Term 2 Week 11 Monday 24th June

Acknowledgement of Country

From the Principal

Important Dates:

Term 2 2024

Monday 17th- Friday 28th June- Rosie on Long Service Leave (Mick McKenzie to replace her)

Monday 24th- Friday 28th June- Janet on Study Leave

Monday 24th- Friday 28th June- St Colman's celebrating NAIDOC Week

Monday 24^th June – MRC Taster Day (Year 6 students to attend)

Friday 28th June- Final day of Term 2 (early finish @ 2:15)

                                     - Casual Clothes day

Term 3

Monday 15^th July- Pupil Free Day- Religious Education; staff professional learning day.

Tuesday 16^th July- Pupil Free Day- Structured Literacy; staff professional learning day.

Wednesday 17^th July- Students first day back at school for Term 3

                                           - Jenny Stapleton Long Service Leave (4 weeks)

Wednesday 31st July- SAC Meeting at 6:30pm in Staffroom at school

Monday 5th August- 150th anniversary of the Diocese of Ballarat Message Stick stops at our school

Tuesday 6th August- Kinder Visit

                                          - Parent Teacher Interviews

Thursday 8, 15, 22 and 29th August- Gymnastics in Warrnambool

Monday 12th-Friday 19th August- Dental Van 

Friday 19th  August- Bullying No Way Day

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

                Tuesday 16^th July- Structured Literacy

The readings at this weekend's mass tell us a miracle story when Jesus showed his power over the forces of nature by calming the storm and calming the Disciples.

I hope you and your family find some time to rest and 'calm the storm' in your very busy lives throughout the holidays.

Our Lady of Mercy Parish News

We welcome Fr Jim as our Parish Priest - as of 1st July until the end of the year. Bishop Paul will make long term appointments later in the year. 

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

Semester One Reports

Your child's end of semester report will be available to all families from today via PAM. If you have any issues accessing their report, please let us know. If you wish to discuss the report with your child's teacher, please contact the office to arrange a time to meet with them. Alternatively, you can discuss their report during Parent Teacher Interviews which will be held during Week 4 of next term.

When discussing the report with your child, it is important to remember to;

• Focus on their strengths first before looking at areas that need improvement.
• Ask for their opinion about their learning and the year so far. What have they enjoyed? What did they find hard?
• Discuss any concerns they may have and how we all can support them during Semester 2.
• After reports have been read and discussed, celebrate your child's achievement from Semester 1.

You may find the following article useful to support this conversation with your child.

Start to Term 3

We commence Term 3 with two Pupil Free Days. Monday July 15th, our staff will join with the staff from St Thomas’ Terang for professional learning in RE and on Tuesday the 16th, our staff will participate in a Structured Literacy workshop.

Students will commence their Term on Wednesday July 17^th.  As this is a short week there will be no newsletter the first week back. We will provide you with any important updates via the Schoolzine App.

Staffing News

Jenny Stapleton (Miss Stape) will be taking Long Service Leave for the first 4 weeks of Term 3. She will be replaced for two days a week by Mrs Kath Townsend. Some of you may have already met Kath or recognise her as she has been doing some relieving roles at our school throughout the year.

We hope Jenny enjoys her well-deserved break and the warmer Western Australian weather!!

School Uniform

With Winter well and truly upon us, it is timely to remind us all of the uniform expectations at our school. We have noticed quite a few students regularly wearing clothes that are not a part of our uniform. Sports uniform is only to be worn on SPORTS DAY (Wednesday) and black leggings are not allowed. Your support in enforcing our uniform policy with your children would be greatly appreciated! 

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.

Boys’ Winter Uniform:

Navy blue rugby school jumper or navy blue school jacket

Navy blue polo shirt (short or long sleeved)

Grey cotton drill trousers   

Navy blue socks (Crew length)

Girls' Winter Uniform:

Navy blue rugby school jumper or navy blue school jacket

Navy blue polo shirt (short or long sleeved)

Navy skirt or navy cotton drill trousers    

Navy blue socks (Crew length)

Unisex Sports Uniform:

Navy blue polo shirt

School blue shorts or PLAIN navy blue tracksuit pants or leggings

Navy blue socks (Crew length)

Runners

Positive Partnerships

Please find below information about an upcoming free Government funded autism workshop in Colac for parent/carers. The close location of this workshop, provides a wonderful opportunity for members of our school community to access excellent professional support and guidance on living with. and caring for, neurodivergent children.

