Weekly Newsletter #6 - 9 March 2022
Reflection
Taking Stock of Our Lives
In this reflection, Sr. Joan Chittister, explores what the implications of Lent may be for Christians today.
Once upon a time, an ancient story tells us, the master had a visitor who came to inquire about Zen. But instead of listening, the visitor kept talking about his own concerns and giving his own thoughts. After a while, the master served tea. He poured tea into his visitor’s cup until it was full and then he kept on pouring.
Finally, the visitor could not bear it any longer, “Don’t you see that my cup is full?” he said. “It’s not possible to get anymore in.”
“Just so,” the master said, stopping at last. “And like this cup, you are filled with your own ideas. How can you expect me to give you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Lent is the process of emptying our cups. Lent is a time for trimming the soul and scraping the sludge off a life turned slipshod. Lent is about taking stock of time, even religious time. Lent is about exercising the control that enables us to say no to ourselves so that when life turns hard of its own accord, we have the spiritual stamina to say yes to its twists and turns with faith and with hope.
Lent is the time to make new efforts to be what we say we want to be.
—from The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century by Joan Chittister
Let us pray…
Jesus full of Compassion
You walked among us,
You know our human experience.
You have shared our joys and sorrows.
You have healed and comforted us, sustained and renewed us.
Through these days of Lent may all we do reflect your merciful love.
Encouraged by your care for us, we will, with lively fidelity, devote ourselves to the works of mercy.
Through our good works, may people everywhere experience your unceasing care for them.
Amen
Source: Being Lost … Being Found, Archdiocese of Brisbane 2016 Lenten Program
Adapted from prayers of Catherine McAuley
From the Executive Director
Yesterday we celebrated International Women's Day. The theme this year is:
Imagine a gender equal world.
A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
Together we can forge women's equality.
Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.
Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day.
We can break the bias in our communities.
We can break the bias in our workplaces.
We can break the bias in our schools, colleges and universities.
Together, we can all break the bias - on International Women's Day (IWD) and beyond.
In our school communities we need to continue to promote fair and equitable opportunities for all and try to actively reduce our biases conscious and unconscious. International Women’s Day is also an opportunity to celebrate the great women of Catholic education including our own Saint Mary MacKillop who endured many a bias, she was excommunicated at one stage and later exonerated, as she went about her mission in education and the establishment of the Josephites.
Next Thursday and Friday we will hold our first Leadership Gathering in Horsham since 2020, and of course this gathering was originally planned for week 4 of this term. It will be fantastic to have so many of us together in the one place, for many principals and senior CEB leaders this will the first opportunity to experience a Horsham Gathering. We have worked on the agenda with the Design Team (comprised of principals and CEB staff representatives) and will send that out to principals by Friday. We have invited our parish priests to the mass and dinner on Thursday evening - so if you run into your parish priest in the coming days please remind them we would love to have them join us, if it fitted their busy schedules.
Supporting those in Need
Diocese of Lismore 2022 Flood Appeal.
There has been a tremendous level of support during this emergency, as the staff of the Diocese of Lismore endeavour to respond to requests and various supports colleagues have offered to put in place.
The Diocese of Lismore is sincerely grateful for the extraordinary amounts of offers for support for families and schools impacted by floods and your ongoing prayers. To ensure a coordinated response, it is requested that all donations be channelled through Bishop Greg's Diocese of Lismore 2022 Flood Appeal found here at https://www.lismorediocese.org.
It would be greatly appreciated that all fundraising efforts support this appeal.
BSB: 037-889
Account No: 1061 5829
Account Name: DOL Flood Appeal
While offers of physical resources and equipment are appreciated, unfortunately there is nowhere to store, sort and distribute such forms of generosity.
Caritas Australia Partnership with Caritas Ukraine.
Caritas Australia is one of the few NGOs in Australia with a direct partner on the ground in Ukraine.
Caritas Australia forms a longstanding partnership with Caritas Ukraine, who is currently providing emergency support to internally displaced persons.
