Dear Parents

As a Catholic learning community,

all at Mother Teresa School are called

to care, to dream, to innovate, to inspire!

Teacher Meet and Greet - Year 1 to Year 6

Next Tuesday February 13 our parents from Years 1 to 6  are invited to meet their child's teacher from 8am to 8:40am in classrooms. As communicated through compass, please note that this is not the forum to discuss your child's academic development at this early stage of the school year. Students will be supervised on the fake grass lineup area from 7:55am.

Welcome Picnic

This Sunday February 11th all families are invited to a community picnic at Mother Teresa School to welcome in the new school year. The event run by our amazing community council, will be held on our school oval from 9:30am to 11:30am. Families are encouraged to bring a picnic and enjoy some fun games and activities. Each student who attends will also receive a token for their house!

School Attendance 

Daily school attendance is essential unless a child is not well. It is also critical that children are at school by 8.45am. Due to the number of children arriving late the teacher will now be marking rolls at 8.55 each day. If a child is not in class by 8.55am they will be recorded as not present and must be checked in at the office. Children will be issued with

• a yellow pass if they arrive via the office indicating they are on time or
• a blue ticket indicating they arrived after 8.55am and have been formally signed in. 

Please make every effort to get your child to school on time. 

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Community Council Meeting

This year marks the beginning of the implementation of the new Community Council Guidelines. Parents are invited to our first meeting to be held on Tuesday 20 February commencing at 6.00pm - 7.30pm 

Agenda items for discussion 

• Community Council Guidelines
• School Car Park
• Hall Refurbishment Project 
• Social and Fundraising Activities - offered to coordinate events
• School Grounds and Sustainability

Interested in attending or have other suggestions for discussion please email carmel.maguire@cg.catholic.edu.au

Archbishop Decision to Incorporate Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Canberra & Goulburn

Today an announcement has been made that there will be a new direction in governance for Catholic Education within the Archdiocese.

A link to the announcement is below for your information:

 https://cgcatholic.org.au/about/our-archbishop/addresses-and-statements/new-era-in-governance-of-ce/

It is intended that very little will change within schools as a result of this governance change. Further updates will be provided as the initiative progresses.

Our current school focus is on being Courteous.

School Fees
We are expecting CE to release the school fees next week. Billing will be for TErm 1 and parents can opt to pay in full or via regular installments. 

The annual school fee for 2024 will be  

1 Child - $3,858     2 Children - $5,734     3 Children - $7,068    4 Children - $7,861.

This does not include a sibling discount if you have an older child at a Systemic high school. The Building Fund is not included in these fees as it is an opt-in contribution. 

ACT Government’s Future of Education Equity Fund

Eligible ACT families can now apply to access yearly one-off payments to help cover the costs of 2024 education expenses through the ACT Government’s Future of Education Equity Fund.

The fund helps ACT students from eligible families access everyday essentials to assist with their education and well-being, such as book packs, uniforms and excursions, sport equipment and activities, tuition and music lessons.

It supports financially disadvantaged families with students who are enrolled in preschool through to Year 12 in any ACT school.

Payments include:

· $400 for preschool students

· $500 for primary school students

· $750 for high school and college students

In 2023, the fund supported more than 5,000 students, with more than $2.9 million distributed to families experiencing financial stress.

Applications for the 2024 school year will remain open until 29 November 2024. Information about the fund is available at: https://bit.ly/3O3vV1u

Car Park
Our car park was never built to accommodate parking for a school of our size. Please, patience is what is required, and following staff directions is essential. We have worked hard to develop a flow of traffic if parking on the tennis courts. Your assistance is very much appreciated - great work today!

Kinder Afternoon Pick Up - in the courtyard

Following discussion with the Kinder teacher the children will assemble in the Kinder Courtyard at the end of the day, not on the tuff as discussed. Parents, please collect your child from the courtyard as this will assist with supervision and provide the opportunity for the teacher to see you briefly if required. The teacher will then walk them to the carline if required.

Year 6 Camp 

Year 6 camp information is to be released. As camp is occurring very soon please take the weekend to complete all the required documentation and permission requirements. Camp dates are Wednesday 28 February to Friday 1 March.

Uniform Shop

Our uniform shop volunteers have advised that they will be opening the uniform shop every Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 until 9:00. 

God bless and have a lovely weekend

Carmel Maguire

Principal

Student Support Referral

To assist our families in accessing the best support available through Mother Teresa School, we are setting up the following process to assist with referrals and the most appropriate use of our resources.

1. Enquiry (teacher or parent) – Request a referral form from the office and return to the Principal
2. The Principal will talk with you and guide you to appropriate support

Support types:

• Diverse Learning Teacher and team,
• Student welfare officer (individual or small group guidance and/or mentoring support),
• Defence School Mentor,
• School counselling (individual or small group)
• External agencies

If school counselling is recommended the School Counsellor will contact the parents and go through the online CatholicCare referral process if school counselling is suitable. Our School Counsellors, are available on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays to speak with parents or to work with the students who may be suitable for school counselling.

It is the CatholicCare and Mother Teresa School’s policy that the counsellor always contacts parents before meeting with any child. 

Our new Counsellors are

• Cameron Day - Mondays to Wednesdays
• Nik Nur Shuhaimi - Wednesdays

A referral is required each new school year. Please return to the Principal.