Please note, diagnosis is not required to attend the workshop, therefore this could be a great opportunity for families who may be exploring a diagnosis.  Grandparents, kinship carers and other family members welcome.

Student Representative Council News

To celebrate the end of another successful term, all children can wear casual clothes this Friday. No gold coin required.

Just a reminder that Toastie Tuesday is a fundraising initiative of our Junior School Council. Please remember to include $1 with each toastie and write your child's name on the outside of the toastie wrapper so they get the right sandwich returned to them. If there is no money included, your child's sandwich won’t be toasted!

School Advisory Council (SAC)

At our most recent SAC meeting we discussed our school's annual fundraiser the Major Raffle. The raffle has been a major success over many and has raised in excess of $9,500 each year which has been put towards various projects at the school, including resurfacing our new undercover area. We have always received great support with many people in Mortlake and beyond purchasing tickets. Previously, the first prize was a $3,000 voucher from Scott’s Betta Home Living.

We have decided that it is time to try something new. This year we will approach all businesses in Mortlake and ask them to donate a voucher that will be bundled together and offered as prizes. We believe that it is important for our school to support and promote all local businesses. We are asking local businesses to donate a voucher. For vouchers up to $100, we will match their donation and for vouchers over $100, we will contribute an additional $100 to be spent at their business. In return we will promote their business on our newsletter and on social media before and after the raffle has been drawn. All Vouchers will be bundled together to form the prizes in the;

St Colman's Local Loot Draw!

If you know of any local businesses that may be willing to donate a voucher to contribute to this raffle, please contact Jane in our office to receive the details about how they can donate.

Jo Wallis (Chair), Alison Greig, Michelle Lehmann, Zion Palmer, Sophie Allen, Rachel Baulch, Danielle Kenny, 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 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 the first week back, Friday July 19th.

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.

Weekly Award Winners

Congratulations to these amazing students who were acknowledged for their achievements at our end of week assembly on Friday.

School Counselling at St Colman's

We welcomed Rachael Main into our school community as our Pastoral Care Chaplain a few weeks ago. Rachael has slotted into her role with ease and is already building connections with our students and working with them to build their social and emotional intelligence.
In addition to these one-on-one sessions, Rachael is also going to be conducting whole class and small group sessions that will help to develop various social skills, team building, resilience and problem-solving skills in our students.
If your child was previously accessing the services of our school counsellor, Grace, they will continue with Rachael. If you think your child would benefit from this service, please speak to your child's teacher or Janet.

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

Positive Parenting Series

The National Academy of Sciences defines four major responsibilities necessary for good parenting. These include: maintaining a child's health and safety; promoting a child’s emotional wellbeing; instilling a child’s social skills; and preparing a child intellectually.

There is no such thing as a perfect parent, but arming yourself with the right information is a good start!

This week's focus article is on Respectful Realtionships.

Respectful relationships promotes respect and gender equality and helps students learn how to build healthy relationships. It prepares students to face challenges by developing problem-solving skills and building resilience and confidence." Dr Michael Carr-Gregg

Birthday Wishes

We wish the following students a very Happy Birthday as they will all be celebrating a birthday over the next few weeks.

Eloise, Rosie and Sienna, we hope you have a wonderful day and the year ahead is full of fun and happy surprises!!

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

In complying with Child Safe Standard 11 St Colman's must, at a minimum, ensure:

11.1  Policies and procedures address all Child Safe Standards.

11.2  Policies and procedures are documented and easy to understand.

11.3  Best practice models and stakeholder consultation informs the development of policies and procedures.

11.4  Leaders champion and model compliance with policies and procedures.

11.5  Staff and volunteers understand and implement policies and procedures.

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

• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy implemented and communicated to the school community via SAC and is available on the school website. 
• Commitment to child safety is signed at the entry to the school. 
• Child Safety Risk Register reviewed to meet all 11 Child Safe Standards, includes actions for implementation. The Child Safety Risk Register has been endorsed by the SAC on 4 April 2023. 
• All Child Safety policies are available on the school website and in child friendly version. 
• All staff, volunteers, CRT’s and contractors sign the Code of Conduct annually through Passtab. 
• Staff participate in an Annual Induction training that include Child Safe Standards, Mandatory Reporting and various supporting policies are covered. ie: Complaints Handling Policy. 
• Recruitment processes followed as per the Recruitment Policy, which is available to staff and the whole school community via the school website. 
• The school has a designated Child Safety Officer. This role is promoted to staff and is included in several related Child Safe policies. 
• Child Safe is a regular agenda item at SAC and leadership meetings. 
• 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.

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.

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.