Term 1 Week 2 Monday 3rd February 2025

Acknowledgement of Country

From the Principal

Important Dates:

TERM 1 2025

Wednesday 5th February- Foundation Rest Day

Thursday 6th February- Opening School Liturgy @ 2:30pm

Monday 10th- Friday 14th February- Meals on Wheels

Tuesday 12th February- School Advisory Council Meeting @ 6:30pm

Friday 14th February- Year 3-6 Swimming Carnival at Mortlake Pool

Friday 21st February- Swimming Program Day 1

Monday 24th February- Hockey in Schools visit

Tuesday 25th February- Swimming Program Day 2

Thursday 27th February- Swimming Program Day 3

Friday 28th February- Swimming Program Day 4

                                                 Division Swimming

Monday 3rd March- Swimming Program Day 5

Friday 7th March- F-6 Athletics Carnival @ Terang Rec Reserve

Monday 10th March- Labour Day Public Holiday

12th -24th March -  National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) testing Yr 3 and 5

Thursday 13th March- LEHP Visit (Lions Club free vision screening)

Wednesday 19th March- School Advisory Council Meeting @ 6:30pm

Thursday 20th March- Billy Bush Band Family Night

Wednesday 26h March- School Photos

                                                - Mercy Regional College Open Day

Friday 28th March- Mercy Regional College Taster Day

Tuesday 1st April- Division Athletics Carnival

Friday 4^th April- Term 1 ends at 2:15

Term 2 2025

Monday 21st April - Easter Monday
Tuesday 22nd April – Student-free day; Structured Literacy
Wednesday 23rd April – Universal Positive Behaviour Support/SWPBS 
Thursday 24th April – Southern Zone collaboration day regarding DOBCEL 10 year Strategic Plan
Friday 25th April- ANZAC Day

Monday 28th April- Students return for Term 2

School Closure Days for 2025

28 January – Student-free day; first day of term one
22 April – Student-free day; Structured Literacy
23 April – collaboration with St Mary’s Ararat, St Thomas’ Terang and St Patrick’s Camperdown re:
                       Universal Positive Behaviour Support/SWPBS 
24 April – Southern Zone collaboration day regarding DOBCEL Strategy 2035 - ‘Pursuing fullness of life for all’
8 August – Student-free day
31 October – Student-free day
3 November – Student-free day
19 December – Student-free day; last day of term four

In addition to these days and other Public holidays, St Colman's takes the Local Government Area recognised holiday of Warrnambool Cup Day, which this year is on Thursday May 1st.

Jubilee Year 2025: Pilgrims of Hope

Pope Francis has declared a Jubilee Year of Hope in 2025, centred on the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope.”  A Jubilee is a special year of grace and conversion, involving prayer, pilgrimage and sacramental repentance, held every 25 years, or during other years as called for by the Pope. Through a series of concrete rituals, acts and commitments, the goal of a Jubilee year is to inspire and encourage holiness of life among the faithful and therefore to strengthen the Church’s witness to God’s loving mercy in and for the world.

Pope Francis has written the following prayer for the Jubilee Year.

Our Lady of Mercy Parish News

The Bishop of the Diocese of Ballarat, Bishop Paul Bird, has made the following announcement regarding the appointment of a Parish Priest to our Parish.

Hello Everyone,
Following consultations over the past few weeks, I am pleased to announce an appointment to the parishes of Camperdown, Timboon and Hampden. This appointment is in view of Fr Neville Stanislaus’ forthcoming move to Gariwerd Parish. From March 1, 2025, Fr George Kuruvila Koorumullumpurayidam MST, currently Co-Pastor of the Western Border Parish, will become Parish Priest of Camperdown, Timboon and Hampden.

I thank Fr George for his current service and his willingness to take up the new assignment.

God bless you all.

Bishop Paul.

Parish Priest – from March 1, 2025
Fr George Kuruvila MST (resident in Camperdown).
Fr George will also be Parish Priest of Camperdown & Timboon Parishes from March 1, 2025.