The escalating violence in Ukraine is rapidly becoming a dire humanitarian crisis.
Over 2 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine, and there have been at least 1,335 civilian casualties.
The Caritas Ukraine Appeal provides essential support to those in need, including;
- Emergency food and water.
- Shelter.
- Hygiene kits.
- Psychological counselling.
If you or your school would like to contribute directly to Ukraine through their fundraising measures, learn more and donate to the Caritas Australia Ukraine Crisis Appeal by visting the webpage at Ukraine | Caritas Australia.
Project Compassion.
A time honoured way for us to live out our Baptism and respond as Catholic educational communities in the spirit of Lent is by making a generous response to Project Compassion. Our support of Caritas Australia makes it possible for us to reach out to the millions of people who have to live in a way that deprives them of their human dignity. Caritas supports projects that enable these people to take hold of their lives and develop ways and means to provide a better form of existence for them and their children.
Information for teachers and school leaders can be found at https://www.caritas.org.au/.
Catholic Education Week Dinner and 30 Year Awards night
Last chance!
The 2022 Thirty Year Service Awards will be celebrated and acknowledged at the Diocesan Catholic Education Week dinner on Friday 27 May at the Damascus Events Centre (DEC).
To enable DOBCEL to plan for the awards, we need to identify staff members who have become eligible this year for their 30 Years of Service recognition. Please note that any staff member who has been recognised in previous years will not be included, and that any maternity leave or leave without pay taken by staff throughout their career is not included when calculating years of service.
Could you please take the time to identify your staff members who may qualify for recognition in 2022, then follow the link and complete the form by this Friday 11 March.
People & Development Update
COVID-19 vaccination booster deadline reminder.
A reminder of the vaccination booster deadlines prescribed for all education workers under the pandemic COVID-19 Mandatory Vaccination (Specified Facilities) Order.
Third dose deadline for workers in education facilities was extended until 25 March 2022 to be, meaning education workers must be fully vaccinated (boosted) by that date if eligible to be boosted
There are limited temporary exceptions as follows:
- Fully vaccinated education workers who are not yet eligible for a third dose will have a third dose deadline of three months and 14 days from when they had their second dose
- If the education worker, who is fully vaccinated, was diagnosed with COVID-19 (via a PCR test or Rapid Antigen Test submitted to the Department of Health) they now have a booster deadline of no later than 4 months from the end of the required self-isolation period
- Workers who are recent international arrivals will have a new third dose deadline of four weeks from the date of their arrival, provided they have evidence of a future vaccine booking.
All DOBCEL employees must show evidence of their vaccination status (boosted, medical exemption, or temporarily excepted as above) to their principal or their delegate before 25 March 2022.
If you are temporarily excepted, have a current medical exemption, or do not meet the mandated vaccination requirements you should talk to your principal/their delegate as soon as possible, before 25 March regarding your circumstances.
Fair Work Commission Decision on Application for Long Service Leave Variation.
Further to our communication over the last few weeks, including the Weekly Newsletter #4 (23 February 2022) we are pleased to advise you that Commissioner Platt, of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) approved the variation to the Long Service Leave (LSL) provisions contained in Appendix 3 of the VCEMEA. In particular, to address confusion regarding how LSL is calculated and paid in respect of employees who have worked part-time, and a combination of part-time and full-time.
The approved variation will apply to all employees and employers covered by the VCEMEA. Please see here for the decision, which came in effect from 4 March 2022, amends clause 3 of Appendix 3 of the VCEMEA to read as follows:
3. Payment during long service leave
3.1 Long service leave is paid at the Ordinary Rate of Pay at the time of the taking of the leave or on termination.
3.2 If the calculation in clause 3.1 results in an employee's leave entitlement being lower than that provided under the Act, the entitlement to long service leave for that Employee will be calculated as provided for under the Act.
Long Service Leave arrangements for employees who have commenced a period of long service leave will continue unchanged.
Interim administrative arrangements will be put in place by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd Long Service Leave Scheme.
Please click here to view the memo.
