Term 2 Week 4 Monday 15th May 2023

A Prayer for Autumn

Autumn Months

O God of Creation, you have blessed us with the changing of the seasons.

As we welcome the autumn months,
may the earlier setting of the sun
remind us to take time to rest.

May the brilliant colors of the leaves
remind us of the wonder of your creation.

May the steam of our breath in the cool air
remind us that it is you who give us the breath of life.

May the harvest from the fields remind us of the abundance we have been given and bounty we are to share with others.
May the dying of summer's spirit remind us of your great promise that death is temporary and life is eternal.
We praise you for your goodness forever and ever.

Amen

From the Principal

Key dates for the Diary

Term 2

Monday May 15th- Middles to visit Aberlea

Tuesday May 16th - Whole school mass @10am- all welcome

Thursday May 18th-Friday May 19th- Janet to attend Diocesan Leadership Gathering in Horsham

Friday May 19th- Challenging Behaviours Professional Learning (Anna & Bridget to attend)

Sunday May 21st- Confirmation candidates to attend Mass (at Mortlake or Terang)

                                       WORKING BEE @ SCHOOL 10AM-12PM

Monday May 22nd- Catholic Education Week commences

Tuesday May 23rd - Open Morning at St. Colman's

                                         - Tri Sports for Year 5/6

Friday May 26th- Catholic Education Week Network Day

Sunday May 28th - Sacrament of Confirmation

Monday June 5th- Kinder visit to St. Colman's

Tuesday June 6th- Structured Literacy professional learning- Janet and Shandell to attend

School Closure Dates 2023

Term 3: Tuesday 22nd August (Literacy)

Term 4: Friday 10th November (Catholic Social Teaching) NB change of date

Working Bee this SUNDAY

This Sunday we require many hands to help spread a new delivery of mulch around our playground. If you are able to assist, please meet at school about 10am on Sunday. If possible, bring a shovel and/or a wheelbarrow. Many hands will make light work of this job! A BBQ lunch will be provided!

Term 2 Classroom Information

Please read on to find out what is happening in our classrooms this term.

Mother's Day Breakfast

A big thank you to everyone who was able to come along to our Mother's Day Breakfast on Friday. It was wonderful to see so many of our families enjoying breakfast together. Thanks to our staff who organised and prepared the breakfast. I hope all our mums and special people had a wonderful weekend! And I hope you enjoyed the lucky door prize Nyala!!

Mother's Day 2023

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District Cross Country

Well done to our 12 students who represented our school at the disctrict Cross Country event in Noorat last Friday, and how good did they look in the new sports singlets!!

They all put in 100% and crossed the finish line with smiles on their faces. We are so proud of you all! A special mention to Phoebe who will be advancing to the next level.

District Cross Country 2023

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Playgroup at St. Colman's

At our last SAC meeting, we discussed a new initiative that we are introducing at our school; Little Colman’s Playtime. This playgroup is designed for babies and pre-schoolers and will be held for four Fridays in June (June 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd) . We are blessed to have a qualified and experienced Early Childhood educator as Chair of our SAC. Lily has kindly volunteered to run these sessions in June, which will utilise our art room and playground. Depending on the success of this trial, we may run monthly sessions at St. Colman’s.
Having a playgroup at our school provides many benefits including;
*Assisting transition to primary school as children are familiar with the environment, facilities and staff.
*Providing socialisation and academic preparedness opportunities for preschoolers.
*Having access to all of our resources and equipment.
*Allowing opportunities for collaboration and alignment of learning. For example, the playgroup can be focussing on similar curriculum areas and themes currently being explored at our school.
*Greater parental engagement within our school.
Keep your eye out for promotional material coming soon. We encourage you to spread the word about this initiative as it presents as a wonderful opportunity to create a further visible presence in our great little community. And if you would like to help in any way please contact Lily or myself.

Lunch Orders

A reminder that as of the start of Term 2, LUNCH ORDERS are only available twice a week on Monday and Friday.

St. Colman's Community Garden

We are so grateful to local community member, Marie Varley, who has volunteered to work with our students each week to re-establish our neglected community garden. This week the Seniors and the Junior students will be spending some time getting their hands dirty!

You can help by donating any of the following items needed for this project.

• Used soft drink bottle (1.25 or 2 Lt)
• Old carpet off cuts, door mats or hessian bags
• Old plastic pots
• White plastic that can be cut up and used as name tags (for example, ice-cram containers).

St. Colman's Open Day

Honour Board

At our end of year celebrations last year, we awarded the inaugural winners of St Colman’s Core Values awards. These awards recognise students who have consistently demonstrated a willingness to live out our core values of “We Welcome, We Learn, We Care”.
Last week we erected an honour board in the foyer that will record the winners of these three awards each year. Pictured in front of the board are Bella and Zoe, two of the three award recipients from last year.

