Dear Parents

As a Catholic learning community,

all at Mother Teresa School are called

to care, to dream, to innovate, to inspire!

Today our school community gathered to stop and reflect on the meaning of Remembrance Day. Thank you to Carly Flemington for coordinating our beautiful liturgy and to those parents who were involved and attended. 

Saturday 11 November marks the anniversary of the Armistice that ended fighting in World War I. Every year at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, millions around the world pause in silence to remember the sacrifices many have made so we can enjoy life today. The red poppy has special significance for Australians as they were among the first to flower in the devastated battlefields of northern France and Belgium in the First World War. In soldiers' folklore, the vivid red of the poppy came from the blood of their comrades soaking the ground.

Kinder Orientation

For the next two Wednesdays, we are welcoming our new Kinder groups to experience life at school. The sessions will run between 3.30pm and 4.30pm, in the kinder rooms, with the parent sessions occurring in the school staffroom. We look forward to welcoming our new groups for 2024. Next year we will have three kinder groups. 

ELC Orientation Days

ELC is seeking a few parents from higher grades to come along to their orientation mornings to meet and greet new families and make them feel welcome at MTS. 

The orientation days are the 20-25 November from 9:00am to 10:30am. If you are interested in helping please email elc.motherteresa@cg.catholic.edu.au 

School Fees 2024

Conscious of the current cost of living pressures Catholic Education has worked hard to keep fees to a minimum. However, we are not immune from rising costs and unfortunately, there is a need to pass on some of these costs in the form of increases in school fees.

School fees for 2024 are shown in the table below. The school fee in 2024 will include the tuition fee and all previous school-based levies (except for camp fees and special lunchtime clubs). CE has also reviewed and updated the arrangements for family discounts, which are included in the school fee for 2024.

The Mother Teresa School fees are used to support the delivery of high-quality education and maintain and improve facilities, including the funding of all staff and the maintenance and improvement of facilities at the school.

Voluntary contributions to the Canberra Catholic Schools Build Fund (CCSBF) will be $210 per term for those families that opt-in to make a contribution to the CCSBF.

Our students continue to benefit from a high-quality educational experience and a wide range of learning and co-curricular opportunities. We continue to see improvement in academic achievement of students, particularly in literacy and numeracy. This commitment to learning combined with knowing each child continues to nurture the growth and development of every child.

CE is very mindful of the impact that any fee increase can have on families. They have carefully considered these impacts in setting 2024 school fees and have attempted to keep the increases to a minimum. If you have any concern that fees in 2024 may cause hardship for you and your family, I encourage you to contact me for a confidential discussion to request a remission form.

I value your partnership and sincerely thank you for your continued support of Mother Teresa School. 

2024 School Fees: (For the year)
1 Child - $3,858     2 Children - $5,734     3 Children - $7,068    4 Children - $7,861

The Building Fund is not included as it is an opt-in contribution.

 

Grandfriends Day 

We are looking forward to welcoming our many grandfriends back into the school. Visitors are welcome from 12.10pm for a concert commencing at 12.30. Each grade will showcase their learning over the term in Music. 

To help with our organisation please refer to the Compass Event notification, sent during the week. We are asking for numbers attending, and permission for a child to leave school with a nominated person via the consent process. 

Illness Within the School

Please be aware that this week we have had a number of students unwell with vomiting and others unwell with Covid. Please keep an eye on your children and should they present with any symptoms please keep them home to rest and recover. Children who have vomited must be kept home for 24 hours.  

Baptismal Certificates

To maintain the accuracy of our records, families whose children are bapitised or formally joined the Catholic faith after the initial enrolment process must provide a copy of the certificate to the office. This is required if a child wishes to be part of the parish sacramental celebrations in the parish.

Car Park - Best Manners

Thank you to parents who are following our car park directions provided by staff. Key issues that are raised by staff

• turning right when our sign clearly states no right turn
• parking for more than 5 min in the pick-up and drop off zone. This is essential for the Preschool parents who pick up at 3.00pm
• impatience by parents as other parents endeavour to reverse out of a park.

Next week, new markings and signs will be added to our school car park to help with parking and to improve the flow of traffic. Look out for the new signage coming.

Are You Leaving MTS

We are still receiving lots of enquiries for enrolment in all grades across the school. If you are aware of a possible move, please advise as soon as possible. This will help with our planning for 2024.  

Student Behaviour Expectations

Uniform Shop Opening 2023

Our uniform shop volunteers have advised that they will be open Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings from 8.30am - 9:00am. Access to the uniform shop is from the side sliding door (car park side) of the Hall. 

God bless and have a lovely weekend.

Carmel Maguire

Principal

On Tuesday, 10 Year 6 athletes travelled to Sydney to compete in the Netball NSW State Cup Finals. They won their way into the championships by winning the ACT State Title in Term 2. Schools came from as far north as Tweed Heads and Inverell and as far west as Orange. The girls and boys acquitted themselves against some quality and tall opposition coming away with 3 wins and 3 losses on the day to finish as the 7^th best school team in the whole of NSW and ACT. Congratulations to all students involved. A massive thank you to the parents who gave up their time to drive their children to Sydney and to Ayisha Cicchini who coached the team at all three days of competition this year.

Congratulations to Willem V from Year 4 who entered the ACT SEAACT Science Fair this year on his own initiative. He conducted an experiment on the compostable properties of "environmentally friendly" items such as sugar cane bowls and paper straws to see if they broke down, and in which environment they broke down in best. 

Willem came first place in the Earth Sciences category for primary Years 3 - 6. 

Dear Families,

You may have noticed the Seesaw app has a fresh new app icon. Don’t worry, the way you use the app is still the same. You can now update to the newest version of the iOS or Android app to see this change. If you access Seesaw via the website, app.seesaw.me, the updates are automatic. I’ve attached the image of the new icon so you can become familiar with it.

With the help of Vicki, our Community Liasion Officer, we have planned several events to help connect families in our community. 

Small steps that we hope will grow.

Cuppa and Chat - Tuesday 14 November 

Weekend Picnic in the Park