Term 4 Week 10 Monday 4th December 2023

The First Week of Advent–Prayer for Hope

From the Principal

Key dates for the Diary

Term 4

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- Aberlea visit and carols

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

                                               -Community Christmas Carols from 6pm

Monday December 18th- Last day for staff

2024

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.

Thursday 8th February: 5pm - Opening School Picnic and  Outdoor Concert

End of Year Celebration

Next Tuesday December 12th, starting at 5:30pm, we will be celebrating the end of the 2023 school year with a Mass and family BBQ.

We will begin our final community celebration with Mass at our St Colman’s Parish Church. After mass concludes, we will hold our Year 6 graduation, awards presentations and give thanks and farewell some members of our school community. After all this concludes we will make our way back to the school grounds for a BBQ. Basic meat and salad will be provided. BYO drinks and special dietary needs.

Student Leadership at St Colman's in 2024

Data recently received from our Insight SRC survey results show a consistent concern about student engagement in their learning. We will therefore prioritise making student agency, and giving our students a voice, a key focus on how we operate in the coming year. One of the ways we have decided to do this is through expanded opportunities for students to have leadership roles in our school. All current Year 5 students are in the process of applying for the following student leadership roles for 2024:

2 School Captains,

3 Sport House Leaders

1 Social Justice Captain

In addition to the leadership roles available to our Year 6 cohort, we will be creating a Student Representative Council (SRC) next year. The SRC is a group of students elected by their fellow students to represent all students in the school. SRCs work democratically to represent the student body in school decision-making and organise ways for students to promote and participate in social justice initiatives at our school. The SRC will comprise of the two School Captains and the Social Justice Leader and an elective representative from our current year 4s, and two representatives from each of our junior and middle classrooms and will meet once a term.

Over the course of this week, children will be addressing their peers with a speech as to why they would make a valuable member of our Student Leadership Team. Peer voting and staff voting will help determine who will receive each role.

We have been delighted with the enthusiasm that all children have approached the application process for these new roles, however, we are also aware that there will be many disappointed students as not everyone will get a role. We ask you to prepare your child for this and encourage them to try their best and to be pleased for their peers who do receive a role. The attached article may be useful as building GRIT in children sets them up for greater success later in life.

Advance Notice: Welcome Picnic

Our first school community event of the year will be held on Thursday 8th February starting at 5pm.

Highly regarded Melbourne-based dance company STOMP Dance Co, will come to our school each day for a week and teach our students four- to-five dance routines. The week of dancing will culminate on Thursday night with an outdoor concert that will showcase all they have learnt during the week.

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

Instrumental Concert

Last Tuesday, our students who have been learning music all year with Melanie Pocknall, proudly presented an instrumental piece that they have being learning throughout the year.

Well done to all of our instrumental students on the work they have been putting into learning their instrument!

Instrumental Concert 2023

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Sacramental Celebration

Last week, our 2023 Sacramental students, celebrated the completion of the Sacraments of Initiation into the Catholic Church with a special lunch at Macs Hotel. Father Gary joined us for the celebration and presented all of the children with their certificates. 

School Advisory Council

Last Thursday we held our Annual General Meeting of our School Advisory Council for 2023 and it was a wonderful celebration of all that has been achieved this year by our small school community. Special guest, Sharon Gillett, Principal of Mercy Regional College, spoke of her high regard for our community and its connection to MRC. She sought advice from our SAC about how to best ensure a smooth transition for our transition from their small school environment into the larger school setting secondary school offers.

We farewelled the Chair of our SAC, Lily Convery-Oborne and thank her for the enormous amount of time she had put into our school and for the amazing impact that she has had. Especially her work in getting Little Colman’s Playtime off the ground.

Jo Wallis was elected as the new Chair for the year ahead and we welcomed a new parent, Danielle Kenny, onto our Advisory Committee. We look forward to working alongside the women in ensuring the voice of our parent group is heard and responded to. Please read the attached reports from Chair, Lily Convery-Oborne and Principal, Janet Cain.

Term 1 Meeting Dates:

Thursday Feb 15th 2024, 6:30 at school

Thursday 14th March 2024, 6:30 at school

COMMUNITY CAROLS

St Colman's is excited to be part of our community Christmas Carols night being held on December 15th at 6pm. 

All of our students have been practicing two Christmas Carols, Jingle Bell Rock and An Aussie Jingle Bells, that they will perform. 

If you are attending, please ensure your child is wearing something "Christmassy".

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.

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

Free Eye Screener

A unique opportunity exists for students in our area to take advantage of a free screening for an eye condition known as Irlen Syndrome. This condition, which is a visual processing condition, can greatly affect a person's ability to process visual information and therefore can impact upon their learning and behaviour.

See further details below,  including how you can take advantage of this opportunity.

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 Charlotte, millie, Noah A and Noah M who are all celebrating a birthday this week.

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

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 11 - Policies and procedures document how the organisation is safe for children and young people

At St Colman's we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. We have many policies and procedures in place to meet this standard. Our child safe policies are available to read on our school website here. We also have strict guidelines that volunteers and contractors must follow and meet when they are working in our school. All adults working with our students must hold a valid Working With Children Check (WWCC) or Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) registration. These are just a few examples of the many ways in which we meet this standard.

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

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.

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.