Changes to eating times

Staff have been researching the advantages to children playing before they eat whilst at school. Some of these advantages include:

• Children are hungrier after they play
• Children don’t eat all their food as they are too keen to get playing
• Food safety- sandwich fillings have less time to go ‘off” in their lunchboxes
• Children are more settled when they enter the classroom and therefore more ready to learn.
• Any ‘conflicts’ can be dealt with while they are eating and therefore not being dealt with in class time.

We discussed this concept with the SAC on Thursday night. They agreed that the idea had a lot of merit. We are going to trial this on TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY for the next 5 weeks. We will then be able to report back at the next SAC meeting (Week 8) if we want this to go ahead permanently. Please discuss these changes with your children and we would welcome your feedback as this 'experiment' continues.

8:55- School bell

10am - Fruit and Brain Break

11am- Bell- Children take their lunch boxes to UCA and then go and play

11:20- Music- All children sit in UCA and eat LUNCH

11:30- Bell- in class and learning

1pm- Bell- Children take their lunch boxes to UCA and then go and play

1:35- Music- All children sit in UCA and eat AFTERNOON SNACK

1:45- Bell and in class and learning

3:15- School bell

Enrolments at MRC

Are you enrolling your child to attend our sister school, Mercy Regional College in 2024? If so, please note that enrolments are now due.

Mercy Regional College is committed to giving every student a fair chance to receive a Catholic education. The College offers a number of scholarships to support student learning and assist with tuition, fees and levies.

If you would like further information on accessing financial support or any other part of the enrolment procedure, please contact College Registrar Ms Nicole Darcy:
T. 03 5593 2011
E. office@mercy.vic.edu.au

A live link is avaliable on the Mercy website.

Wonder Recycling Rewards for Schools

This year we are participating in this program that will raise reward points that can be cashed in for sporting equipment for our school. Ask all your friends, neighbours and family members to save their bread bags and bring them to school and put them in the big white box at the front door at school. All bread bags (including muffins and wraps) are accepted. These bags are then returned to Wonder to be responsibly recycled.

So let's get recycling!!

Footy Tipping

Our Footy Tipping Competition is up and running and we have 35 registered entrants.

 Stacey Atkins has hit the lead and is one point clear of MethodicalFlame!

Entry fee is $20 adults and $10 school aged children and is due to be paid ASAP

If you haven't already done so, please pop into the office to pay for your entry.

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.

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. 

At our meeting last Thursday we discussed;

Our Major Raffle is about to commence again. It was decided that a roster would be created and all families will be allocated a day and time to sell tickets in the community.

Trivia Night is on July 21st. This is also when the raffle will be drawn.

Working Bee to take place on Sunday May 21st, BBQ lunch will be supplied afterwards.

Open Day; We need to get people in the door to see what great things are happening at our school.

Garden Area: Marie Varley is very passionate and committed to supporting our school to make the garden functional once again. We are very grateful for her help.

SWPBS: St Colman's uses a Behaviour Matrix to support our Positive Behaviour practices. It has been disappointing to see some disrespectful behaviours and unsafe choices being made both in class and in the playground. The SAC discussed implementing a Student Reflection sheet that would be sent home with a student each time they performed a MAJOR rule violation. This form would be discussed with their parents/carers and signed and returned to school. The SAC agreed that consistent, schoolwide practices were the best way to deal with poor behaviour choices and supported the introduction of these documents. More information will be emailed to parents soon.

Social Media: Parental concerns were expressed regarding the increased presence of social media in our young student's lives. The question was asked if we, as a school, are doing enough to educate our children and parents about cyber safety. Victoria Police present a Cyber Safety session each year to our older students. Grace our School Chaplain can support us in this area. Is this something that we could do as a Network?? For example, getting in experts to run information sessions.

Little Colman's Playtime: see article above.

Changes to eating times: see article above.

Weekly Award Winners

Congratulations all students who received an award at our weekly assembly last Friday. Remember, you are all most welcome to join us at the assembly, starting at 2:50 in the Undercover Area.

🎂 🥳 Happy Birthday 🥳 🎂

 No student birthdays this week.

Cheap trees for sale

Yellow Tail Nursery has grown thousands of native trees from seeds. See attached flyer for more details.

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/

Many of our students have already begun to use this program and the feedback from both parents and children has been overwhelmingly positive. Everything has run seamlessly so far, so if you are considering sending your children to Before or After Shool Care, you can be assured that this program is extremely easy to utilise.

Feel free to contact the office if you have any questions about accessing TheirCare or use the contact details at the bottom of the flyer to contact them directly.

St. Colman's School is a Child Safe Community

Child Safety Officers

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

Contact them on:

Phone: 55992285 or 0490539167

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

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

In complying with Child Safe Standard 10, St. Colman's must, at a minimum, ensure:

10.1  The organisation regularly reviews, evaluates and improves child safe practices.

10.2  Complaints, concerns and safety incidents are analysed to identify causes and systemic failures to inform continuous improvement.

10.3  The organisation reports on the findings of relevant reviews to staff and volunteers, community and families, and children and young people.

NCCD

Please read the attached information sheet for parents regarding NCCD.

Our Lady of Mercy Parish Bulletin