Dear Parents

As a Catholic learning community,

all at Mother Teresa School are called

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

This week Mother Teresa School hosted several interstate visitors to view best practices in teaching and to further the support of our Catalyst intervention of high-impact teaching practices, applying the Science of Learning and the Science of Reading development. Our Tuesday visitors were from the Catholic Diocese of NSW, Melbourne, and the Catholic Education Canberra Goulburn to view our teaching of mathematics. 

Lesson Demonstrations

On Wednesday Jared Bussell, a teaching coach from Shaping Minds spent the day sharing his expertise with the staff around the development of effective use of daily review to support teaching and learning. Jared made a point of commenting on the beautiful behaviour and manners of the children he worked with. 

Let's Decode

On Thursday MTS once again hosted training in Let's Decode with Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond from Edith Cowan University WA. Let's Decode is designed to improve regular classroom teachers' knowledge about, and strategies for teaching, systematic decoding skills from Kinder to Year 2.  We had several teachers and support staff take part in this important professional learning opportunity. Our Year 1 children loved the opportunity to be engaged as people practiced their skills.

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. 

Our current school focus is on being Considerate

Compass Absent Days 

When entering absent days into Compass, please only enter days when your child is absent for a whole day. When students are dropped off late or go home early you are required to sign them in/out on our Compass Kiosks in the front office which then creates that absent note. 

Year 6 Camp 

Final 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 9:00am.

God bless and have a lovely weekend

Carmel Maguire

Principal

This week a representative from the Catholic Education     completed a review of our afternoon traffic arrangements in the car park. Below is the feedback provided to the school today and a photo of the traffic flow.

Comments received:- From the latest census it appears the school’s population is just under 800 students (approximately 100 ELC & 700 Primary students), noting a small proportion may either walk or ride, so it was assumed the pickup period was going to be busy. I also note, we are in week 4 of the school year with the potential for the newly enrolled families to be unfamiliar with the expected behaviour /procedures around a Primary School.

From the attached photos it can be seen it was a clear afternoon with temperatures around the 30-degree mark, so visibility was good. The following is a short summary of timeline with observations below;

• Timeline
• 2.00pm - Arrived at Mother Teresa Primary School
• 2.15pm - Parents / Carers start arriving and queued outside gates
• 2.30pm – Gates to rear car park opened and vehicles entered, reverse parking
• 3.00pm - School bell sounds
• 3.00 – 3.10pm – Peak traffic movement with constant student pickup
• 3.20pm – The car park is all but empty with little car movement
• 3.30pm – Left site
• Observations
• Although there was a large number of vehicles moving through the car park for the busy 10 - 15 minutes, it all appeared to be in a controlled and courteous manner with no obvious safety concerns
• A MTS Staff member was situated in the location shown on the car park map, with no agitated or rushed behaviour noticed
• The verge footpath had a reasonable amount of pedestrian traffic from another School to the South of MTPS
• All foot traffic through the MTPS car park area followed and utilised the footpaths
• Traffic followed the routes shown of the attached satellite image and moved well
• ELC pickups seemed to be from the secondary traffic flow (as shown on the attached map)

Please observe the signage around the school car park areas; especially the areas that are drop-off, 5 minute parking only or no parking. There are also several parks designated for parents, in the main car park, especially for use during the day. 

Preschool Slip Lane

Please keep the slip lane in front of the preschool clear for our preschool/ELC parent pick up and drop off between 8.15am and 9.15am then 2.30pm and 3.15pm. With an additional class in the ELC this year, they need this quick drop off and pick up zone free to access the centre. 

Looking for parents who can share their wisdom on Wednesday 28 February

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, Wednesdays and Fridays 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 - Fridays

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

A message from Cameron Day

Greetings Mother Teresa families. My name is Cameron Day, and I am excited to be the school counsellor this year. I am available Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

I am a Social Worker with a passion for working with children, young people, and their families. I have previously worked in education, child and adolescent mental health, and acute mental health.

When I am not working, I enjoy reading, eating, spending time with my family and friends, and being physically active.  

In my school counselling work, I provide short-term, client-centred support to students, drawing from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Solution Focused, Mindfulness and Trauma-informed approaches in a developmentally appropriate context.

I look forward to working with you all this year.

Please see below for live webinars from the e-safety Commissioner for this term. These live webinars give parents and carers the knowledge, skills and tools to support their children to have safe online experiences. To register for these webinars and other dates later in the year please go to https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars