Dear Parents and Carers

Please save the date for a very important upcoming parent event - an Evening with Susan McLean on Monday 29 July

Susan McLean is Australia’s foremost expert in the area of Cybersafety and young people. She was the first Victorian Police Officer appointed to a position involving Cybersafety and young people. Susan took her first report of cyberbullying in 1994 and since then she has conducted extensive research and has completed advanced training & tertiary studies in both the USA and UK and is a sought after presenter and advisor to Schools, elite sporting bodies such as the AFL, GP’s, and both State and Federal Governments.

Monday 15 April - First Day of Term 2

STUDENT VOICE IN YEAR 2

Respect is doing our job like when we listen to our teachers (Ellie2SW)

Optimism is staying positive (Emma 2HL)

Courageous is putting your hand up and staying calm (Ajah 2MD)

Kindness is including others, like when we play catch and say “of course you can play”  (Pip 2SW)

Safety is looking after each other and telling a teacher when we need help (Patrick 2MD)

Buckets – We have made special buckets to give messages to each other to make each other happy. (Ali 2DG) They are teaching us how to be kind to each other (Kanesha2DG) Our buckets are making us feel happy, brave and excited!

(Pictures of Buckets)

YEAR 2 NEWS

Our Year 2 students have made a fantastic start to the school year and we are very excited about how kind and engaged they have been in their Learning Spaces.   

This Term we are having a wonderful time in writing, as we recently have been looking at how to write narratives.  The students have been able to explore how to role play parts of the story and how to enhance characters with adjectives and character traits. They especially enjoyed giving voices to characters with soft toys last week, while retelling a narrative.     

The Year 2’s wish all families a very happy and holy Easter!

First Eucharist 2024

All students in Year 4 who are baptised Catholics and have received the Sacrament of Reconciliation are able to receive the Sacrament of First Eucharist this year.

First Eucharist dates for 2024 are:

• Thursday 22 August Parent Meeting 7pm at St Patrick’s Parish - parents are expected to attend.
• Saturday 31 August Commitment Mass 6pm at St Patrick’s Parish. All families are expected to attend.

First Eucharist Masses at St Patrick’s Parish (families register for one of these closer to the time)

• Saturday 7 September 6pm
• Sunday 8 September 10.30am
• Saturday 14 September 6pm
• Sunday 15 September 10.30am

Confirmation 2024

All students in Year 6 who are baptised Catholics and have received the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Sacrament of First Eucharist are able to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation this year.

Confirmation dates for Confirmation are:

• Thursday 10 October Parent Meeting 7pm at St Patrick’s Parish - parents are expected to attend.
• Saturday 12 October Commitment Mass 6pm at St Patrick’s Parish. All families are expected to attend.

Confirmation Masses at St Patrick’s Parish (families register for one of these closer to the time)

• Saturday 19 October 3pm
• Saturday 19 October 6pm

Congratulations to our District Swimmers who competed in events last week at Noble Park. Lots of ribbons came back from the event!

We have two students who completed week in the Division event this week. Well done Olivia and Okith.

Catholic schools in the Diocese of Sale aim for continuous school improvement. An essential element of this improvement is understanding how students perceive the Catholic identity of our school and what they might like Catholic identity at St Clare’s Primary School to look like in the years ahead.

Students have an important voice in our planning and so we will invite all students in Years 5 & 6 to participate in the Enhancing Catholic School Identity survey in the coming week.

Approximately 60 families have also been selected to complete the survey.  Thank you to those who have already completed the survey.  If you haven't ask yet it would be wonderful if you could do so in the coming weeks.

Friday 22 March 

Tickets $5 per child

SESSION 1 - FOUNDATION - GRADE 3 - 5PM - 6:30 PM

SESSION 2 - GRADE 4 - GRADE 6 - 7PM - 8:30 PM

REPORTING AN ABSENCE

To report your child's absence please do so via PAM, email absent@stclaresofficer.catholic.edu.au or call 5940 6777

SCHOOL FEES

If you would like to set up a direct debit please contact the office 5940 6777 or email finance@stclarsofficer.catholic.edu.au

If you have a Pension or Health Care Card please ensure you have provided the school with your current card.  If our records show that your card expired in 2023 you will be charged full fees in 2024

If you have any questions please contact the school or email finance@stclaresofficer.catholic.edu.au

If you family is having financial difficulty with payment of fees, please email the school via finance@stclaresofficer.catholic.edu.au  to arrange a confidential discussion.

PAM - Parent Access Module

Here is the link for the St Clare's Parent Access Module (PAM)

St Clare's PAM

You username is the email address that you have registered with the school.  The first time you log in we ask that you use the forgotten password feature to set your own password.

ALL parents must access PAM to receive up to date information and grant necessary permissions.  Students will miss out on events if permission is not granted.

