Newsletter Term 4, Week 2
SCHOOL CLOSURE - Monday 1st November
PUBLIC HOLIDAY - Tuesday 2nd November
Dear Parents,
This Saturday 16th October we celebrate the Feast day of St. Margaret Mary, our namesake. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was a French Roman Catholic Visitation nun, who devoted her life to the mission, qualities, spiritual maxims and teachings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St. Margaret Mary’s devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was one to admire. Her visions were called delusions, she was seen as an impostor and other nuns were openly hostile to her. Yet her mission to bring Christ's message of his love for mankind, continued through her. Living a simplistic life of prayer and devotion, Margaret Mary died aged 43 saying, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.”
On behalf of the St. Margaret Mary’s School community I would like to say a very big congratulations to Sam and Richard O’Dwyer on the safe arrival of Finnian Vincent O’Dwyer. Born 27/9/21, 37 weeks, a tiny 2.3kg (a little over 5lbs for us oldies), 45cm in length. Little brother to Tiarnan, Maeve, Nora and Clodagh. Baby makes five! We are delighted to welcome Finnian to our community and to the world!
Speaking of babies, I would also like to share some wonderful news with the school community, Simone Laurie is expecting her second child in early February 2022. Simone is currently 24 weeks pregnant and has been keeping well. On behalf of the school community I would like to congratulate Simone and we look forward to welcoming Baby Laurie early next year as part of the St. Margaret Mary’s community.
Below are the dates for the staged return of the children to onsite learning. This information has also been sent out via Operoo. On their return to onsite learning, the children will enter and leave via the gate in Arras Street near the drop off and pick up zone as parents will not be currently allowed onsite.
Andrea Richards
Principal
PLEASE NOTE IMPORTANT DATES THIS TERM
Follow our socials for the latest learning posts from the classroom
Each week, students who embody our values, apply the school mindsets to learning, work hard to improve or persevere to deliver on learning objectives are awarded a class award. The students who earned an award in the past weeks are:
Term 4, Week 1
Term 4, Week 2
MACSSIS Parent Survey - Please Read
Dear Parents,
Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools School Improvement Surveys (MACSSIS): 7-28 October 2021
Throughout each year, we pause to listen to our students, families and staff to gauge how our learning community is travelling. This feedback is invaluable to our progress as effective school communities and is backed by evidence-based research and best practices.
One of the more important formal ways we engage and gather data is through MACSSIS, the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools School Improvement Surveys.
MACSSIS is a set of surveys that have been built specifically for Catholic Schools in Melbourne by Learning Services teams at Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools in partnership with researchers at Learning First and in wide consultation with Principals in our schools.
In 2021, students, families and staff are invited to participate in MACSSIS using their brand new, secure and purpose-built online platform. The online platform is where we will access the summary reports that visualise the results of the student, family and staff surveys.
The MACSSIS survey platform is operated by an independent supplier, ORIMA Research Pty Ltd. The platform meets with the very high security and privacy standards for handling student and school data.
Students at our school will be provided with supervised sessions where teachers are on hand to help and answer any questions. Families and staff can complete the survey anytime over the three-week window via an emailed link and password.
Our community’s opinions are critical to understanding how our school is performing – MACSSIS is a key data source for guiding the ongoing work to improve our school.
All participation is invited, welcomed and 100% voluntary. The surveys are not a test; they are an inclusive way to feed the work we are already doing to improve our school. Everyone has the right to refuse to participate, or withdraw from the survey at any point before, during, or after completion of the survey.
Last week you would have received an email with your unique PIN number for the survey. I would greatly appreciate you completing this survey.
Cybersafety
Our children from Year Prep to Year 6 have been learning about online safety. Teachers, along with families, play an important role in preparing students by bringing a greater understanding and awareness of safe online behaviours. We believe our students need to be empowered with the knowledge, skills and confidence to learn with digital tools at school, at home, at work and in their communities.
