Dear Parents 

The official enrolment period concludes on Friday 22 May. Enrolment applications can be submitted online, please share this information with neighbours and friends. This year, due to socual distancing restrictions, I will be conducting virtual tours, via Zoom, to share all the wonderful qualities St Monica's has to offer with new families. Spread the word! https://www.stmonicas.act.edu.au/enrolments

Return to Face to Face Teaching 

We currently have three staff members who will not be returning for the next few weeks due to medical or personal circumstances. This has meant we have had to look at how we best staff each group. The teachers involved are Mrs Susan Carswell, Mrs Anne Hodgkin and Mrs Cerryanne Kelly. The following arrangements have been put in place from next week.

3CD - Mrs Melinda Brown (4 days) and Mr Luke Donnelly (1 day) will share the class

3GB - Mrs Kirsty Godschalx will teacher full time 

3L - Mrs Mira Lustica will work with a relief teacher who will cover each Tuesday

Japanese - Mrs Jodie May will supervise the work provided by Mrs Hodgkin for the Japanese groups on Thursdays and Fridays

Last week we welcomed back Mrs Miraim Hilton who was very proud to announce she is expecting her second child later in the year. 

Changed Drop Off and Pick Up Arrangements - Update 

Children to be dropped off in the hall car park or at the top of the ramp to the basketball courts between 8.25am and 8.50am. A teacher will be available to supervise the children crossing the staff car park crossing near the office. Please display extra car etiquette during this difficult time as your child’s safety must come first.

Afternoon Arrangements

Pick Up – Front of School

Commencing at 3.00pm prior to the 3.10pm bell.

• Families with K, 1 and siblings to drive through the staff carpark, enter from Moynihan Street.
• Clearly display your family name in the passenger window.
• Suggestion: Place baby or toddler seat on the righthand side so children can access the car from the left-hand side.

3.10pm Bell and dismissal for Years 2 – 6 and all other children from K – 2 not being picked up from the front of the school.

3.15pm Drive through pick up for Year 2 & 3 and siblings

3.20pm Drive through pick up for families with children in Years 4 – 6. 

Chomley Carpark - A teacher will walk the children across to the carpark. Adults are asked to remain in their car. Suggestion - families with children in Years 3 - 6 use Chomley 

Copland College Carpark – this carpark will not be supervised.

Walkers and Bike Riders – Children will be dismissed as usual. Parents can wait at the boundary of the school to collect their child/ren; please remember social distancing while you wait.

Bus Travellers - Moynihan and Copland Bus Stops will be supervised.

SMOOSH – will be collected at the Kinder play equipment and supervised across the crossing near the office.

School Fees

As you are aware the CE requested that schools delay the invoicing of fees until this week to allow families, whose work arrangements were impacted by COVID -19, to apply for fee support and to see if they were entitled to JobKeeper or JobSeeker. Due to additional online programs purchased for the children to use for remote learning,  material supplied and the increased cleaning required we are currently not in a position to reduce our local levies for this term. Should you require fee support please email me directly for the required application carmel.maguire@cg.catholic.edu.au. 

Uniform

Thank you to our new uniform team for their efforts over the last few weeks. All children need to move into their winter uniform, now the weather is turning cold. Uniforms can be ordered via Qkr. Orders placed by Thursday evening will be filled and ready to be picked up after 11am from the Front Office on a Friday. Orders are generally sent home with the children on a Friday unless other arrangements are made. Please do not hesitate to contact the team, via email, should you have an issue or query. stmonsuniform@gmail.com 

Baby News

Congratulations to the Bassi family - Anandvir (1R) on the arrival of a new baby brother born on Tuesday.

Canteen

The Canteen will remain closed until further notice. We will consider opening later in the term depending on social distancing rules for adults.   

Multipurpose Wipes, Hand Towels and Tissues

To maintain a clean and healthy environment for the children and staff we have increased the level of cleaning around the school including the wiping down of desks, doors, ledges etc. As we continue to provide hand sanitiser and packs of anti-bacterial wipes to the classrooms, it would be great if the children could also bring in their own pack of anti-bacterial wipes to sit on their desk. A roll of paper towel and tissues, per family, would also be appreciated. 

We have acquired small packs of wipes for the children to purchase for $1.00. The senior students will take around a collection tin each day for anyone who would like to purchase some for their desk. No change will be given as we need to reduce the handling of cash. 

The staff loved their morning tea!

To all the families who provided morning tea for the staff today, they loved the surprise and are feeling very special.  We very much appreciate the support given by all our beautiful families, especially over the last few weeks as we worked to maintain a positive learning experience for your children. We are all in this together. 

