Dear families, 

It is so nice to see the week end with a little sunshine after a (hopefully) brief return to wintery conditions.

 

Unfortunately, I was unable to be there for the Walkathon today. From all accounts, it was a great day, though many of you may only hear about your child getting 2 zooper doopers as this is often the most exciting aspect of the day for the children!

This week, the leadership team held an information session for our Prep families for 2024. It’s always a lovely time of year, working with our new families and getting to see all of our new students over the coming weeks as they begin their onsite orientation process.

On Wednesday we welcomed John Hein, our new Deputy Principal for 2024 to St Mary’s. He spent time on duty before school being introduced to many students and families. John then visited classrooms getting to know staff and students. He also spent time with our school leaders getting to know their role and work in preparation for his learning and teaching leadership next year. He will visit again a few times before the end of the year.

The School Advisory Council held its AGM at the end of last term. I thank our outgoing Chair, Leonie Duane, for her commitment to the role and to the Council for many years. Her work, particularly in the area around the change of governance that took place, and its corresponding policies and procedures has been a mammoth effort and our Council would not have made the gains we did without her leadership, input and attention to detail.

I offer my gratitude and congratulations to Lauren Belton, who has stepped into role of Chair from Secretary and Karen LeFaucheur for taking up the Secretary position.

We have a number of general members who will be leaving the Council as their families conclude their time with us at the end of this year. We are therefore looking for a few new members to join our team. If you’d like to learn more about the role of the Council, pelase contact me or learn more here. And be careful out there, as you may get a tap on the shoulder from yours truly!

Next year, we will continue our dual lunch services. 

This currently looks like the following:

• Mondays and Fridays onsite (with recess and lunch snack services)
• Wednesdays online

Please fill in this survey to indicate your preferences/suggestions for next year.

Old uniform items (new and second hand) will continue to be sold /given away for the rest of this year only. After this, all non-logo items will be donated to Vinnies/Western Welcome Wagon with the items featuring our logo being donated to a company who will repurpose the materials for other purposes. Please contact Fiona at the office if you require any old pieces.

We will begin collecting items of second hand (new) uniform pieces as children outgrow them. If you have items of the new uniform your child has outgrown, you can drop them off at the office.

Afte
r meeting with our Business Manager and consulting the School Advisory Council, I can confirm the fees and levies for 2024 are as follows:

• Family Fee: $1860
• Curriculum levy (per student): $245 
• Excursion Levy (per student): $90

Other levies such as camps, swimming etc will be published at a later date.

Without going into too much detail, you may know that as a Catholic School, we receive some Government funding, but not the same value given to public schools. The gap is what Catholic/private schools need to cover and this is covered by fees charged. This gap is called the CtC (Capacity to Contribute), and this varies from school to school. The gap was previously determined by our suburb's SES (Socio-Economic Status) and has this year been replaced by DMI (Direct Measure of Income). The former measure took into account the suburb one lived in whereas the DMI is based on the actual financial data of parents/guardians at the school. 

In short, the DMI essentially tells schools how much they could/should be charging.

 

After meeting with our business manager, he showed me that over the years, we have not charged the full gap payment, nor have we increased fees enough to decrease this gap. As a result, our overall funds continue to deplete each year. While we cannot fully bridge this gap this year, we need to try to ensure this gap doesn't continue to widen. 

 

Therefore, the suggestion is to raise our family fees and levies. It won't completely close the gap that has accumulated, but it will cover the increase and at least reduce the gap by a small amount.

 

In comparison to our local Catholic primary schools, our fees are comparable (and lower in some instances), despite our DMI index being higher or equal to theirs. 

 

As has always been the case, we encourage any families finding fee payment difficult to come and make an appointment and make arrangements that work for their individual family circumstances.

Next year we will be implementing a new finishing time for St Mary’s from the beginning of the year, students will now finish at 3:15 every day.

Assemblies will still be held on Monday afternoons and will commence at around 2:40pm to allow for parents to attend.

We will have more 2024 news to share in the coming weeks. 


Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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Monday 6th November is a School Closure day.  Tuesday 7th November is a Public Holiday for the Melbourne Cup and Friday 10th November is our School Sports Day. If you will be away from school for the Sports Day can you please let your child's teacher know so they can remove them from the group lists for activties.  This will help in keeping the groups as even as possible on the day.

Some points to remember for our Sport Day

Students will walk with their class to the Altona Little Athletics Track, Sugargum Drive. They will leave by 9am and return before 3pm.

Students may be collected by parents/carers from the track at the end of the sports day activities but must be signed out with their classroom teacher.