ACTIONS REQUIRED
To ensure all eligible employees are aware of the decision, principals should ensure that the above memo is:
- distributed to all eligible employees including regular emergency teachers.
- forwarded to all eligible employees who are on extended leave such as parental leave, extended personal leave and long service leave who may not be checking or receiving emails.
- placed on the staff noticeboard.
Compliance Training Online Learning Platform.
In last week’s newsletter we let you know that Catholic Church Insurances (CCI) have announced the decommissioning of their Learning Manager platform. The CCI Learning Manager platform will be discontinued from 15 March 2021.
We continue to work with GRC Solutions to migrate to a new Learning Manager platform called Salt. All existing “learners” (staff in schools across the Diocese of Ballarat and CEB) will be transferred to this new platform before the end of Term 1. However, there will be a short break in service access.
What do current learners enrolled in CCI Learning Manager Platform need to do?
- If you have started a course in Term 1, 2022 but have not yet completed it we encourage you to finish it before 15 March 2022, so your progress is not lost. Otherwise, you will be re-enrolled in the new system to recommence and complete the course.
- If you want to keep a personal record of your course completion, login to CCI Learning Manager before 15 March 2022 to download it. You can do this by selecting ‘Show completed Tasks’ from the task bar to the left and then download a certificate for the required completed courses.
- You do not need to do anything further until you receive a notification to login to Salt (the new platform) for the first time. This will be a simple process with instructions and contacts for assistance provided.
What happens next?
- We will retain a central record of any training completed via the CCI Learning Manager before the cutoff.
- We are working with GRC Solutions now to ensure that the relevant compliance courses will be available on the Salt platform on a rolling cycle to balance regulatory and legal obligations with workload impact for all learners (more on this to follow).
- Further advice on the change will be communicated via this newsletter and in individual emails.
- Additional information and support will be available to ‘local’ school-based administrations such as principals and CARSOs. We anticipate this will be comparable to the requirements in managing local aspects of the CCI Learning Manager system.
Business Services Update
CECV Edge Network Project – Upgrade to School Internet Connections.
Work is currently progressing with the upgrade to the speed of School internet connections in the Diocese.
During this process Schools will be contacted by a technician to book appointments for onsite visits for this work to occur.
If you have any questions related to this work, please contact David Bourke or Kevin Brodie at the CEB Office.
Catholic Education Update
Learning and Teaching.
Victorian Academy of Teaching & Learning: Teaching Excellence Program (TEP).
Congratulations to Sarah Slater from St Patrick’s College Ballarat and Fiona Holland from St Mary’s Warracknabeal who were successful in gaining acceptance into the Victorian Academy of Teaching & Learning : Teaching Excellence Program (TEP).
There was a rigorous selection process for entry into this program and Sarah and Fiona will be provided with opportunities to build their own capacities to become exemplary educators and collaborate with other expert teachers from all sectors through professional learning, master classes and action research projects.
Google Professional Learning for Chromebook users.
Google has offered to fund our Diocese for some training for school staff, based on our Chromebook purchases. This training will be facilitated by certified representatives from Google and Using Technology Better.
Please contact Kev Cummins for further information.
Mathematics Professional Learning 2022 - Peter Sullivan.
This year we have Peter Sullivan presenting Professional Learning- Learning through Challenging Mathematical Tasks
The purpose of this professional learning is to improve teacher practice and student outcomes in Mathematics through the planning and presentation of challenging problem solving tasks.
If you participated in the professional learning with Peter throughout 2020 or 2021, you are invited to Continue the Journey and reconnect with Peter through 2 days of spaced learning in 2022.
Or, if your school has started to implement Peter’s work, we invite you to send other colleagues to engage in the process of collaboratively developing tasks which will be challenging and engaging for students.
This professional learning will be held at Sovereign Park Ballarat on:
- Thursday 24th March, and
- Monday 22nd August
Please Register by clicking here.
VIT Mentoring Professional Learning.
