Weekly Newsletter #29 - 15 Sep 2021
Reflection
Our Lady of Sorrows A Feast for Today
Today is The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. What does this mean for today’s context? Mary of Nazareth, knew what it was to be deeply human. Mary’s life was tough. In our language she was a “battler” who experienced the joys, sufferings, anxiety and deep pain of being human and being a mother.
If we pause for a moment and reflect upon Mary’s life we gain an insight into a strong, courageous, faithful woman. She trudged to Bethlehem, heavily pregnant, to find no suitable accommodation. The Holy family was forced in terror, to flee to Egypt with a newly born infant. As a mother, Mary knew what it was like to lose her child, which would have been terrifying. Right to the end she witnessed her son’s painful agonising death, staying with him, even when her own safety was probably at risk.
The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows is one that speaks to us about what it means to be deeply human. Mary knew suffering and in and amongst it she struggled on with faith in her God. In her many sorrows she was not helpless or hopeless, rather in her pain, she battled on with faith, hope and love.
In our human story we too face many losses, pains and suffering, individually, and collectively. During the pandemic our lives are vastly different, we are facing many challenges with climate change. War and poverty exist and is a reality for many. Our school communities are facing situations like we have never experienced before. In this context, on The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, we are inspired to live our story, in faith, hope and love, transforming our world to a place where God’s dream is truly alive. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus illuminating the journey. Merle Shain’s poem “Better to Light Candles” is an interesting reflection about loss, faith, hope and love.
Better to Light Candles
by Merle Shain
It is better to light candles
than to curse the darkness.
It is better to plant seeds
than to accuse the earth.
The world needs all of our power
and love and energy,
and each of us has something that we can give.
The trick is to find it and use it,
to find it and give it away.
So there will always be more.
We can be lights for each other,
and through each other’s illumination
we will see the way.
Each of us is a seed,
a silent promise,
and it is always spring.
From the Executive Director
I wish all staff a very well deserved holiday break, please take the time to rest and recharge. Your resilience, perseverance and adaptability has been truly appreciated. As I write this, Ballarat is heading into lockdown as of 11:59 tonight. As usual we will keep you updated with relevant information as it comes to hand.
Enterprise Risk & Compliance Review Update
At yesterday’s DOBCEL Board meeting the Enterprise Risk & Compliance Review was presented by the reviewer, Barry Bennett. Barry went through the report with the Board, focussing on the seven recommendations of the report.
The Board and Barry believe that the incoming Deputy Director: Stewardship and Assistant Director: Governance, Risk Future Provision should be given the responsibility of implementing the seven recommendations from 2022 onwards. The seven recommendations will be discussed with principals at the Leadership Gathering in Week 4 of next term. These seven recommendations aim to strengthen and improve DOBCEL’s arrangements for governance, risk management, assurance and compliance within CEB and our schools.
For clarity and forward planning for schools for 2022, please note: there will be no change to the CARSO roles in 2022. Schools will still receive an allowance to employ / contract their CARSO as they have done in 2021.
Invitation to participate in University of Melbourne research survey
Catholic schools in the Diocese of Ballarat are the first in Australia invited to participate in the nationwide Connecting Schools + Communities Survey from the University of Melbourne to improve community relations, school design and policy. This unique survey investigates how school facilities are used to support additional community programs, services and activities (when not limited by restrictions to combat COVID-19).
The researchers are seeking input from school principals and other school leaders involved in creating community connections that require the use of school facilities. Your responses will help to inform school infrastructure policies, school planning and design, and evidence-based advice for schools on sharing facilities with their communities. You can also download your survey data for strategic planning or other school use.
While this is a great opportunity, I understand the workloads we are all currently experiencing, so I want to be clear that participation is completely voluntary.
Learn more about this research project or complete the voluntary survey now.
Sr Anne McMillan
Sr Anne McMillan died peacefully at St John of God Hospital last Wednesday 8 September. Anne has been unwell for several months.
