10 August 2020 (Term Three, Week 4)

CEO/Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

As we watch the events unfold in Victoria with severe COVID-19 lockdowns and the increasing number of confirmed cases, thoughts naturally go to how we would cope if the situation spreads to our region. Mater Dei is blessed with having a highly competent and experienced Leadership Team that meets regularly to consider issues that impact the whole organisation. This group includes the Program Managers from Early Childhood Education, Next Path, Development, Administration, Human Resources and the School. Whilst each has responsibilities specific to their area of work, they all share responsibility for the entire Mater Dei organisation, and I rely heavily on their wisdom and guidance to ensure we all work in a safe and secure environment.

The COVID-19 situation has necessitated us meeting more regularly and to prepare our emergency response should it be required. To date we have not had a student, young adult or staff member come down with a confirmed case of COVID-19, but should that occur, we are very confident of our preparedness to respond immediately in collaboration with health and education authorities. Please be assured that we will look after the safety and wellbeing of our entire community as the highest priority and communicate effectively any changes to procedure or cease of operations. Should the severe lockdown scenario come to Sydney we will immediately enact our remote learning procedures that were developed earlier in the year, however, we are hopeful that this will not occur and that life at Mater Dei can continue through the next few months with minimal interruption.

We keep the people of Victoria in our thoughts and prayers and pray for a swift resolution to this ongoing health emergency.

Kind regards,

Mark Raue
CEO/Principal

Post School Information

The website for the Employment Life Skills expo is now up and running - refer link below.

Management of Students with Asthma at Mater Dei School

As part of the review process for our student’s with health care needs, we will be requesting annual updated reviews for students with Asthma Management Plans.  Each year families will be required to meet with their doctor and provide the school with an updated Asthma Action Plan.  A written asthma action plan helps the school recognise when your child’s asthma is getting worse and what to do about it. 

Please see the recommended Action Plan proforma from the National Asthma foundation (attached).  This can also be located in Compass in the School documentation section (see article Compass School Forms instructions).  For more information regarding Asthma refer to the link below.

Compass School Forms

Parent Handbook and other school forms are now slowly being loaded onto Compass to make them accessible to all families to download.  Currently we have the following forms:

• Leave Exemptions
• Consent to Release Information
• Changes to Afternoon Arrangements
• Health Care Templates

These can be accessed via the Compass website or App using the following steps:

1. Login to compass
2. App Users: Click on 3 lines (hamburger) at top left & click open browsers
3. Website Users: go to next step
4. Select the Community Icon and choose School Documentation
5. Select the form/document you would like to access

Semester One Reports

Semester One Reports, Personalised Plans, Swimming Reports (participating students only) & In-Class Therapy Reports (participating students only) will be issued via Compass on Friday, 14 August (Term 3 - Week 4). A Compass post will be sent to advise when they are available with instructions on how to access them.

Saint Mary MacKillop

Saint Mary MacKillop is well known to many of us.  Saturday, 8 August is her Feast day. Two classes at Mater Dei are named after her.  2020 is a particularly special year because it is the ten-year anniversary since Mary was canonised as Australia’s first Saint. Education was close to Mary’s heart and she knew its power to lift communities out of poverty. Even before her death Mary’s extraordinary life and faith were widely acknowledged throughout Australia and beyond. It was this widespread recognition which led her Josephite Congregation, the Archbishop of Sydney and the Conference of Australian Bishops to request that Mary’s holiness be acclaimed by the wider Church.  Mary was beatified in Sydney on January 19, 1995 by Pope John Paul II. This took place in the presence of many thousands of people who had travelled from all over Australia, New Zealand and many parts of the world. Her canonisation in Rome followed sixteen years later, giving Australia its first canonised saint.  Since then people from many cultures, from different faiths and traditions, and from all walks of life have been inspired by her example of faith, service and love for all.  Mary MacKillop worked for the people and for God.

Assumption of Mary

Assumption Day on August 15, commemorates the belief that when Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, died, her body was not subjected to the usual process of physical decay but was “assumed” into heaven and reunited there with her soul. 