The Effective Mentoring Program (EMP) is a free professional learning program developed and delivered in partnership with DET, and is open to fully registered teachers working in government, Catholic and independent schools and early childhood services.
This two-day program equips participants with mentoring skills to support beginning teachers and guide them through the provisional to full registration process.
To be considered a VIT trained mentor, teachers must attend both days of the program within the same year.
Dates in the Ballarat Diocese are as follows:
Bookings can be made via this link.
Literacy.
International Literacy Association.
Reciprocal Reading Strategies to Increase Reading Gains Now - presented by Lori D. Oczkus.
Lori D. Oczkus will demonstrate how to implement strategies that accelerate reading progress, as well as share ready-to-go lessons proven to increase reading comprehension, build vocabulary, improve fluency, and recharge motivation. Once registered, a recording is available.
The Hatchery.
Click here for The Hatchery's Schools Learning Community 2022 Calendar!
Term 1
Differentiation in Teaching and Learning Digital Conference 23rd & 24th March (flyer)
Atomic Habits Digital Seminar (with best-selling author James Clear) 25th March
Term 2
Data Informed Teaching Digital Conference 25th & 26th May
An Introduction to Formative Assessment Digital Seminar 17th June
Term 3
Engaging Teachers in Differentiated Instruction Digital Conference 17th & 18th August
An Introduction to Deep Learning Digital Seminar 9th September
Term 4
Data Informed Wellbeing Strategies Digital Conference 26th & 27th October
Effective Professional Learning Teams Digital Seminar 18th November
Access to ALL of these events is included in a School membership, plus videos, discussion groups and supplementary content for a complete learning experience. Memberships are priced at $999+GST per person and if a school opts to invest in 5+ memberships The Hatchery will give ALL STAFF at the school a login to our Schools Learning Community, meaning they can all access our on-demand content library which consists of all event sessions once they have run.
The Hatchery's Schools Learning Community - Click Here
Responding To Challenging Student Behaviour in the Least Restrictive Manner.
Training Opportunities.
CEB has engaged the services of Team Teach (teamteach.com.au) for the purpose of providing training in how best to respond to challenging behaviours that may expose students and staff to the risk of physical harm.
Team Teach offers Level 1 and Level 2 ‘Positive Behaviour Support Training’ and ‘Train the Trainer’ courses. See outlines at the following links:
Level 1 Positive Behaviour Support Training
Level 2 Positive Behaviour Support Training
Intermediate Train the Trainer Course
Please access this Training Options link to explore the possible options and indicate your interest.
ResourceSmart Schools Grants & Awards
ResourceSmart Schools would like you to be aware of the following grants which are currently open for applications:
- the Woolworths Junior Landcare grants are accepting applications and close on Friday March 18th.
- and most importantly the ResourceSmart School awards are open and close on Friday March 18th.
Career Opportunities in the Diocesan Education Community
Catholic Education Ballarat Vacancies
- Education Officer (Learning Diversity) – Horsham Office – fixed-term position at 1.0 FTE (closes 14 March)
- Psychologist – Mildura Office – ongoing position at 0.6 FTE (closes 14 March)
School Vacancies
- Year 5/6 Classroom Teacher – All Saints Parish School, Portland – Terms 2 and 3 at 1.0 FTE (closes 11 March)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Swan Hill – fixed-term, part-time position (closes 11 March)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Swan Hill – fixed-term, full-time position (closes 11 March)
- Casual Relief Teacher – Term 2 contract – St Mary MacKillop College, Swan Hill – 0.6 FTE (closes 15 March)
- Science and Sustainability Teacher – St Alipius’ Parish School, Ballarat East – Term 2 and 3 only at 0.4 FTE (closes 15 March)
- Classroom English Teacher – Marian College, Ararat – ongoing position at 1.0 FTE (closes 18 March)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Donald – fixed-term position at 0.6 FTE (closes 8 April)
- Casual Relief Teachers – St Alipius’ Parish School, Ballarat East (closes 30 June)
- Casual Relief Teachers – St Francis Xavier, Ballarat East (closes 9 December)