Term 2 Week 3 Monday 29th April 2024

Acknowledgement of Country

From the Principal

Important Dates:

Term 2 2024

Monday 29th April - Catholic Education Week

                                         - GRIP Student Leadership Day

Tuesday 30th April- Open Morning 9am -11:30am

Wednesday 1st May- SAC Meeting @ 6:30pm in the Staff room.

Thursday 2nd May- Warrnambool Cup Public Holiday

Friday 3rd May- Division Aths (Warrnambool)

Monday 6th May- Friday 10th May- Meals on Wheels week

Monday 6th May- HSCN Network Day

Wednesday 8th May- Mother's Day Breakfast from 7:30am

Friday 10th May- District Cross Country @ Noorat

Monday 13th May- Jane returns for leave

Friday 17th May-Division Cross Country

Sunday 19th May- St Colman's Parish Confirmation

2024 School Camps (with St Thomas’ Terang)

Sept 2^nd-3^rd: Year 3/4 Warra Gnan Coastal Camp, Warrnambool

Nov 13^th-15^th: Year 5/6 Dunkeld Adventure Camp

School Closure Days for 2024

Term 2: Friday 26^th April- Wellbeing

                  Thursday 2nd May- Warrnambool Cup Public Hioliday

Term 3: Monday 15^th July- Religious Education; Re-contextualising the Scriptures.

                Tuesday 16^th July- Structured Literacy

Catholic Education Week 2024

Catholic Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate everything that makes our Catholic schools wonderful places for your children to flourish. All schools will teach their students core subjects like math, science or English. Catholic schools, however, also strive to instil values like teamwork, personal responsibility, compassion and empathy in their students. The value of Catholic school is that students have a place to grow and thrive as a whole person.

Next Monday, May 6^th, we will celebrate Catholic Education Week with our HCSN Network schools; St Thomas’, Terang and St Patrick’s Camperdown. Our Foundation to Year 2 students will travel to Camperdown for the day and our Year 5/6 students will go to Terang. Students in Year 3 and 4 will stay at our school for the day and play host to the Year ¾ students from Camperdown and Terang. Children will all wear their sports uniform and will need to bring their lunch and snacks for the day. Please keep an eye out for the PAM notification to complete permission for your child to attend this day.

Our Lady of Mercy Parish News

WEEKEND MASS TIMES
ST THOMAS’ TERANG
Saturday 6.00 pm
Sunday 10.30 am
ST COLMAN’S MORTLAKE
Sunday 9.00 am

Division Athletics

Best wishes to Imogen, Phoebe and Alex who will be representing St Colman's at the Division Athletics Carnival in Warrnambool on Friday. We know they will do us proud! We are grateful to St Thomas' Terang for volunteering to pick our representatives up in their bus on their way to Warrnambool. Ms Moulden will be able to provide more information about the program for the day later this week. 

GRIP Student Leadership Conference

Our six Year 6 student leaders; Mason, Ivy, Alex, Phoebe, Cooper and Will along with Anna and Mrs Cain, are currently participating in the GRIP Student Leadership Conference in Geelong. The GRIP Student Leadership Conference concentrates specifically on training student leaders for their role as current SCHOOL LEADERS. I look forward to sharing our students' "take-aways" from the day with you all in next week's newsletter.

Meals On Wheels

St Colman's Cross Country

Congratulations to all of our students for the great effort and sportsmanship they all demonstrated last Wednesday at our school Cross Country. It was pleasing to see so many children push through the pain to complete their races, and heart-warming to hear the cheers of support and words of encouragement from those on the sidelines. Special congratulations to all of the age champions, all the students who will have qualified to compete at the next level, the District Cross Country at Noorat, and a huge congratulations to Red House for being the overall event winner.

