fees Reminder

Playgroup at St Colman's

Our fortnightly Playgroup has finished for this year. We look forward to welcoming back our local pre-schoolers every second Friday in 2024.

The ongoing commitment to this project will require support from other members of the school community. If you are willing to help out by going on a roster to help organise Little Colman’s, please contact either the school or Lily. 

WE WILL NEED TO PURCHASE SOME GAMES AND EQUIPMENT FOR OUR PLAYGROUP. HOWEVER, WE WONDERED IF YOU HAD ANY OLD TOYS AND GAMES THAT YOUR CHILDREN HAVE GROWN OUT OF AND THAT YOU NO LONGER NEED. IF SO, WE WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE THE DONATION OF ANY PRE-SCHOOL TOYS AND GAMES, INDOOR OR OUTDOOR, THAT ARE IN EXCELLENT USED CONDITION.

Lunch Orders

LUNCH ORDERS are only available twice a week on Monday and Friday.

Menu and price list below

St. Colman's Enrolments

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday to our students Remy and Adia, and to any members of our school community, who are celebrating a birthday this week.

Many blessings to you on your special day and throughout the year. 

School Advisory Council

We would like to introduce you to our SAC members for 2022-2023.  Lily Convery-Oborne (Chair), Jo Wallis, Alison Greig, Michelle Lehmann, Jo Dolling, Zion Palmer, Sophie and Nick Allen, Rachel Baulch, Rosie O’Connor (School rep), Janet Cain (Principal) and Fr. Gary Jones (Parish Rep)

These people are the voice of the parish and parents in the school. If you have any questions or anything that you would like raised please contact one of these people.

At our last SAC meeting our current Chair, Lily Convery-Oborne, advised us that her term was up and we would need to replace her. At our AGM which will be taking place on Thursday November 30th we will be filling the vacancy of Lily. If you are intersted in joining this vital part of our school community please see the information below. We are grateful for Lily's dedication and service on the SAC and for her level headed contributions to all discussions held and decisions made. 

The SAC meets twice a term and we thank these people for agreeing to be a part of this group that provides an essential link between the school and its families.

Term 4 Meeting Dates:

Thursday 30th November AGM Dinner Meeting  @6pm (Macs Hotel)

Our Lady of Mercy Parish Newsletter

St. Colman's School is a Child Safe Community

Child Safety Officers

Janet Cain and Rosie O'Connor are our Child Safety Officers.

Contact them on:

Phone: 55992285 or 0490539167

Email: jcain@scmortlake.catholic.edu.au or roconnor@scmortlake.catholic.edu.au

Child Safe Standards (eleven in total) came into effect in July 2022 and are a vital part of what we do here at St Colman’s. But what do these standards look like in practice? Each week, we will look at a standard in closer detail.

Standard 10 - Implementation of the Child Safe Standards is regularly reviewed and improved.

At St Colman’s we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. At the beginning of each year, as part of our Learning to Learn curriculum, the children go through the child safety slides (as mentioned last week). These slides are then put into a prominent place in each homeroom. Child Safety and how the standards are implemented are a standing item on all of our staff agendas and School Advisory Committee meetings. Another way that we have been meeting this standard is giving you a weekly breakdown of them in our newsletter! We are always looking at ways to improve how we implement these Standards and welcome any feedback from our parent community about how we can do this better.

More information about these standards can be found by clicking on the link below.

Out of School Care

A reminder that during 2023 we have access to Out of School Care, supplied by TheirCare, at Mortlake College. Registration is made via the TheirCare website. https://theircare.com.au/

Search for Mortlake College P-12

COMMUNITY NEWS

Terang Swimming Club are delighted to offer three incredible out of school swimming programs for our youth this swimming season.  All of these classes will be run on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at the Terang Swimming Pool.

1. Squad swimming- this is a class run by qualified swim coaches for competent swimmers to enhance their swimming abilities, fitness and endurance (Swimmers should be able to comfortably swim laps of the big pool)

2. Stroke correction- this class is run by qualified swim coaches for intermediate swimmers to aid in correcting their swimming and stroke skills. (swimmers should be able to swim 1 lap of the big pool)

3. Learn to swim- this class is run by qualified swim coaches for beginner swimmers. It is aimed to build water safety and awareness and confidence for our younger swimmers. (swimmers should be able to stand in our middle size pool and be comfortable to put their hair in the water) this class will be run with smaller numbers to allow our coaches the ability to spend more time with the less confident children.

AngliCare Energy Assistance

As part of Anglicare Victoria’s FREE Energy Assistance Program, they provide assistance with energy bills to support Victorians to:

• Talk to their energy retailer and get help with debt
• Access extra financial support
• Check they are receiving eligible concessions on their bill
• Find and move to an affordable energy plan
• Understand bills and fix any possible errors
• Support your child's education with free internet at home

They can provide immediate assistance for clients who are struggling to pay for their gas or electricity bills to prevent disconnection to their property!

The follower two flyers provide further details.

Cricket Blast

NCCD

Please read the attached information sheet for parents regarding NCCD.

Covid Information

As we have had quite a few reported cases of Covid 19 within our community, it is timely to remind ourselves of COVID Safe arrangements. We will be encouraging greater vigilance with our hand washing procedures at school.

Although there are no mandated isolation arrangements, the following is strongly recommended:

It is strongly recommended that students:

●  Who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home and isolate for five days.

●  Should not attend school after five days if still symptomatic.

●  Who are symptomatic but have not tested positive should not attend school.

Where students become symptomatic at school, they should:

●  Be collected by their parents/carers.

●  Undergo testing for COVID-19.

It is strongly recommended that staff:

●  Who test positive for COVID-19 should stay home and isolate for five days.

●  Should not attend school after five days if still symptomatic.

●  Who are symptomatic but have not tested positive should not attend school.

If families require RAT kits, please contact the school office.

COVID-19 reporting requirements.

The Department of Health recommends that a person who tests positive for COVID-19 should inform those with whom they have recently been in contact, including their workplace, school and household.

Schools no longer have to alert their school community of positive cases, however we will continue to do this informally.

Face masks.

Staff and students who wish to wear a face mask should be supported to do so, and schools should continue to make face masks available for staff, students and visitors.

The Department of Health recommends that masks should be worn by a person who is a close contact of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 when leaving home.

Additionally, the department recommends that masks should be worn by a person who has COVID-19 for 10 days after a positive test when they need to leave home.