Dear Parents,

Today the Premier announced that Victoria’s lockdown would be extended beyond  Tuesday 20 July. At this stage we are unsure for how long.

All Catholic schools in Victoria will continue with remote and flexible learning during this period.

We will continue to provide onsite supervision for students in the following categories:

• Children whose parents/carers are authorised workers who cannot work from home, work for an essential provider and no other supervision arrangements can be made. Both parents need to be working out of their home to be eligible in this category.
• Children experiencing vulnerability, including those:
• residing in out-of-home care
• deemed vulnerable by a government agency, funded family or family violence service, and assessed as requiring education and care outside the family home
• identified by a school as vulnerable, including via referral from a government agency, funded family or family violence service, homeless or youth justice service, or mental health or other health service.

If you are eligible under these categories and require onsite supervision for Wednesday and beyond, please email Anna on receiving this newsletter. 

If your child is attending school onsite please ensure they bring their pencil case, head phones, work books, food, water bottle and anything else they will require for the day with them each day.

Today I received an email from MACS regarding a free webinar being offered by acclaimed author and psychologist Andrew Fuller aimed to support parents with remote and flexible  learning.  Details in this newsletter.

Remote Learning Assistance

We are all here to support you in any way we can. Please email the following leadership members for information regarding:

• Technical support

 Email Cath Knights on cknights@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au with any concerns or tech assistance. eg QR Codes, Google Meet links, general.

• Wellbeing support

Email Katrina Gardiner on kgardiner@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au

• Curriculum Support

Email Freda Tahtouh on ftahtouh@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au

• Sacramental Information 

Email Margaret Mitchell on mmitchell@spbentleigh.catholic.edu.au 

For classroom support the first port of call should always be your child’s classroom teacher. Please do not hesitate to contact me for any other concerns or support.

Videos

During a long lockdown last year, families and friends shared some wonderful home videos. Anyone who would like to share how they are getting through lockdown this time, we would love to hear from you!

My next correspondence to families will be tomorrow with further updates on the timeframe for lockdown beyond Tuesday.

Take care and remember that we know all families are doing their best this week to juggle work and support remote learning. We think you are all superstars!

Support your child’s learning and help get their spark back

Andrew Fuller - Clinical Psychologist, Author and Family Therapist

Tuesday 20 July @ 1pm - 2pm

FREE webinar - Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/163334348433

Home schooling and the uncertainty of 2020/21 have left families feeling anxious and perhaps a little overwhelmed.

Clinical psychologist and family therapist Andrew Fuller is holding a webinar which is applicable to every family and empowers parents to guide their children (and themselves) towards success. 

Andrew’s webinar will help parents with practical tips on home schooling and show them how to get their kids’ mojo back by finding their particular learning strengths and identifying 10 things highly successful students do to study. He will also help parents to deal with the after-effects of 20/21 with tips and information on how to overcome anxiety in children.

Andrew Fuller combines the latest research from brain science, positive education and resilience to create strength-based education.

There will be a presentation and then the opportunity for parents to ask questions directly.

On the 1^st of January 2021 all catholic primary schools and regional secondary colleges in the Archdiocese on Melbourne had a change of governance. As per a recommendation from the Royal Commission, the Parish Priest is no longer responsible for the governance of schools, this has been handed over to the newly established MACS (Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools).

As a result of this change of governance MACS has developed numerous policies over the first two terms of this year. As of the 12^th of July these are now found on our Parental Portal. These are mandated policies that all MACS Schools have had to adopt and implement. These are not new policies as most schools already had existing policies they are now universal for our system and allows our system to comply with VRQA (Victorian Regulations and Qualifications Authority) which registers all schools.

These MACS Policies can be found on the Parent Portal where you find the eNewsletters.

Schools will still have school specific policies ie: Homework Policy, Uniform Policy etc and these can also be found on the same page.

Michael Juliff

Co-Ordinating Principal

Lunchtime Knitting Club - Grade 5 & 6

We are planning to start up a knitting group for students in Grades 5 and 6 who are interested. We will be knitting squares which will be sewn together to make baby blankets. These blankets will be donated to St Kilda Mums. It will be held on Mondays at lunchtime when we return to school.

If you are interested, meet Mrs Fitz in the Library. Please bring along a pair of 4mm knitting needles.

If you can bring a ball of 8ply yarn as well, that would be great.

If there are any Mums, Aunties or Grandmas who would be willing to share their expertise, we would love to see you in the Library at 1.45.

Let’s all get knitting!

Mrs Fitz.