In her early ministry she taught in Parish Schools in Ballarat and Robinvale. Her most significant contribution in the Ballarat Diocese was introducing the RCIA program. She was also involved in pastoral planning, liturgy and adult education. Sr Anne was also very talented and well known for her art and design capabilities.There are many throughout the Diocese who will be saddened by her death. May this great woman of Mercy rest in peace.
Sr Anne’s funeral was held this morning at St Patrick’s Cathedral.
Principalship Announcements
Principalship at Lumen Christi Primary School, Delacombe
It is with great pleasure that I advise that Ms Carmel Hanley has accepted the role of Principal at Lumen Christi Primary School, Delacombe. (View official announcement)
Carmel has been part of the Lumen Christi community since 2013, where she held the positions of Teacher, Leader of Wellbeing, Leader of Learning, and Deputy Principal. Since July 2021, Carmel has been Interim Principal at Lumen Christi supporting Murray’s leave, and during that time has proven herself to be an asset to the Lumen Christi community.
The selection panel was very impressed with Carmel’s proven leadership of Lumen Christi in her roles as Deputy Principal and Interim Principal, and have full confidence in her continued ability to build strong relationships with students, staff and the wider school community.
Principalship at St Joseph’s Primary School, Penshurst
It is with great pleasure that I advise that Mr Darren Lloyd has accepted the role of Principal at St Joseph’s Primary School, Penshurst. (View official announcement)
Darren is currently an integral part of the St Patrick’s Primary School, Koroit community, where he holds the positions of Teacher, Religious Education Leader, Hands on Learning Coordinator and Deputy Principal. In his time with St Patrick’s, Darren has proven himself to be a practical and effective leader.
The selection panel was very impressed with Darren’s commitment to student wellbeing and protection, in addition to his experience as a committed Religious Education Leader and Deputy Principal.
Please join me in offering congratulations and your full support to Carmel and Darren as new Principals commencing in January 2022.
CEB Staff Announcement
CEB Learning and Teaching Education Officer, Kathie Turkenburg, has announced that, following a current period of Long Service Leave and accrued Annual Leave, she will conclude her time working within the Diocese of Ballarat on 7 January 2022. Kathie, who has been primarily based in the Central Zone of the Diocese, has impacted positively on many schools and individuals over the course of her 19 year engagement at CEB through her role as Education Officer, colleague and friend. Kathie’s time at Catholic Education Ballarat has been characterised by her commitment to increase student learning outcomes through improved learning and teaching, particularly in the area of Mathematics.
Kathie shared the following in communicating her resignation:
I have had a very positive experience over the years working in Catholic Education and have valued working with my colleagues, school principals and teachers and of course, the wonderful children.
We congratulate Kathie on her years of service and wish her all the best in her retirement. We look forward to recognising and celebrating her contribution to CEB at the end of this year.
Tom Sexton
Executive Director, Catholic Education Ballarat
From the Office of the Executive Director
Schoolzine Website and eNewsletter EOIs Invited
The opportunity to secure a new Schoolzine website and eNewsletter solution at a special Diocesan price of approximately 50% off is currently available. See our information page and FAQ document for more information on increasing your school’s digital engagement with existing and prospective families in 2022.
Expressions of interest for Phase 3 are now open until Friday 5 November. To request a quote and initiate the process for your school, please submit an EOI form or contact Emma Newman via email.
New staff commencing in Term 4
If your school has any new staff commencing in Term 4, please contact Emma Newman to add their email address to the Weekly Newsletter mailing list.
System Improvement Updates
Applications Now Open for Study Sponsorship
Applications for Diocesan Sponsorship for 2022 are now open. Sponsorship is on the basis of:
- 1/3 CEB contribution;
- 1/3 School contribution and
- 1/3 Participant contribution
except where Accreditation to teach Religious Education is the reason for the study. In these cases, CEB contributes 2/3 of cost and the school contributes 1/3. Sponsorship is for the cost of unit fees and does not include student amenities fees.