Interim Visiting Priest 
Fr Jim McKay

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

Beginning of Year School Liturgy

We will celebrate the beginning of another year of learning and community with a liturgy this Thursday, February 6th at 2:30 pm.

All families are invited to join us as we welcome our newest students and their families to the community of St Colman's. Also, during this service our Student Leadership Team, listed below, will be presented with their badges and formally commissioned.

Welcome to our new staff

We have a number of new staff commencing with us in 2025. We welcome the following staff and look forward to them engaging with our school community and contributing to the education of all our students. 

Belinda Atkins will be working as a Learning Support Officer on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Sarah Cameron is a Teacher's Aide who will be working in a variety of roles within the school four days a week.

Narelle Marsden has taken on the role of Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader and will be working at St Colman's on Monday and Tuesday.

School Finance Officer

Our long serving Business Manager, Jane Lee, has announced that she will be retiring at the end of first term. Jane has worked at St Colman’s for 22 years and during that time has been an incredibly dedicated and professional face of our school. Jane will be very hard to replace, however we have commenced our recruitment process for this position. Please spread the word about this wonderful opportunity to join St Colman's School.

Student Leadership at St Colman's in 2025

St Colman's Produce Garden

The garden is starting to become very productive. Thank you to Tim and Jo Van Den Heuvel for maintaining it over this hot and dry summer. The cart is loaded with some goodies. Please help yourself, for a gold coin donation

Vegies for Sale

Our new cubby

A huge thank you to Shane and Troy from Mercy Regional College for delivering our new cubby for us. The students are loving it.

This cubby was built by last year's MRC VET Furnishing and Building and Construction students. This building project was part of their practical course work for the year. Thank you to Mercy and the student's responsible.

We are very blessed to have such a fruitful relationship with our Network feeder school.

The Cubby

Specialist Timetable for 2025

Below is the Specialist timetable for Term 1. All children need to wear their sports uniform each Wednesday and return their library books on their classes nominated day.

Swimming Carnival

The annual St Colman's and St Thomas' Terang Swimming Carnival is being held on Friday February 14th at the Mortlake Pool. All students in Years 3-6 will attend.  We will be seeking volunteers to help out for a couple of hours for the following jobs;

Taking equipment to the pool the day before (Thursday Feb 13th)

Setting up the pool lanes, gazebos etc (8am-9am Friday Feb 14th)

Helping with time keeping, lane patrol etc on the day (approximately for a  2 hour shift)

Packing up after the carnival.

Parents are encouraged to attend and support the children. BYO lunch, canteen will be open.

If you can help out, please contact the school. Thank you.

School Advisory Council

We are grateful to our SAC members for 2025 for their ongoing support of our school.

Jo Wallis (Chair), Alison Greig, Zion Palmer, Sophie Allen, Rachel Baulch, Danielle Kenny, Georgie Price, Rosie O’Connor (School rep), Janet Cain (Principal).

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 1; Feb 12th and March 19th

Term 2; May 7th and June 11th

Term 3; Aug 6th and Sept 10th

Term 4; Oct 22nd and Nov 26th (AGM)

Meals on Wheels

Each term, St Colman's school is rostered to deliver Meals on Wheels on behalf of Aberlea, our local Aged Care service.

This involves, each day for the week, parent volunteers coming to school and collecting a couple of students to help them deliver the meals. Therefore we are seeking people willing to volunteer. We need one adult volunteer for the week. It takes no more than an hour and starts at 11:45, when you would be required to collect the students assisting you from school.

Our first week for the year is next week; Monday February 10th - Friday Feb 14th.If you are able to assist please complete the form below or contact Janet and Jane and nominate which day you would be available to help.

Welcome Picnic and Open Classrooms

Our first school community event of the year will be held on Thursday 20th March starting at 5:30pm.

After the success of our STOMP dance party last year, we have decided to hold another dance night to kick start our year, this year with a Bush Dance theme. We will welcome the Billy Bush Dance team during the day and they will teach the students some dances to perform for you that night and they will also get you up for a boot scoot as well.