Dear Parents,

Thank you for providing your student with a Chromebook for their learning.

After experiencing some teething problems during 2023 with Chromebook setups, we have determined that the following is the most reliable setup for students to access their account at school.

 In order for the Chromebook to be used at school, please set up the following:

 1. Personal Account

We recommend parents sign into the Chromebook using a personal account first. It can be their own account, or the account they create for the student. 

The first account will automatically be the owner account of that device. By doing this, parents can set up parental controls and students won’t have admin. The family will still have access to the iPad in the case the student leaves Catholic education.

Instructions:https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1047362?hl=en

2. Child personal account

If the personal account set up in Step 1 belongs to an adult, please set up a child personal account. The student will need this in order to add their school account. If the child already has a personal account on the Chromebook, you can skip this step.

Instructions:https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1059242?hl=en

3. Child school account inside the child’s personal account

Please add the school account inside the child’s personal account. 

1. Student signs in to their personal account
2. At the bottom right, select the time.
3. Select Settings cog.
4. In the "Accounts" section, at the top, select your Google Account.
5. Select Add Student Account
6. Follow the on-screen steps.
7. Parents will need to enter their email password to allow this.

The student needs to use their school account to access Google Classroom, Google Drive, and other apps in the Google Suite. The student account is managed by Catholic Education.

Your child has a record of their school account. It is in the form of their school email address

Eg. mrobit02@cgstudents.catholic.edu.au and a password they nominated with their teacher. This password has more complex requirements as soon as students begin Year 4. Teachers will guide students through choosing a suitable password.

Students will then be able to switch between their home and school accounts in Chrome by clicking on their letter icon in the top right corner.

Family Link controls

If parents would like to apply extra supervision to the Chromebook, they can set up Family Link.

However, at this stage Catholic Education ICT and Mother Teresa Staff are not in the position of supporting parents with Family Link on BYO devices. 

Some information and instructions are below:

https://support.google.com/families/answer/7101025?hl=en

https://support.google.com/families/answer/7680868?hl=en

https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/9900467

Scholastic Book Club

The Issue 1 catalogue for 2024 is now available. The cut-off date for orders is next week on Friday 16^th February.

Parents can order online via the LOOP parent portal on the Scholastic website, no orders or cash will be accepted by the school. Late orders are charged a flat rate for home postage.

Books will be delivered to children in their classroom once they arrive at the school. MTS Community Council parent volunteers are running the Book Club, so please ensure any inquiries are directed to them via the office email, rather than to teachers. A reminder that missing or damaged orders may need to be reported to Scholastic using their online contact information, and that out of stock items already paid for are usually credited to the LOOP account. Parents concerned about missing, misplaced or damaged orders are advised to wait until the catalogue is closed and use the home postage option.

Mother Teresa School Community Council

I hope that you all had an enjoyable summer break. Welcome back to the new year and I hope that all students, parents and carers, particularly those new to the school, are settling in well.

I am writing about the Mother Teresa School Community Council (Council). The Council provides a crucial point of connection between the school community and school leaders. It provides a framework for welcoming parents and other members of the school community to participate in school activities, to become actively involved in the life of the school and to support the mission of the school.

The Council is a forum for consultation, a means for members of the community to share their skills and talents for the common good, and a framework for the Principal to draw upon. The Council can make decisions relating to spending money raised through Council led fundraising activities.

The success of the Council comes directly from the volunteers who contribute and I wanted to thank each and everyone who assisted us over the previous year.

Some successes and areas of focus of the Council over the last year were:

• We have focused on social and community events, looking to re-connect the school community. You would have seen that the first event, a welcome picnic, is taking place this Sunday between 9:30 and 11:30 on the MTS school oval. We intend to roll out a number of other events across the school year.
• The fantastic MTS year book is the amazing work of a small number of volunteers.
• Likewise, it is volunteers who seamlessly deliver the MTS second hand uniform shop.
• Volunteers manage the Scholastic book club – with support from the purchases in turn providing a range of free reading resources for the school.
• After being successful in obtaining a grant, we facilitated the recruitment of a parent liaison officer who assisted us with Council activities and firmed up some of our procedures and templates to be used in future years.
• We are finalising the purchase and placement of two notice boards on school grounds. We’ve been considering how we communicate with the school community. We are aware that we are a diverse school community and want to explore measures to effectively reach all people.
• We contributed to the purchase of large school branded banners to be used at school sporting and community events.

This year sees the implementation across the Archdiocese of a consistent model of school community councils across all schools. This sees an update of the constitution of the Council in the school and a clarification of its purpose and role.

This is likely to mean some administrative change and a process of transition of some governance arrangements. I expect to see little to no change in our core focus of supporting the Principal to make strategic decisions about the school, promoting our school within the local community and participating in community or fundraising activities that benefit the school community.

We will be meeting for the first time this week on Tuesday 20 February at 6:00 pm. Its at this meeting where we will outline our key areas of focus for the year.  

If you would like to be involved in the Council some way, you are more than welcome! We are looking for volunteers and it’s a great way to connect with the school community. You can do as much or as little as you would like. If you have any feedback or suggestions, we’d love to hear them. Please feel free to join us at the meeting on 20 Feb or reach out to: communitycouncil.mts@gmail.com

Best regards

Damien Kelly

Chair of the MTS Community Council