Students will need to bring a small backpack with lunch, snacks and water. We also highly recommend students wear sunscreen on the day. SunSmart school hats must be worn by students and parent helpers.

There will be NO Canteen as we will be offsite.

Information for helpers will be sent home shortly.

If you have questions or concerns please contact your child's class teacher or Ala Sottile (asottile@smaltona.catholic.edu.au)

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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Please check through the list below to ensure that you have these events in your diaries.
Week 11
11th Dec @ 9am: Advent Liturgy (hosted by 1/2 level)
11th Dec @ 2.20pm: Final Assembly ~ School Captains
11th Dec @ 3pm: Thank you Afternoon Tea for families
14th Dec @ 10am: Advent Liturgy (hosted by 3/4 level)
14th Dec @ 6pm: Year 6 Graduation
15th Dec @ 9.15am: End of Year Mass
15th Dec @ 3.20pm: End of Term 4 Dismissal
15th Dec @ 3.45pm: Creative Music Concert
15th Dec: NO Canteen

As other dates come to hand we will be sure to update you and we will let you know when our calendar issues have been resolved.

In the meantime, if you have questions about any upcoming events please contact the office.

Regards
Marg

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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Thank you to everyone who participated in today's walkathon. It was great to see so many energtic, smiling children and adults walking laps of the school.  A special thank you to the many family members who came along to help set up and supervise during the event.
We now move on to the next job at hand - collecting the money promised to your children. 

Today your child should have brought home their lap card, a letter explaining the next steps and a sheet of raffle tickets.  If you did not receive these documents, please contact your child's teacher. 

Once you have collected the money, place it in an envelope along with the raffle tickets.  Remember it's one raffle ticket for evey $20 raised. 

Return your money and tickets to the school via your child's class teacher or straight to the office by Friday 17th November. 

Our raffle draw will take place on Thursday 23rd November at 2.15pm.  Family members are welcome to attend.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the office.

Regards
Marg Masseni

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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Thanks to everyone who showed their support for highlighting the importance of Child Safety by wearing a splash of RED today. The children have been working hard learning about the importance of safety in their classes and staff have highlighted some of the following messages. 

 

Child Safety is not just about one day so we ask that you reinforce these with your children regularly.

• We have rules to protect us, our homes, our friends and our community.
• When playing sports, visiting friends or going to the beach or shops, it's important to remember personal safety. Remember to tell someone, where you are going, who you are with & more.
• Be alert for the clues that warn us when something is unsafe. These clues can be as simple as smelling smoke which warns us there is a fire or a lock down alarm at school.
• If you feel scared, confused, sad or upset you need to REACT. This could even mean breaking a rule, like smashing a window to escape a fire or screaming “NO” to an adult.
• Tell an adult in your life who cares about your safety when there is a problem. It’s adults who can keep you safe from harm and who can make a situation safe again for you.

Most children and teenagers have or will soon have access to social media and staying safe online has never been more important.

Here is an article from our partners in CyberSafety, the CyberSafety Project, about supporting your child if you suspect that they are being cyberbullied.

Remember also to remind your children/teenagers that they can access the Kids Help Line on 1800 55 1800 if they need an extra helping hand.

Regards
Marg Masseni
Wellbeing Leader

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We all know that life is busy and school drop offs & picks are no different. We have noticed recently and it has been brought to our attention, that there are many people practising unsafe behaviours when dropping children at school which may result in one or more of our students being hurt. When dropping children at school please obey the traffic laws.

Do not drive up the school driveways and allow your children to get out of the car.
Do not park where there are yellow lines in the gutter or opposite a continuous white line on the road.
Do not double park to drop the children off.
Watch out for students on bikes and ensure that you pass the message onto your Active Transport using child that they need to practice safe behavious as well.

As mentioned schools are busy places at the beginning and end of the school day and we don't want to risk the safety of any of our children, staff and family members.

Please do the right thing.

Regards
Marg Masseni

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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Bayside Netball Club are still looking for some new 9 years and under players and we have information included about a new holiday program.  You can sign up for Creative Music lessons in Term 3 and also read our Parish Bulletin.

We would also like to thank Mancini Real Estate for their continuous support to St Mary's Altona.


             

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

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December 7th at 6pm!!

This year instead of our usual Arts Spectacular we will be having a Christmas Concert written by David Enever.  Some of you may remember this songwriter who came to our school a few years ago to sing with and perform for the students.    

I will be working with students in class each week to prepare them and David will spend the day with them all on December 7 to put the finishing touches on.

If you’d like to know more about David click here

Looking forward to an exciting night,

Mrs Hamilton

 

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Respect • Responsibility • Resilience • Courage

 

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Do you have any of your old (and not so old) class photos?

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