Mother Teresa School Community Council

I hope that you all had an enjoyable summer break. Welcome back to the new year and I hope that all students, parents and carers, particularly those new to the school, are settling in well.

I am writing about the Mother Teresa School Community Council (Council). The Council provides a crucial point of connection between the school community and school leaders. It provides a framework for welcoming parents and other members of the school community to participate in school activities, to become actively involved in the life of the school and to support the mission of the school.

The Council is a forum for consultation, a means for members of the community to share their skills and talents for the common good, and a framework for the Principal to draw upon. The Council can make decisions relating to spending money raised through Council led fundraising activities.

The success of the Council comes directly from the volunteers who contribute and I wanted to thank each and everyone who assisted us over the previous year.

Some successes and areas of focus of the Council over the last year were:

• We have focused on social and community events, looking to re-connect the school community. You would have seen that the first event, a welcome picnic, is taking place this Sunday between 9:30 and 11:30 on the MTS school oval. We intend to roll out a number of other events across the school year.
• The fantastic MTS year book is the amazing work of a small number of volunteers.
• Likewise, it is volunteers who seamlessly deliver the MTS second hand uniform shop.
• Volunteers manage the Scholastic book club – with support from the purchases in turn providing a range of free reading resources for the school.
• After being successful in obtaining a grant, we facilitated the recruitment of a parent liaison officer who assisted us with Council activities and firmed up some of our procedures and templates to be used in future years.
• We are finalising the purchase and placement of two notice boards on school grounds. We’ve been considering how we communicate with the school community. We are aware that we are a diverse school community and want to explore measures to effectively reach all people.
• We contributed to the purchase of large school branded banners to be used at school sporting and community events.

This year sees the implementation across the Archdiocese of a consistent model of school community councils across all schools. This sees an update of the constitution of the Council in the school and a clarification of its purpose and role.

This is likely to mean some administrative change and a process of transition of some governance arrangements. I expect to see little to no change in our core focus of supporting the Principal to make strategic decisions about the school, promoting our school within the local community and participating in community or fundraising activities that benefit the school community.

We will be meeting for the first time this week on Tuesday 20 February at 6:00 pm. Its at this meeting where we will outline our key areas of focus for the year.  

If you would like to be involved in the Council some way, you are more than welcome! We are looking for volunteers and it’s a great way to connect with the school community. You can do as much or as little as you would like. If you have any feedback or suggestions, we’d love to hear them. Please feel free to join us at the meeting on 20 Feb or reach out to: communitycouncil.mts@gmail.com

Best regards

Damien Kelly

Chair of the MTS Community Council