There are many things you can do, alongside our teachers, to support your child as they learn to use technology. Talk to your child about what they are learning about e-safety currently and please don’t forget to sign up for our Raising Kids in a Digital World webinar! (details are below)
Check out some of the e-safety work our Senior students have been participating in.
Should children under 13 have the right to use apps like Twitter, Insta and Facebook
By Stephen, Senior A
I disagree that children under 13 should have the rights for apps like Twitter, Discord, Instagram etc. Any time the app could leak your personal information if you are not safe and someone could easily hack your account. Almost always the apps that they use put children under 13 at risk of getting cyber bullied if you post something. Most of the time when people under 13 have these apps, the child probably does not know what anything means, so they probably won’t know if they posted something inappropriate or something that could get them arrested.
Kids under 13 should not have access to these apps because if they make one wrong move on the internet such as leaking personal information someone could easily hack your account and change all of your passwords. It’s extremely dangerous for children to be using these apps because they don’t know what's right and wrong.
Lots of these app users, experience cyberbullying and trolls while they use it so it's very important as a parent to pay attention to what your child is doing online because it's super easy for a child to make a wrong move like post something they thought was funny. When kids post stuff they are often unaware that it would stay there for life because there is no way of deleting it. Most of the time when someone posts something there are always haters and if a child posts something and gets hate this can lead them to feeling depressed.
Thirdly, kids can be arrested and can get their parents in trouble too for posting inappropriate images, addresses etc. This can get the child banned from the app for as long as the company says. This is a reason why people under 13 should be banned from these types of sites. Even if someone is above 13 and uses the app your parents should still supervise and so they know you are doing the right thing.
In conclusion there are lots of reasons why children under 13 years old should be, one supervised and two probably should not use those apps. It’s important for kids to be supervised while using these sites so they don’t do anything inappropriate. Overall, I strongly believe that kids should not be allowed to use these types of sites if they are under 13.
On behalf of the SMMPS FSG I wanted to say a huge thank you to each and every person who donated to our recent Playground Fund.
In just 4 weeks we have raised $14,825 which means we have achieved our target for our playground!!
I am excited to announce that the playground will be completed by the end of November.
This achievement has been thanks to the generosity of our beautiful school community. Whether you purchased a raffle ticket (or many!), attended a fundraising event, sponsored your child at the colour run or donated in other ways, this could not have been achieved without the support of you all, our school community.
Special thank you to the FSG Committee over the past 4 years who have tirelessly dedicated time and effort to organise and fundraise – especially over the past 18 months during difficult times.
We are so thankful that we can finish the year with a beautiful and exciting new playground for our children.
Thank you so much, our hearts are very full and very proud.
Lauren Oliver
FSG Committee President, on behalf of FSG Committee
Welcome back to the final term of what has been a challenging and interesting school year. It was fantastic to see the Year 12 students on site at both campuses recently to undertake the important GAT. The students were very excited to actually be back on campus and to see each other and some of their teachers in person.
We look forward to the continuing journey on this roadmap out of lockdown and more and more students returning to school in coming weeks.
There are a couple of important events coming up.
Year 7, 2022 families will soon receive an invitation to attend the Year 7, 2022 Parent Information Evening. This will be a virtual event with links to be sent out in the coming week. It is a great opportunity to find out lots about school life for those commencing in Year 7 next year. There will be an information session and then a Zoom Q & A session.
Year 7, 2023 offers and waiting list notifications will be distributed by email on Friday 22 October, 2021. If you have recently changed your email address can you please let the College know as soon as possible to ensure you receive your documentation.
Our next College experience events are the Twilight Talk & Tours events at each campus. Registrations for these events are essential and bookings can be made on the tours and events tab on the right hand side of the homepage of the College website, www.ecmelb.catholic.edu.au
Notre Dame Campus - 6.00 pm Tuesday 9 November
St Paul’s Campus - 6.00 pm Tuesday 16 November
Email Reminder
If you have changed address, phone numbers, emails or any of your family details need updating, please send an email using the button below through to the office account so this can be changed on our system for you.
We welcome your feedback so if you have anything to contribute to the newsletter, questions about content or general feedback, please let us know.