Continue to stay safe and healthy. 

Principal  

To ensure we maintain a safe environment for the children and staff extra hygiene and safety practices have been put in place now all the children are returning 

• Increased cleaning schedules and resources onsite during the school day to wipe down and disinfect high-touch areas, including classrooms and common spaces, in addition to regular daily cleaning.
• Provision of extra hand sanitiser across the school.
• Provision of extra hand soap for children to wash their hands frequently, particularly before and after recess and lunchtime.
• Frequent reminders to ensure children are practising good personal hygiene. This means, covering mouths and noses when coughing and sneezing or coughing and sneezing into inner elbow, frequent hand washing, not sharing food or drinks and minimising physical contact.
• Children must bring a water bottle for personal use each day and all Years 3 – 6  to provide their own pencil case.
• Each child to provide a pack of anti-bacterial wipe to be kept on their desk.
• No child is to attend school if they are showing any cold or flu-like symptoms. They must remain at home and stay away from school until they are no longer showing symptoms or have attended a GP who has instructed that they are fit and safe to return.
• If your child, or family members or other close contacts are tested for COVID-19, your child is not to attend school until the results of those tests are known and are negative. Please advise the school if this situation occurs immediately.
• If your child has a medical condition that places them at greater risk from a return to face-to-face teaching at this time, please contact their teacher so that we can discuss their needs in greater detail and develop an appropriate plan for their circumstances.

As we are attempting to minimise the number of adults coming onto the premises and to reduce the possible risk of COVID-19 transmission, please make appointments ahead of time so a possible zoom meeting can be set up. Where possible, telephone or use email as the preferred method of contact with your child’s teacher or staff member.

In response to the changed learning circumstances in Term 1 and Term 2, Semester 1 2020 the reporting processes will be modified to provide parents with information that reflects a child’s achievement and progress based on key areas of focus during this Semester. 

 Our Semester One reports will reflect the following

• Work completed in both Term 1 and Term 2.
• A student’s achievement reported as an A-E grade for the three main core areas: Religious Education, English and Mathematics based on national legal reporting obligations.
• Other subjects as determined by each grade level based on their conceptual inquiry focus where sufficient evidence of learning is available. In subjects where a grade is not possible, ‘Not assessed’ will be displayed.  This means that, although the learning throughout the semester has been rigorous, it is not possible to make an overall judgement about the student’s achievement in relation to the reporting Outcomes or Achievement Standards against the Grade Descriptors.
• A new section ‘Engagement with Learning’ has been developed to replace the ‘Personal and Social Capabilities’. The new statements are based on the Australian Curriculum: General capabilities, and target four key areas of learning engagement: Thinking, Communication, Responsibility, Collaboration. 

The inclusion of the ‘Engagement with Learning’ statements means that the General Comment section of the report will no longer be included as the statements give detailed information on your child’s approach to learning.

As the teachers have been regularly communicating with families our parent-teacher interviews, planned for next week will focus on goals and a discussion on around the Engagement with Learning statements. A summary of the Engagement for Learning statements can be found in the next section.  

Reports will not be issued until early next term

Next week the teachers will be available for Parent-Teacher interviews to review student goals, discuss your child's recent engagement with their learning and set new goals for the coming weeks. Information regarding booking times will be published tomorrow. We are planning to conduct the meetings via Zoom to restrict access to the classrooms. 

To support the conversation during Parent-Teacher Interviews we would ask all parents to spend some time reflecting on the Individual Goal Setting questions and skills in the Engagement with Learning section. These areas will now be included on the revised school report for Semester One. 

Growing Together – Term 2: Perseverance

Weeks 4-6 Focus: FLEXIBILITY

We are continuing to grow together as a school community, and it will take a lot of perseverance in the current climate with restrictions still in place. To help us to persevere, we will be focusing on how to be flexible in times of change.

What does it mean to be flexible?

Definition: Characterised by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements (Merriam-Webster). 

Aren’t we living this right now! A huge thank you to all of you for already demonstrating your flexibility especially when we moved to remote learning! For some of us though, being flexible comes very naturally and we are able to adjust our way of thinking about and doing things.

Being able to think flexibly, is an important social skill. The ability to think flexibly helps people to get along with others, helps groups be more effective, and helps people solve problems and or try new ways of doing things.

At home, you could talk about how your family has had to be flexible during the past 9 weeks. This may have included changing birthday or holiday plans, talking to family virtually rather than in person.