More details will come out soon, this is just a 'save the date' for what should be a fun night for our kids and their families.

Playgroup at St Colman's

Our fortnightly Playgroup is ready to start again. We look forward to welcoming back our local pre-schoolers every second Friday, starting next Friday February 14th.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD WITH YOUR FRIENDS WHO HAVE PRESCHOOL 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  the school.

SchoolTV Wellbeing Platform

Again this year, our Diocese has partnered with School TV to bring a range of helpful resources to families from a variety of experts, such as Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. There will be videos, interviews, fact sheets, articles and more.

This award-winning resource helps build relationships, foster connections, enable understanding and break down barriers to navigate a pathway towards better mental health and wellbeing for young people. It can assist in starting conversations on topics that are sometimes awkward or difficult to tackle.

Michael Grose Parenting Toolbox

Parent Like It's 2025 (not 1985) Five trends and strategies every parent should know to be effective today.

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

At St Colman's, we are excited to be using a  positive behaviour acknowledgement system, inspired by the School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) framework. This evidence-based approach helps schools improve social, emotional, behavioural, and academic outcomes for students from Foundation to Year 12. Our new system will focus on promoting and rewarding specific behaviour expectations within our school community.

Here's how it works:

1. Staff members will distribute RAFFLE TICKETS to students demonstrating the targeted positive behaviour.
2. These tickets will be collected in a large jar and counted weekly.
3. Progress will be tracked on a barometer displayed in our school foyer and pictured above.
4. School-wide rewards will be offered at various milestones, with a grand prize when we reach 1000 tickets.

To ensure student engagement, our Student Representative Council will help determine the focus behaviours and rewards for our "BEHAVIOUR BLITZ" initiative. At their most recent meeting the Junior SRC decided on the following rewards;

250 tickets= Movie and popcorn afternoon

500 tickets= Hot chip lunch at Tea Tree Lake

750 tickets= Casual clothes and free time afternoon/ rotation games 

1000 tickets = Day trip to Lake Pertobe.

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

Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement

In line with Child Safe Standard 9: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed, all students and their families will be asked to read, discuss and sign the attached document; Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement.

The measures to ensure the cyber-safety of St Colman's School are based on our core values. To assist us to enhance learning through the safe use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), we are now asking you to read this document with your child(ren) and sign the final page and return it to school. Alternatively after you have read it and discussed the document, you can tick the required filed on their PAM account.

It is essential that all children understand not only their RIGHTS as technology users, but also their RESPONSIBILITIES to be safe and vigilant when using technology.

Junior Student Representative Council (SRC)

At the end of last year, we announced our Junior SRC representatives for each classroom. This was a new initiative for St Colman’s in 2024 and was incredibly successful. I look forward to working with this year's Student Leadership team to continue our work on ensuring that the student’s at our school feel more connected and provide them with a greater voice in the organisation of some aspects of our school.

These students, along with our two school captains, will comprise our Student Representative Council for the year.

School Captains- Charlotte and Ivy

Social Justice Leader: Steff

Junior Reps- Rocky and Kyra

Middle Reps - Leo and Izzy

Senior Reps -Sadie

They will meet with me each term and discuss issues and/or concerns raised by themselves and their peers. We will brainstorm and plan how we can raise awareness of Social Justice concerns in our community and wider world. As well as organise fundraising events for charities and fundraising for school resources and equipment etc.

Our first SRC Meeting will be this Friday. Prior to this meeting each of our reps will hold a class meeting, where they will seek ideas and feedback that they can take to the meeting.

On the agenda for this meeting is what ‘THEME’ days we will hold throughout the year. 

The SRC is also responsible for Toastie Tuesday, which starts again tomorrow.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Lunch Orders

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

Menu and price list below (we have not received an updated one yet)

Birthday Wishes

Out of School Care

A reminder that during 2025 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

Terang & Mortlake Health Service Health and Wellbeing Newsletter

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.