In this edition of SchoolTV - SLEEP

Students today have extremely busy schedules, with ever increasing responsibilities at school and at home. Many kids, especially adolescents, are going to bed later and later and are at risk of sleep deprivation. This affects three areas of a child’s development: psychological, physiological and psychosocial. All three are essential to a child's growth, learning ability and overall wellbeing. Sleep is vital to a child’s overall development and is as important as diet and exercise.

Sleep also strengthens a child’s immune systems and supports their ability to function properly on a daily basis. Children who do not get enough sleep show increased levels of aggressive behaviour, are less attentive and are much less active. Trying to catch up on sleep on weekends is not the answer and can still lead to severe sleep deprivation.

In this edition of SchoolTV, parents will learn about the importance of sleep and how sleep deprivation can have adverse effects on a child’s health and wellbeing.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please seek medical or professional help.

Here is the link to the Sleep edition of SchoolTV

https://stclaresofficer.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/sleep

How to Help Kids Stay Safe Online

Adapted from:  https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/blog    Office of the eSafety Commissioner

1. Start the chat

It’s not possible to be at your child’s side every second of the day, so it’s important to talk with them about online safety issues to help develop their critical thinking and ability to make good choices. It’s also good to let them know they can come to you for help if they have any concerns. You may feel they know more about the latest technology than you do, but you have more life experience to guide them.

• With primary school aged children use online devices in the open living spaces at home to make parent supervision part of the expectation for your child.
• Take the opportunity to set some boundaries around when and where they can use devices  like tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles, to help limit potential tech tantrums — you could even fill in an Early Years Family Tech Agreement 
• Screen free time before bed is important for good sleep. Consider charging devices in a central location at a regular time each night to allow an hour screen free before bed.
• While you are all at home more, it’s a great time to co-view and co-play with your kids, so you can understand what they are doing and experiencing online.
• Learn about the games, apps, social media and platforms they are using at The eSafety Guide, including how to protect their information and report inappropriate content or conduct.

2. Use parental controls and safe search options

Parental controls can help block your child from accessing specific websites, apps or functions. They can also monitor your child’s use of connected devices and set time limits. But beware! You cannot always rely on them — they should be used in combination with other online safety strategies.

• Parental controls are available on most tablets, smartphones, computers, TVs and gaming consoles.
• You can also download family safety controls or buy robust filters out of the box. 
• You can set up child-friendly search engines, or select safe search settings on digital devices, to help prevent your child from stumbling across inappropriate sites and content.

3. Check smart toy settings

It’s surprising how many toys or devices can connect online these days, from drones and smart teddies to tablets and wearables. While they can be both entertaining and educational, they can reveal your child’s personal details and location — and allow other people to contact them without you knowing. You can help keep them stay safe by:

• setting strong passwords
• turning off location settings 
• limiting the amount of personal information shared.

The eSafety Gift Guide has advice on what to check for and how to stay safe.

4. Look out for unwanted contact and grooming

Unwanted contact is any communication that makes your child feel uncomfortable or unsafe, even if they initially welcomed the contact. It can come from a stranger, an online ‘friend’ or even someone they actually know. At worst, it can involve ‘grooming’ — building a relationship with the child in order to sexually abuse them.

You can help by:

• making sure their accounts are private — including chat functions on games
• encouraging them to delete requests from strangers and any contacts they don’t know in person
• checking in with your child as they use online devices in the open living spaces at home
• reporting and blocking anyone suspicious on a website or service 
• remembering that if suspicious online contacts become aggressive or threatening you should contact your local police.

5. Know the signs of cyberbullying

Kids who are bored by long periods at home can pick at each other, and that happens online too. So it’s important to keep an eye out for cyberbullying. It can include mean posts, comments and messages, as well as being left out of online group activities like gaming. 

• Remember, when they are away from school, kids have less access to their usual support systems, including friends, teachers and counsellors. 
• eSafety research shows that girls are more likely to be affected than boys and the person doing the bullying is generally someone they know from school.
• Watch out for signs such as your child appearing upset after using their mobile, tablet or computer, being unusually secretive about their online activities or becoming withdrawn.
• Cyberbullying can make social isolation worse and the longer it continues, the more stressed kids can become, impacting on their emotional and physical wellbeing.

What to do if your child is being cyberbullied

As parents, our first instinct may be to ban our children from social media, disable the wi-fi or turn off the data access. But this can actually compound the problem, making your child feel as if they’re being punished and heightening their sense of social exclusion.

There are four simple steps that can help minimise the harm:

• report the cyberbullying to the social media service where it is occurring
• collect evidence of the cyberbullying material
• if the material is still public 48 hours later, make a report to eSafety — we work with social media platforms to have the harmful content removed.

block the offending user.