Weekly Newsletter #24 - 9 August 2023
-
Reflection
-
From the Executive Director
-
Condolences
-
Our Diocesan Community, July Edition
-
Catholic Education Update
-
Celebrate Gardens, Food & Sustainability through Art
-
Catholic Identity & Mission Update
-
SIMON Innovation Update
-
People and Development Update
-
Learning and Teaching Update
-
Student Wellbeing Update
-
Career Opportunities in the Diocesan Education Community
Reflection
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Pope and Peace
This week, we remember the first tragic use of nuclear weapons in war. On 6th August 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima in Japan, followed by the second on the city of Nagasaki on 9th August. It is time for humanity to reflect upon how we can create peace and harmony for all creation.
At the conclusion of World Youth Day, on Sunday, in Lisbon, Pope Francis said
"Dear friends, allow me, this old man, to share with you young people a dream that I carry within me - it is the dream of peace, the dream of young people praying for peace, living in peace and building a peaceful future," Francis said.
"As you return home,” please continue to pray for peace.
"What is more, you are a sign of peace for the world, showing how different nationalities, languages and histories can unite instead of divide.
"You are the hope of a different world," he said.
This invitation speaks to us in Catholic Education. Our work, every day, with colleagues, families and students is about creating a world inspired by the dream of Jesus Christ. We strive to continually create justice and peace in all we do. Using the building blocks of dialogue, encounter and dignity for all. Our “peace making” is about touching hearts. The effects of our work in the long term, may contribute to situations like Hiroshima, Nagasaki or the devastation in Ukraine for example, never happening again. Pope Francis’s dream is the sacred work we do each and every day!!
Invitation to prayer
Creator God, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love,
You created us and you call us to live as one family.
Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace;
Enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother, sister, friend.
Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace.
Our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarrelling into forgiveness
Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together,
will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam!
Amen
Adapted from the work of Pope Francis.
From the Executive Director
Building Opening at Siena Catholic Primary School
This morning, I had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremony for the new school building at Siena Catholic Primary School in Lucas. It was a wonderful event to be part of with a vibrant atmosphere of celebration. Notable amongst the attendees were Member for Ripon and State Government, Martha Haylett as well as Bishop Paul Bird who played a pivotal role in the ceremony by blessing the newly constructed building. The children of Siena Catholic Primary School were a terrific and respectful group of students who I congratulate on this momentous occasion, along with Principal Chris Kavanagh and his staff.
Success of Crucial Conversations
The majority of our Principals attended a 2 day Crucial Conversations training in their Zones last week. Thank you to everyone that attended in either Warrnambool, Ballarat or Swan Hill. The feedback has been very positive and I look forward to hearing the success of the program being put into action.
Tom Sexton
Executive Director, Catholic Education Ballarat
Images from the DLG Crucial Conversations across Zones.
Images from Siena Catholic Primary School, Lucas.
Condolences
With sadness we share the news that Fr Frank Smith died Wednesday 2 August.
Fr Frank had strong links with Ballarat. In the 1960s he did his studies for the priesthood at the Redemptorist Seminary in Wendouree. Then in recent years, he lived in Wendouree West, serving the local people as a member of the Exodus community. When his health declined, he moved to Melbourne for medical care. He died at the Berengarra Aged Care Facility in Kew.
This year Fr Frank celebrated 60 years of religious profession as a Redemptorist.
The Funeral Mass for Fr Frank Smith CSsR will be held at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, 480A Gillies Street, Wendouree at 10:30 am on Friday August 25.
May Christ the Redeemer welcome Fr Frank into eternal life.
Our Diocesan Community, July Edition
The July 2023 edition of 'Our Diocesan Community' is out now!
A reminder that if your school community has a good news story to share with others in the Diocese, the ODC Editorial Committee would love to hear it. Any articles and photos for publication in ODC and the diocesan e-News are to please be forwarded to odc@ballarat.catholic.org.au
Catholic Education Update
Teaching Excellence Program
The Teaching Excellence Program (TEP) enables highly-skilled teachers to advance their capability and confidence for exemplary teaching.
The Teaching Excellence Program (TEP) is a year-long professional learning program for highly-skilled teachers supporting and challenging them to become even better teachers. Through the program, teachers analyse their teaching practice to deepen content and pedagogical content knowledge in and across the key discipline areas. They access contemporary, evidence-informed research and apply this learning to their student’s learning needs. Teachers utilise a practitioner inquiry approach to deepen their knowledge, capability and confidence to teach even more effectively in their context.
TEP is open to highly-skilled teachers with a minimum of three years teaching experience from the government, Independent and Catholic sectors, including those teaching in alternative settings.
Supported by a team of Master Teachers-in-Residence, TEP teachers engage with national and international expert educators in a diverse range of learning activities, including Conference Days, Discipline Days, Teaching Excellence Learning Community (TELC) Days and Practitioner Inquiry.
Teaching in the disciplines
The program is structured around key disciplines, including:
- The Arts
- English, including English as an additional language
- Health and Physical Education
- The Humanities
- Languages
- Mathematics
- Science
- Technologies
Information Sessions
To support applicants with their 2024 TEP applications and answer any questions, information sessions are being held weekly for both teacher applicants and principals.