Priority courses for 2022 are:
- Graduate Certificate in Teaching Religious Education (CTC and/or YTU)
- Graduate Certificate Catholic Studies (ACU)
- Master of Theology (Research) (ACU)
- Master of Theological Studies (ACU)
- Master of Professional Studies in Theology (ACU)
- Master of Religious Education (ACU)
- Master of Educational Leadership (ACU)
Applications close on Monday 1 November. See further details and the application form.
Wellbeing Updates
New Wellbeing Activities Workbook for Parents and Students
Healthy wellbeing promotes a sense of meaning and purpose in life that is supported by the spiritual dimension of Catholic schools. It is especially important to ensure that children and young people’s wellbeing is looked after in times of uncertainty and stress. Supporting wellbeing not only helps children and young people to feel happier and less anxious, it will also help them to have positive interactions with the rest of the family and to learn more effectively.
The activities in this Wellbeing Activities Workbook are designed to give students themselves, as well as parents/carers and school staff suggested ways of supporting the students’ wellbeing – either at home or as part of classroom activities at school. You may like to circulate this resource with your parents and school community. The workbook will also be available on The HIVE next term.
Student Wellbeing Team Newsletter
The Term 3 Student Wellbeing Team Newsletter is now available.
New look Wellbeing page on The HIVE
This week you will note an updated version of the Wellbeing section of The HIVE. This section now contains a broader range of information presented in a format that we hope will support easy access for all users. We encourage you to check out the updated version which contains the recently completed publication ‘Wellbeing Activities for Parents and Students’. This publication offers a collection of practical suggestions to be shared among your school community.
Psychologist Team – Term 4 2021 School Allocations
At the beginning of Term 4 2021, we will welcome Janette Trento to the CEB Psychologist Team. Janette takes on a full-time ongoing position based in Ballarat replacing Lucia Bongiorno. Tegan Bell, who has filled an interim position, continues in that role until the end of the 2021 school year.
The Psychologist Team Brochure outlines the roles that CEB psychologists play in Diocesan schools. For schools, the primary point of contact with the Psychology Team occurs through the student referral process.
The Term 4 2021 School Allocations table outlines the designated psychologist for each school within the Diocese. Depending on the nature of each referral and existing caseloads there may be a need to engage a psychologist from another region within the Diocese or to outsource required assessments.
Learning and Teaching Updates
Country Education Partnership Curriculum Support Opportunities
Country Education Partnership has a range of curriculum support opportunities available to rural educators in Term 4.
Most of these offerings are aimed at upper primary aged students (Year 5 and 6), in particular any live sessions. However, some of the static material will be accessible to lower primary levels, such as the physical challenges and traditional eKids problems.
The suite of offerings g will include programs and resources that make up CEPs exciting eKids initiative – an interactive and online initiative to provide engaging and challenging learning for young students. Programs include:
- eKids Science program – Online tasks produced by the Education Team at the National Zoo & Aquarium in Canberra. Taking an in depth look at the inhabitants of the zoo, one week at a time, with the option of a larger whole-term project.
- STEAM Kahoot! – Play specifically prepared online Kahoot quizzes in class with your students, focussed on a range of STEAM topics, or send them home so that they can learning with their families.
- Traditional eKids Problems – Download static cross curricula problems/tasks/projects for your students to work through each week, all set to encourage students to think creatively.
- Physical Challenges – Download exciting and interactive little challenges that get the students up and out of the classroom, collaborating together on engaging set physical-cognitive challenges.
- EBKids – Weekly sessions focussing on the elements of the Energy Breakthrough, such as trike construction, renewable energy and recycling, nutrition and health, oral presentations, and so on. This program will also students to share their learning with other schools.
If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please register here.