We know that after the crucifixion Mary was cared for by the apostle John (Jn 19:26-27). Early Christian writings say John went to live at Ephesus and that Mary accompanied him. There is some dispute about where she ended her life, perhaps there, perhaps back at Jerusalem. Neither of these cities nor any other claimed her remains, although there are claims about possessing her (temporary) tomb. Why did no city claim the bones of Mary? Apparently because there were no bones to claim, and people knew it.

Remember, in the early Christian centuries, relics of saints were jealously guarded and highly prized. The bones of those martyred in the Colosseum, for instance, were quickly gathered up and preserved; there are many accounts of this in the biographies of those who gave up their lives for the Faith [for example, the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul were widely known to be preserved in Rome, and the sepulcher of David and the tomb of St. John the Baptist are both mentioned in Scripture]. Yet here was Mary, certainly the most privileged of all the saints ... but we have no record of her bodily remains being venerated anywhere.

100 Days of Kindy

On 4 August, K Samaritan celebrated 100 days of Kindy - what a super achievement! 
This year's theme was superheroes, and the class had a big day filled with 100-themed learning and even made their own hero masks!
What a great effort shown by everybody to mark such a special day - Mrs Gallagher and Linda for their creativity and organisation, our Mater Dei parents and guardians for kitting out their superheroes, and of course our K-Sam students for swooping in to save the day!

Principal’s Assembly

Friday, 7 August marked our very first Principal's Assembly for the year. We were fortunate to be able to celebrate our Principal Award recipients as a whole school with a brief assembly. Congratulations to all our award recipients on their great achievements!

National Science Week

Mater Dei School will be celebrating National Science Week by holding Engineering Days on Monday, 17 August and Tuesday, 18 August 2020. The theme for 2020 is Deep Blue. Our Mater Dei Scientists and Engineers will be following the Engineering Design Process to solve a problem involving water and flotation for recreation, environmental care and food sustainability.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Thank you to Families who have already made bookings for this Semester's Parent Teacher Conferences to be held on Tuesday, 18 and Wednesday, 19 August from 3:30-6:30pm.  Anyone who hasn’t booked, please do so this week as bookings will close on Monday 17^th August.  A few reminders:

• Don’t forget to complete the Insight survey
• All interviews will be done via phone
• Interviews are strictly 20 minutes for all students except those participating in the In-Class Therapy Model who will be allocated 30 minutes.
• Parents/Carers who do not answer, will be attempted again during their allocated time but will have reduced time so that other appointments can remain on schedule.

School reception closes at 4:00pm, so any families needing to contact their class teacher after this time will need to do so via email.

Celebration of Learning

Unfortunately, due to continued COVID-19 restrictions we have had to cancel our second Celebration of Learning scheduled for Friday, 18 September. Keep an eye out on our School Facebook Page and your Compass Newsfeed for more opportunities to be closer to the classroom.

K-6 Book Week Parade

The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) have made the decision to postpone Book Week 2020 until Term 4. Therefore, our annual K-6 Book Week Parade, scheduled for Friday, 28 August, will now be postponed until Term 4. Date to be advised.

Term 3 Pupil Free Days

There are two Pupil Free Days this Term. Students are not required at school on either of these two days:

• Friday, 14 August (Week 4) – Staff participating in Professional Development on strategic planning, policy/procedure updates and 2021 planning
• Friday, 4 September (Week 7) – Staff are participating in CPR training update, hosted by Wave Learning

Senior Retreat

Due to the continued difficulty and ever-changing circumstances around COVID-19, Mater Dei’s 2020 Senior Retreat will now be facilitated ONSITE at Mater Dei, not offsite at Wedderburn. This decision has been made to ensure experiences can still occur for our senior students after a very difficult year. We endeavour to facilitate the onsite senior retreat on the same dates as scheduled (Wednesday, 16 and Thursday, 17 September). We are currently planning for this event and will provide more information as soon as possible.

Flyer - Term 3 Canteen Update