Dear Parents and Families,

I hope you have had the opportunity to hear our children sing our school song - "We Shine" - written by a local musician/teacher Jane Mitchell.  Jane was asked in the late 1990's to create a song that celebrated our school name and values.  One of my favourite lines refers to a challenge Jesus set his early followers.  In many bible stories we hear of the reference to 'build the Kingdom', not a physical place but rather a culture where the gospel values were animated by everyone for everyone.  When we sing the song we challenge each other to contribute to making our school a place where we can all learn, while feeling safe and valued.  Love, forgiveness, loyalty and peacefulness are key planks on which we build the Kingdom here in Churchill.

Across all classes this term our students are learning about the parables Jesus used to teach about the Kingdom.  It would be an interesting conversation to have with your children about what messages they can see or hear in this animation about the Parable of the Sower taken from Matthew's Gospel.

Again this week we are confronted as a community with the uncertainty of Coronavirus.  Over the weekend it was easy to be consumed by the news, social media and conversations that all reinforced the many fearful unknowns we face as a nation and as a local community.  I believe as parents & teachers, we have a responsibility to each other to act positively and safely.  We will have to deal with changes to our home, work and school routines and we will have to behave differently and do unfamiliar things like wearing masks.  The way we respond will be modelled to our children so I ask everyone to really take stock of our own wellbeing and attitudes so that we can be in the best possible position to allow our children to not only simply survive but to thrive.  As the AFL head honchos have used as their catch-cry these past few crazy months, we will all need to be agile in our thinking.

Wishing you a great week ahead, take care and stay safe.

Dave 

This week we should complete the move into the new refurbished building.  The last few fit-out items are scheduled to be completed this week to finalise the building works that have as their core objective to increase student safety.  

The new floor allows the only access point during the school day to be via the Admin Centre while the student access path to the oval now is via western side of the site rather than through the car-park .... that is if the oval dries out!  We are now looking at how best to landscape the oval, car-park and grassed area alongside the church.

As with all new buildings we will probably have a few teething problems, and with a significant update to our communication systems underway this week we may experience a few issues with our phones.  We hope to add a direct line for reporting student absences as well as a text to email messaging function that will boost our efficiency while also being convenient for parents.  We apologise for any problems you may encounter this week as the systems get switched over.

Another security feature is the addition of Salto locks across the new building.  These swipe locks will improve site security meaning that the only entry point outside of regular before/after school times will be through the admin gate.  All late arrivals will then be more efficiently recorded through Reception.

The Library has also had a makeover and we thanks the staff, especially Mrs.Wilson, for their efforts to create such a terrific space for our students.

And finally, the completion of the building works means we have a few garden areas that we can transform.  If you are interested in getting involved on the end of the shove or rake please make contact with Mr.Cooper.

Casual Clothes Day for Culture and The Gathering Place- Tuesday August 4th

We are thrilled to support Aboriginal children who are in care, on the National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Children's Islander Day. We are also going to support the local agency, The Gathering Place in Morwell, as we did last year, with donations of long-life milk, needed to support local families. 

On the day, children can wear either colours from the Aboriginal flag: red, yellow or black or colours from the Torres Straight Islander flag: blue, green, white or black.

As part of our Catholic Social Justice mission, we aim to give back to others and assist others in need, just as Jesus did. Therefore, a gold coin donation or long-life milk would be a very grateful donation on the day.

Maintaining site safety is important at all times but the COVID-19 situation has heightened our awareness of hygiene and cleaning.  We have been extremely fortunate to have been able to open as scheduled this term compared to our friends in the western end of our diocese.  As a community we must continue to do everything possible to deflect any risk, a risk that will primarily come from someone in our community becoming unwell.

We ask you to continue to adhere to the guidelines recommended by the Catholic Education Office:

- Under no circumstances should anyone showing signs of the listed symptoms come onsite

- Only Staff and Students are allowed onsite

- Adults should avoid gathering around gate areas at drop-off/pick-up

- No staff or student should attend school if someone in their immediate household has been tested for COVID-19 and has yet to receive a notification of a negative result

As always we ask for families to contact the school by using the online notification, email or phone if your child is away.

We would like to also give notice that the Victorian Government has implemented the use of thermometers by school staff to screen student as they arrive at school.  The Catholic Education Office has put together a Parent Information Sheet that will be distributed if we are advised to begin testing students.

Lumen Christi has been fortunate to have the strong support of DOSCEL all through the COVID-19 crisis.  At the moment we are fortunate to be in the Eastern end of the diocese and are able to be running our school days essentially as normal.  In the background, DOSCEL, the school leadership team and staff are spending time preparing for a range of scenarios, with our preference to be continuing as we have been.  With the support of our community we continue to be COVID free on our site and we can thank each other for the commitment and discipline we are showing for each other, and importantly our children.

At the moment we have been:

- Reviewing our structures for any potential switch back to Remote Learning

- Receiving advice, protocols and equipment from DOSCEL about any potential move to be implementing temperature checks and the wearing of masks

- Encouraging all parents to have active email addresses registered in the school communication system and have downloaded the free school app

Please be aware that any changes or updates that need to be communicated immediately to families will be made via email/app.

It has been a real positive noting plenty of families using the Kiss & Go area on Williams Avenue, which is potentially due to the raised awareness due to the signage or the fact we have installed the new concrete path to that gate.  This has contributed to the car park appearing to be operating much more smoothly - All of which contributes to a much safer environment for our children.

We would like to draw your attention to a few items:

- All cars should park in a marked space to drop off or collect students.  Please do not pause in the driving lane for your children to jump out as this has the potential to create bottle necks which force students to weave between cars.

- The bus zone on Williams Avenue has signage that restricts cars at pickup and drop off.  Again we ask for your support to create a safe zone for buses to pull in so that the safety of pedestrians is not comprised, and parents do not get a local by-laws fine!

Thank you to all our current Lumen Christi families that have submitted their enrolment forms for Prep 2021.  This term we begin liasising with DOSCEL to construct our 2021 School Budget so we appreciate your support in confirming enrolments as this helps shape our financial planning.  If you know of other new families planning on joining us next year please encourage them to make contact with us.

We are again able to offer school tours again this term after they were restricted last term due to the COVID site regulations.  If you know of any families who would like to visit please encourage them to have a chat to us.

This year all enrolments will be completed on documentation provided by Diocese of Sale:Catholic Education Limited [DOSCEL].  This support from DOSCEL enables all catholic schools to have a level of consistency but more importantly met all legislative demands.

These forms are available online via the school website, and can be completed online PDF.  If you require further support or access to the forms for 2021 Prep Enrolments please contact the office.

Click here - ENROLMENT DOCUMENTATION

We encourage both current and new families to make contact with us to ensure your child's placement is secure, while also registered for our transition opportunities.

At present we are not able to host onsite transition opportunities.

In amongst all the craziness of Term 2 we applied for a grant to participate in the Sporting Schools +PLUS program.  This initiative runs separately to our regular sporting Schools program that saw different sporting codes conduct onsite clinics for our students.  this program is designed to build Physical Literacy until the lives of all our children and families.  At the moment we are working through a process to decide on our preferred supplier to work with staff and students.  As the country weaves it way through COVID the implementation of the Sporting Schools Plus program we expect will be impacted as it is a nationwide program.