Age Champions;

5/6 year old- Miles Cameron

7 year old- Kyra Hannabury and Patrick Greig

8 year old- Piper and Jack Allen

9 year old – Eloise Draffen and Zeke Pyers

10 year old – Hayley Hannabury and Gus Carmody

11 year old- Imogen Barr and Dom Stavropoulos

12/13 year old- Phoebe Draffen and Will Cameron

Cross Country 2024

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Mother's Day Breakfast

 Wednesday morning this year starting at 7:30. 

Mothers Day RSVP Attendance

We would love to see all of our mums and special people at our annual Mother's Day Breakfast. It is being held on a Wednesday morning this year starting at 7:30. Please RSVP by Monday May 6^th.

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ANZAC Day service

We were very proud to see so many students come along to the ANZAC Serivce and march last Thursday. We had 16 students represent our school on the day. Thanks for making the effort; it reflects well on your commitment to honour those who have fought to protect our beautiful country.

ANZAC Day 2024

Free to a good home

In addition to the two white wardrobes advertised on the newsletter last week, we now have three red sofas to give away.

We are upgrading the couches in our staffroom, one 3 seater and two 2.5 seaters. These have been well used and are showing signs of wear and tear. However they are still very sturdy couches that would be great in a toy room, men's cave etc.

If you are interested, please contact the school office.

Free wardrobes

Sofas

School Advisory Council (SAC)

Our next SAC meeting is this Wednesday at 6:30 in the staffroom at school.

We would like to introduce you to our SAC members for 2024.   

Jo Wallis (Chair), Alison Greig, Michelle Lehmann, Zion Palmer, Sophie Allen, Rachel Baulch, Danielle Kenny, 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.

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.

This year we will hold our meetings Wednesday of week 3 and week 8 each term starting at 6:30pm.

The dates are;

Term 2: May 1st and June 5th

Term 3: July 31st and Sept 4th

Term 4: October 23rd and Nov 27th (AGM)

Playgroup at St Colman's

We look forward to welcoming back our local pre-schoolers every second Friday, with our next session being held this week, Friday May 3rd.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD WITH YOUR FRIENDS WHO HAVE PRE SCHOOL AGED CHILDREN. EVERYONE IS WELCOME!!!

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.

Australian Early Development Census

Foundation families will have received a letter providing information about the Australian Early Development Census. The AEDC is a national census conducted every three years by the Australian Government, in partnership with state and territory governments.  

The purpose of the AEDC is to measure how children have developed by the time they start their first year of full-time school, and it is a voluntary and confidential process.  

At St.Colman's, this process will take place in early May. To provide consent for the collection of your child's information, you do not need to do anything.  However, if you do not consent, please contact Janet Cain or Shandell Moloney  before the 1st of May.  

Please click on the link below to go to the AEDC for further information.

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support is: A multi-tiered framework for establishing the social culture and behavioural supports needed for a school to achieve behavioural and academic outcomes for all students. For the next two weeks at St Colman’s we are working with our students on developing effective learning habits that will set them up for success throughout the year ahead. During that time, all staff will be reinforcing the behaviour expectations as set out in our Behavior Matrix (below).

SchoolTV Wellbeing Platform

Trauma Recovery

We will continue to share articles that may be of help when dealing with your child's reaction to, and ulitmate questions about,  the many traumatic events thatn have recently occured.

"Trauma presents in children in various ways, depending on their age, previous experience, and personal resilience. When they encounter traumatic events,                                                              their brain processes these emotions, storing them as powerful memories."

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg

Birthday Wishes

We wish our students Zoe S, Amani and Kyra a very Happy Birthday, as they are all celebrating their special day this week. 

We send you, and any other members of our community who are a celebrating a birthday during the week, many blessings on your special day and throughout the year. 

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

The Child Safe Standards

The Child Safe Standards (the Standards) are compulsory minimum standards for all Victorian schools to ensure they are well prepared to keep children and young people safe and protect them from abuse.  provides the framework for child safety in schools.

Child Safe Standard 6:  People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.

