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VERY SAD NEWS
It is with great sadness that I advise you that Greg Sinclair, father of Riley 4KS and husband of Tammy died suddenly yesterday. This has come as a great shock and I ask that you keep Greg, Tammy, Riley and their families in your prayers.
THANKYOU
As we come to the end of the most remarkable term in my time in education I want to thank everyone in our community for the commitment, work and compassion you have all shown. I am always proud to be Principal of St Peter’s but never as proud as I have been this term. Our staff, students and families have been remarkable. I hope these holidays bring you some time to relax and rest as you all are so deserving of this break.
FAREWELL
Forster family
The Forster family have bought a new house and will be moving home at the end of the term. We thank Michelle and Damian for their support of St Peter’s over the last six years. Patrick 3MR and Eliza 5FJ will be sadly missed by their classmates and we wish them all the best in their new schools and their new home.
Meleka Family
Eliana Meleka 3GM is moving to a school much closer to her home saving her parents on the very long commute to St Peter’s. We thank William and Maryan for their support of St Peter’s and wish Eliana all the best in her new school.
HOME SCHOOLING FEEDBACK Via Survey
The period of remote learning has been a challenging time for us all, but despite the major disruptions to normal activities, there will be many valuable lessons derived from this period that we as a school, and the Education system, wish to take forward.
Below is a link to an optional survey in order to help capture the learnings from the remote learning period. The surveys are designed to be a quick capture of learnings while the experience is fresh, and are not designed to capture every aspect of schooling during the lockdown period. Your feedback will be valuable in learning from the experience and improving education outcomes.
Here is the link to the survey. It is expected the survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Thank you for taking the time to contribute to our learnings as a school and education system.
RETURN FOR TERM THREE
Following the announcement by Premier Andrews on Saturday we will be continuing the drop off and staggered pick up for the first day of Term Three. His next announcement will be the last day of the holidays, Sunday, 12th July. Following this announcement we will review our current practices and if there are changes they will be detailed in my next planned whole school communication which will be the newsletter on the first day back, Monday, 13th July.
SOCIAL DISTANCING - For your information
With the number of schools having to close for COVID reasons increasing I implore you to continue to maintain the adult social distancing required. This means that at pick up and drop off time you maintain the 1.5 metre distancing required. We do not want our students to return to home schooling for any reason.
REPORTS GOING HOME THURSDAY
All student reports will be emailed to families this Thursday, 24th June.
LAST DAY OF TERM - Staggered Dismissal
Please note staggered dismissal times this Friday, 26th June
2:05pm Year 2 Year 6 and Siblings
2:10pm Year 5 and Siblings
2:15pm Year 4 and Year 1 and Siblings
2:20pm Year 3 and Siblings
2:25pm Year Prep
FIRST DAY OF TERM THREE
School will return for students at 8:45am on Monday, 13th July.
SCHOOL FEES
All fee accounts were sent to you last week. If COVID 19 has impacted your family financially please email fees@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au and we will be able to offer some fee assistance. Emails to this address are kept confidential and are only read by Loretta Ballas, our Finance Administration Officer, and myself.
PUPIL FREE DAY TERM THREE
In planning for Term Three please note that Monday, 27th July will be a Pupil Free Day. OSHClub will be operating a full day program on this day.
NATIONALLY CONSISTENT COLLECTION OF DATA ON SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH DISABILITY (NCCD)
Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about support provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
- Year of schooling
- Category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
- Level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.
This information assists schools to:
- Formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
- Consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
- Develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides State and Federal Governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).
Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please contact Joelle Diakrousis our Learning Diversity Leader on jdiakrousis@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au
KIDS ON KEY INSTRUMENTAL PROGRAM
Please click on the link below to view information on the Kids on Key Instrumental Program
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19s8yrim0lJ8c_5YtRbefomCVdQurqTRE/view?usp=sharing
I CAN’T BREATHE
Our Federated Theme for 2020 is TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO TREAT YOU. This verse is straight out of the bible in Luke’s Gospel.
At the end of the day life comes down to how you treat others.
I am convinced that when it is my time to have the interview with God to enter His eternal home he will not ask me my Year 6 grades nor my VCE score. God will ask how did you treat others when it counted.
Every day we see examples of how people MISTREAT others. If you were NOT shocked by the words: “I can’t breathe” then something is seriously wrong with how you see the world. I was totally against the protest Black Lives Matter in the streets of Melbourne because of the COVID-19 health risks. BUT I was not against the need to voice that BLACK LIVES DO MATTER.
Saving whales is a wonderful cause but surely saving human lives is also an important cause.
The Catholic Church is not faultless in this issue either. At one stage in their history whether the Church condemned or allowed slavery is debatable but the fact it did not outrightly condemn slavery is deplorable.
Racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism and ageism just to name a few all exist in our society and also in the Church. Each of these ‘isms’ and other negative ‘isms’ are all totally against the Gospel message of love and treating others as you would like them to treat you.
The image of little children playing in the sand pit is always a beautiful and rejoicing image. They are all playing and having fun oblivious to age, race, class, etc. At some stage someone will tell them who they should play with and who they should not play with. If we were true to the Gospel message of love we would let the children play with whoever they liked.
Of course, there are exceptions, like if the other person is a drug dealer or abuser, etc. But even if this was the case we would still want to treat them as we would like to be treated ourselves.
The hearing of three heart breaking words “I can’t breathe” are haunting. The fact that others stood by and did nothing is deplorable. The fact that more people of aboriginal race die in custody is a fact which needs investigating.
God gave us the gift of Free Will. I do wonder at times whether God ever envisaged what dreadful choices humans would make with this gift.
Can we change the world and its attitudes to mistreatment of others? The answer is YES. It first begins with a change of heart. It changes when we hear other people’s stories of life. Perhaps these last two months of isolation has brought back the gift of listening.
Stop and listen to the story and our heart may change for the better.
Edward Dooley (Mission and Faith Leader)
In 2019 St Peters offered the ‘Cool Kids’ program to support students with anxiety. The program is facilitated by two accredited providers, Gayle Child and Patricia Boscolo-Pitrone. We are pleased to offer this program again in 2020.
Cool Kids is a 10-session program which teaches skills to manage anxiety. Parents are shown how to support their child in the use of these new skills and a section of the program focuses specifically on parenting strategies that encourage children to self-manage anxiety.
The program can be run during school time (with your child withdrawn from class) or after school, subject to facilitator availability.
We ask that interested families initially contact Louise Van Corler or Joelle Diakrousis by phone 9575 0909 or via email. These staff will be able to provide more information about program arrangements and cost.
Louise Van Corler lvancorler@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au
Joelle Diakrousis jdiakrousis@spbentleigheast.catholic.edu.au
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NC4JrVsZVubA4B4WMrf00mLSciIfzL8o/view?usp=sharing