People and Development Updates
World Gratitude Day
Reflect on our Blessings (21 September)
World Gratitude Day is coming up on 21 September. The restorative power of gratitude is something we can all embrace right now. Gratitude lifts us up, rejuvenates our spirit, and gives us a renewed resolve to meet the unprecedented challenges we’re facing today.
Workhuman® CEO Eric Mosley observed in his Workhuman® Live keynote address, gratitude “binds people together and creates a symbiotic relationship. There are lessons for leadership that a little piece of positive reinforcement can change a life. … The gratitude movement is taking over.”
Grateful Living offers that “in ways not immediately apparent, gratitude and peace fit together seamlessly. Clearly, peace gives rise to gratitude. We must be grateful for any and all conditions of peace, and invest ourselves in their unfolding. Not taking the blessings of peace for granted, we offer our perpetual thanksgiving. Every day.”
Further, the site asks how does gratitude bring about peace?
Living gratefully helps us to know and create peace from the inside out. We focus on cultivating emotional, physical and mental states that embody peace, and we become better peacemakers. When we are grateful, we also become more of what the world needs in order to be trustworthy peace-keepers:
- Gratefulness makes us aware that life is a gift, and that treasuring and protecting this gift is paramount. We savour and steward the large and the small things alike, and take a stand on behalf of what matters. Peace matters.
- Grateful people experience themselves as interconnected with all others, and recognise our inextricability as a global family living on this Earth. What is done to one, is done to all…
- When we are grateful, “less is more” to us; we are more content and experience sufficiency more readily. This makes us less likely to contribute to habits of consumption that amass and deplete precious resources, and give rise to conflict.
- Gratefulness engenders love, compassion, and respect. It shapes how we relate to each other, and compels us toward kindness and generosity…towards those things that nurture peace.
- Grateful people are moved by love toward justice.
In the spirit of peace and gratitude, Grateful Living offer you the gift of “A Grateful Day”. This beautiful, updated 5-minute video meditation by Brother David connects us to the heart of what matters, every day. Please enjoy this gift and pass it on…
September Flourish Health and Wellbeing eMag now available
The September edition of Flourish eMag is now available. In this edition:
- RU OK? day
- Psychological safety in the workplace
- Gratitude in the Workplace
- Liptember
- Menopause in the Workplace
- Making Exercise a Habit
- Reading Food Labels
- Sleep Tips for Kids
- Fatigue as an Occupational Hazard
Business Services Updates
CDF Capital Investment Account
DOBCEL has endorsed the establishment of a Catholic Development Fund Ballarat Capital Investment Account for DOBCEL schools. This account is for the specific purposes of isolating school reserves to fund planned capital works.
For Primary schools, funds within the Capital Investment Account are not counted as cash reserves for the purposes of Supplementary Capital Fund assistance.
Schools may transfer excess reserves to their CDF Capital Investment Account on the following conditions:
- Funds should be transferred to the CDF Capital Investment Account from the school’s general account by 30 April each year
- Schools must have a masterplan in which capital works have been identified
- Schools must have an active maintenance plan
- Schools are only able to transfer operating surpluses, noting that is not permitted to use recurrent grant income for capital projects
- Schools are required to record funds held in the CDF Capital Investment account in their school bank account balances separately in the general ledger and in the Annual Financial Statement (AFS)
- Funds that are transferred to the CDF Capital Investment Account will not be taken into consideration for General Recurrent Grant Special Factor claims or previously committed Supplementary Capital Fund support
- The DOBCEL School Capital Investment Transfer Deposit Form will be signed by the principal and authorised by the Assistant Director: Business Services.
When a school commences a capital project it will apply to the CDF for a return of all or a portion of the account to fund the building works. Six months’ notice of intention to withdraw funds is required by the CDF.
If this is something that you would like to take advantage of within your school, or would like to discuss further, please contact your Education Consultant, Business Manager or the Assistant Director: Business Services.