In complying with Child Safe Standard 6 St Colman's must, at a minimum, ensure:

6.1    Recruitment, including advertising, referee checks and staff and volunteer pre-employment screening, emphasise child safety and wellbeing.

6.2    Relevant staff and volunteers have current working with children checks or equivalent background checks.

6.3    All staff and volunteers receive an appropriate induction and are aware of their responsibilities to children and young people, including record keeping, information sharing and reporting obligations.

6.4    Ongoing supervision and people management is focused on child safety and wellbeing.

How are we implementing this at St Colman's (SCM)?

• Recruitment Policy has been communicated to the SAC and is available on the school website/SIMON portal for staff. 
• Passtab maintains a direct link for WWCC’s. VIT registration is recorded through Passtab. 
• All volunteers, CRT and contractors are inducted through Passtab 
• All staff receive annual Child Safety training 29/1/2024.
• Code of Conducts are stored and managed through Passtab. 
• SAC members receive annual Child Safety training and new members are inducted by following the SAC Advisory Guidelines. 
• Responsible persons sign a Fit and Proper Person Dec every 3yrs. 
• All recruitment ads have a statement in relation to the requirements and meeting the Child Safe Standards. 
• All position descriptions set clear expectations in relation to child safety and wellbeing. 
• Recruitment process included Child Safe screening and referee checks. 
• All recruitment ads have a statement in relation to the requirements and meeting the Child Safe Standards. 
• Position descriptions for Teachers & LSO’s and all school staff set clear expectations in relation to child safety and wellbeing. 
• Recruitment process included Child Safe screening and referee checks. 
• The school uses the standard recruitment letters of appointment provided by the central office. 
• Complaint Handling Policy has been communicated to all staff and the school community. It is available via the school’s website.
• Record keeping and Privacy are included in the annual staff induction sessions.
• Mandatory reporting training / NCCD training covers reporting obligations and record keeping.
• All recruitment policies are followed
• Supervision duties are constantly viewed to ensure child safety and wellbeing through daily planners and communication. 

Our Student Representative Council will be co ordinating our partnership with Cooinda Terang to become a collection point for Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme (CDS Vic).

We will be collecting all eligible empty drink containers and then returning them to the CDS collection point at Cooinda. The 10c raised from each return will go back to the SRC. They will nominate various charities to support as well as using 50% of the funds to upgrade school resources.

So please start collecting and sending in your empties. 

Most aluminium, glass, plastic and liquid paperboard (carton) drink containers between 150mL and 3 litres are eligible. You can keep the lids on, we recycle them too. The easiest way to know if your drink container can be returned is to look for the 10c mark on the label, often located near the barcode.

You can help in two ways:

1. The first is by far the simplest. Just return your empty eligible containers to the tubs in the corridors at school.
2. If you have a large amount of containers to deposit, you may wish to take them to a Container Deposit Depot and return them yourself. Please download the CDS Vic West App (instructions below). When you return your containers, nominate St Colman's School Mortlake as the charity you want to donate the money to.

Please note, that as we are in partnership with Cooinda Terang, our preferred deposit depot is their Reverse Vending Machine located at 49 Dow St Terang.

Camperdown Theatre Company

Australian Govt Mobile Service Centres

Australian Government Mobile Service Centres travel extensively throughout rural and regional Australia. A Mobile Service Centre will be visiting Mortlake on Tuesday May 2nd.

 Staff from Services Australia travel with the Mobile Service Centres and can assist people with Centrelink and Medicare payments and services. Information about Department of Veterans’ Affairs programs and support services for veterans and their families is also available.

Toastie Tuesday

Lunch Orders

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

Menu and price list below

Out of School Care

A reminder that we continue to have access to Out of School Care in 2024, supplied by TheirCare, at Mortlake College. Registration is made via the TheirCare website. https://theircare.com.au/

Search for Mortlake College P-12

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.

NCCD

Please read the attached information sheet for parents regarding NCCD.