You could also talk about what it means to be flexible at school. I know classes will be exploring this over the next few weeks. At school, being flexible could be playing with different people as we all transition back to school full time, playing something different at lunch and recess because the equipment is not ready.   

If you would like more information about how to support your child in developing flexible thinking, I found this one really helpful: https://sociallyskilledkids.com/flexible-thinking/ 

Sport Days for Term 2 are as follows:

This week the learning intention for our protective behaviours unit is for students to name the people in their safety network. You might like to have a conversation with your child/ren about who they have in their safety network by tracing their hand and naming five people, remember to include people from school, home and the community.

You can view the books by clicking on their image below. The video is a review from Cath Hakanson, a consultant for material on protective behaviours, who provides practical advice for parents and teachers using the books.

Kinder	Years 1 - 4	Years 5 and 6

The overview of the program below includes links to resources to support you and the conversation you might like to have with your child before tomorrows lesson.

Coding Apps for Beginners

Sometimes the best way to learn is by doing and that also goes for learning how to code. When someone tries to explain how to code it can seem overwhelming. These apps are easy enough for students to pick up and figure it out themselves. The good news is that they are all free too!

Daisy Dinosaur

A simple app for Kinder. They use simple coding blocks to make Daisy the Dinosaur move, jump, spin and get bigger or smaller.

Lightbot 

 A coding game for Year 3 and up. Use arrows to move the character through the maze. The game gets harder as they progress through the levels. Really good for sense of direction and spatial reasoning.

Scratch Jr

A coding app for Year 2 and up. Create animations or games using simple block coding. A really versatile app that allows them to be creative in what they create.

Hopscotch

A coding app for Year 5 and up. It contains tutorials to create games and animations with more sophisticated block coding. A great way to learn about coding language such as loops and variables.

National Simultaneous Storytime

On behalf of Their Excellencies General the Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Retd) and Mrs Linda Hurley, I am writing to invite you and your students to participate in a live reading of Whitney and Britney Chicken Divas as part of this year's National Simultaneous Storytime. 

Written and Illustrated by Lucinda Gifford, Whitney and Britney Chicken Divas takes the reader on a fun-filled discovery about why Whitney and Britney - two seemingly ordinary backyard chickens - sleep all day long. Could it have something to do with them sneaking out at night to a local jazz club?

The reading will take place on 11 am (AEST) on Wednesday 27 May 2020 at  https://facebook.com/events/s/national-simultaneous-storytim/578428786111083/?ti=as

As in previous years, National Simultaneous Storytime aims to promote the value of reading and literacy using an Australian children’s book that explores age-appropriate themes and addresses key learning areas of the National Curriculum for Foundation to Year 6. A large range of supporting teaching resources (including digital copies of the book, video and audio recordings, colouring-in pages and crosswords) can be downloaded free of charge from the National Simultaneous Storytime website.

This is a good article from Emerging Minds about Using play to support children during covid-19, aimed at parents. 

Happy Birthday to the following students

Billy S, Lewis H, Lachlan J, Tobie S, Alec F, Rohan G

If you have any ideas or concerns please email them through to our Secretary Fiona Steinberg at council.stmonicas@cg.catholic.edu.au

We have received communication that, at this stage, School Banking will resume in Term 3. This will be confirmed when we receive more information closer to the end of this term.

Daramalan College

Due to the Covid19 restrictions we were unable to conduct our Open Evening or Try Dara Days for prospective parents and students for Year 7 2021.

Now as some restrictions have been eased, we are in a position to offer a limited number of small group tours.

The tours will be limited to a maximum of 3 people from the one family and 10 people in total in a group. In fairness to students who have missed out on the Try Days and Open Evening we are only making the tours available to prospective students for Year 7, 2021.

Tours for other year groups, 8-12 2021, may be undertaken later in the year. For students in Year 7 2022 and beyond we hope that normal enrolment services, tours and Try Dara days will return to normal from 2021.

For current parents we ask that you do not take advantage of these tours at this time unless you are genuinely unsure of your student attending in 2021.  There may be an opportunity for siblings of current students to view the school later in the year.

Tour dates and times available are listed below

Monday May 18 - 11am or 2pm

Tuesday May 12 & 19 - 11am or 4pm

Wednesday May 13 & 20 - 11am, 2pm or 4pm

Thursday May 14 & 21 - 11am or 2pm

Friday May 15 - 11am

Bookings are essential and can be made by emailing enrolments@daramalan.act.edu.au by phone on 6245 6348.

All parents volunteering at our school must have a current WWVP card.  When your card is due for renewal please ensure you have your updated card copied at the Front Office.