Dear Families,

EXTENSION TO REMOTE LEARNING
Thank you again for all of your efforts at home to support remote learning. We are so proud of so many of our students who are working hard to complete their tasks and continue their learning, but we also know that this doesn’t happen without a great deal of support from home. So, thank you for working with us in the way you have.

You will no doubt have heard by now that the lockdown has been extended and Remote Learning will continue for the first 4 weeks of Term 4. This means that, at this stage, the earliest we will return to face-to-face learning is Monday, 1st November 2021. These plans will be further developed over the school holidays. Any plans will be subject to health and ACT government advice. We are working closely with Catholic Education and expect further clarification over the coming days. I will keep the community informed as information becomes available.

Please remember the most important thing you can do is support your child’s wellbeing. Keep in mind that children can express their feelings in many ways. I encourage you to speak openly with your children about how they are feeling. If your child requires extra help and assistance, counselling is available through CatholicCare. To access the service, a booking request may be made by contacting CatholicCare on (02) 6162 6100 or contacting Al Robinson via email al.robinson@marymead.org.au.

You can keep up to date with the latest health information and advice on the ACT’s COVID-19 website - www.covid19.act.gov.au.

We understand that if restrictions ease as planned on the 15th October, more and more of our parents and carers will be required to work outside of the home and will require supervision for children. To ensure that we have enough supervision in place, I will release a new survey each week. If you have already completed the survey for a previous week you will only need to enter your email, the names and classes of your children and the days they will need to be at school. I will make these surveys available on the Tuesday of the week before and request that families complete them by COB Friday.

COMPASS
Next term we will introduce the Parent Portal as part of COMPASS. The Parent Portal will be the main way the school will communicate with you, including end of semester reporting. Information and log-in details will be sent home today. We ask that you check to see that you can log-in sometime this week. If you are struggling to log-in please contact the school. More information regarding the Parent Portal can be found later in this newsletter.

NAPLAN
2021 NAPLAN results for Year 3 and Year 5 will be posted this week.

It is important to note that the NAPLAN tests are designed to allow parents/carers and educators to see how students are progressing in literacy and numeracy over time – individually, as part of their school community and against national standards. As far as individual results, the tests are a snapshot of one day of a student’s life and results need to be considered along with additional assessment data to gain a full understanding of where students truly sit in reference to expected outcomes.

If you have any questions regarding your child’s results please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

FIRST EUCHARIST
I know that many students will be disappointed that they have not been able to make their first Eucharist over the last few weekends. Richard Rohr describes Eucharist as coming to “God’s banquet table... [where God] plays no favourites but embraces everyone without discrimination.” He goes on to describe receiving the Eucharist as akin to receiving a big hug from Christ. I think it is a beautiful way to think about Christ’s love for us. Just as a parent will hug a child when they are sad, Christ will embrace us each week as part of the celebration of the Eucharist. I know Skye McPadden is already making tentative plans for these missed sacraments, we will communicate these as soon as we can.

I know these holidays will probably be quite different to what we had all hoped for, but I do wish you all a restful term break and pray that this current situation eases quickly so we can all meet back at school as soon as possible.

Take care and God bless

 
Leah Taylor
Principal