CDF Loan Rate Reduction
Please note that the CDF have advised that loan rates will be reduced by 0.25% effective from 1 October 2021.
There are no changes to savings or investment rates.
Debt Collection Procedures
Just a reminder for DOBCEL schools that engage the services of a debt collection agency or legal firm for debt collection. Where recovery action progresses to legal action, under the instrument of delegation (Item 2.3.50) the matter is to be escalated to the Assistant Director: Business Services and the Executive Director via Business Managers for approval prior to the commencement of legal action.
Career Opportunities in the Diocesan Education Community
Principal Vacancies
- St Brigid’s Primary School, Ballan – commencing January 2022 (closes 27 September)
- St Alipius Parish School, Ballarat East – commencing January 2022 (closes 27 September)
- St Mary’s Primary School, Warracknabeal – commencing January 2022 (closes 27 September)
CEB Vacancies
- Manager: Safeguarding & Standards – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE or 12-month secondment (closes 24 September)
- Education Officer: Learning & Teaching (Secondary) – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 4 October)
- Education Officer: Learning & Teaching (Primary) – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 4 October)\
School Vacancies
- College Social Worker/Counsellor/Psychologist – Mercy Regional College, Camperdown – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 16 September)
- Boarding Housemaster – St Patrick’s College, Ballarat – contract position at 1.0 FTE (closes 17 September)
- Director of Boarding – St Patrick’s College, Ballarat – contract position at 1.0 FTE (closes 17 September)
- Science & Human Development Teacher – Emmanuel College, Warrnambool – casual position for 6 weeks initially (closes 20 September)
- Drama Teacher – Monivae College, Hamilton – ongoing 1.0 FTE (closes 20 September)
- Drama/Production Coordinator – Marian College, Ararat – ongoing and part-time (closes 21 September)
- Daily Organiser/Teacher – Marian College, Ararat – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 21 September)
- Teacher of Design & Technology – Marian College, Ararat – fixed term at 1.0 FTE (closes 21 September)
- Classroom Teacher – St John’s School, Dennington – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE (closes 24 September)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Ararat – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE (closes 29 September)
- Classroom Teachers – St Aloysius’ School, Redan – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE (closes 30 September)
- Classroom Teachers – St Mary’s School, Colac - fixed-term for 2022 at 1.0 FTE (closes 1 October)
- Classroom Teacher – All Saints Parish School, Portland - ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 1 October)
- Classroom Teacher x 3 – All Saints Parish School, Portland - fixed-term for 2022 at 1.0 FTE (closes 1 October)
- Head of Science Secondary Teacher – Marian College, Ararat – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 1 October)
- Position of Leadership – House Leader – St Joseph’s College, Mildura – ongoing at 1.0 FTE (closes 1 October)
- School Officer – Reception/Administration – Siena Catholic Primary School, Lucas – ongoing at 0.37 FTE (closes 3 October)
- Classroom Teacher – St Patrick’s School, Koroit – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE (closes 4 October)
- Classroom Teacher – St Joseph’s Primary School, Warrnambool – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE (closes 8 October)
- Classroom Teachers – St Mary’s School, Hamilton – fixed-term at 1.0 FTE and part-time (closes 11 October)
- Casual Relief Teachers – St Francis Xavier Primary School, Ballarat East (closes 10 December)
From Other Dioceses and Beyond
Migrant and Refugee Sunday 2021 – September 26
Pope Francis has chosen the theme, Towards An Ever Wider “We”, for the 107th World Day of Migrant and Refugees, commemorated in Australia on Sunday 26 September. The Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office have produced the 2021 kit and included are stories from local communities, reflections and prayers of the faithful to assist parishes, schools, families and other Church communities in celebrating this important event. Download the poster and kit.
Recruitment Opportunities in Other Dioceses
The following recruitment opportunities are currently available in other dioceses:
- Catholic Education Wilcannia-Forbes
- Diocese of Sale Catholic Education Ltd (extended deadline)