We encourage applicants to attend an applicant/teacher information session to find out more about the program and so that we can clarify and support applicants to submit their applications. The principal information sessions are opportunities to hear from Principals-in-Residence. The sessions will provide information for principals to support their teacher applicants through the application process and the year of professional learning that follows.
Click here to register for an information session.
If you have questions about the program, please contact Fiona Murphy or more information can be found at Teaching Excellence Program (academy.vic.gov.au)
Article submitted by Matthew Byrne.
Celebrate Gardens, Food & Sustainability through Art
Article submitted by Dr Susan Crowe.
Catholic Identity & Mission Update
Bibliodrama – Bringing Sacred Texts to Life in the Classroom
Professional Development opportunity for Religious Education teachers
Most simply described, Bibliodrama is a form of roleplaying in which the roles played are taken from the biblical texts. Students inhabit the characters in the text and bring their interpretations to the scene.
This workshop is designed for classroom teachers. It will be a hands-on exploration of the fundamentals of Bibliodrama. There will be a number of practical applications throughout the day and some working with script development.
- Date: Wednesday 4 October
- Venue: Sovereign Park Motor Inn, 217-229 Main Road Ballarat. Courtyard Conference Room
- Time: 9.30am – 3.00pm
- Cost: $60
- Register: Trybooking
Please direct inquiries to Justin McInerney.
Article submitted by Justin McInerney.
SIMON Innovation Update
A New Look & Feel
SIMON is currently undergoing a major upgrade to its User Interface & Experience with a fresh design leveraging state-of-the-art navigation principles. This will progressively be applied to all features and modules within the SIMON Platform commencing end of 2023. For a sneak peek into the new design philosophy please see below.
eAdmin Project
The development of this exciting school and student administration extension to SIMON is about to transition from development into testing. The modules encompassing Enrolments, Enquiry, Forms and all mandatory census requirements have been completed. The SIMON Support Team have also applied the new SIMON User Interface design Principles to this development. They will connect with the SIMON community shortly to begin the testing phase.
Learning Analytics Comes Alive
Through SIMON's strategic partnership with Intellischool, the SIMON Analytics solution is currently rolling out to all schools within the Ballarat Diocese. In collaboration with the community, they have developed the most relevant insights specifically tailored for Primary and Secondary Schools. They have also developed comprehensive "network based" dashboards for Finance, Operations and Learning & Teaching - allowing users to have a more holistic view across all schools as well as having the ability to drill down according to Region, Demographic, School Size, and many other filters. The solutions are available for our whole school community.
SIMON Analytics - Video Overviews
Two videos have been created, outlining what a "Day in the Life" looks like for users within a Primary and Secondary setting. Please click on the links below to view these very engaging overviews.
...and there's more
In the next SIMON Innovations Update a more detailed look into a number of projects supporting Primary Schools, Curriculum Mapping, Google & Microsoft Integrations, SaaS Delivery Partnerships and enhanced Security and Privacy will be provided.
SIMON are proud to be supporting our school community and always eager to better serve you in your learning and administration pathways.
Article submitted by the SIMON Support Team.
People and Development Update
Flourish Wellbeing eMagazine – August 2023
The August 2023 edition of Converge International’s Flourish Health and Wellbeing eMag is now available.
Featured Articles:
- The Loneliness Pandemic.
- Podcast – Mindful Eating?
- Winter is here, and so is flu season.
- And so much more!
For more information about the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) visit the Converge International website.
The Passionate Nutritionist - Webinars Available!
Please see below two webinars that have been shared with us by Geelong nutritionist, Mel Bald. Alongside these webinars, Mel has also shared handouts featuring her top tips for for each topic!
Articles submitted by Tania Lund.
Learning and Teaching Update
Victorian Curriculum Mathematics Version 2.0: Now Available
All schools will now be aware that, after some delay, the latest iteration of the Victorian Mathematics Curriculum (F-10) is available online.
VCAA is compiling a comprehensive suite of support resources, including introductory webinars, professional learning opportunities and companion documents. Some resources will focus on key areas of change and unpack the revisions in a more detailed and nuanced manner to support primary and secondary teachers and curriculum and school leaders.
Introductory webinars for school principals, curriculum leaders and teachers will be conducted live from 4:00 - 5:00pm.(registration is required) during August and these will continue to be available on-demand.
- This afternoon School Leaders’ Briefing
- August 16th Introduction: Key Changes to the Victorian Curriculum F-10 Mathematics Version 2.0
- August 23rd Understanding the Mathematics Learning Area and changes (Primary)
- August 30th Understanding the Mathematics Learning Area and changes (Secondary)
Additionally, a suite of professional learning modules will be released in early Term 4 and will be available throughout the period of familiarisation and implementation (including into 2024 and 2025).
CEB Learning & Teaching staff are currently working with the new documentation to discern how local support might best complement the VCAA resourcing.
Primary Leaders of Learning (PLoL)- Tuesday 15 August 1:30 - 3:00pm
Target Audience:
- Primary Leaders of Learning
- Mathematics, Literacy, Curriculum Leaders
- Classroom Teachers
Focus: Build capacity of leaders and classroom teachers in the use of PAT Adaptive and PAT Linear.
The first part of this professional learning opportunity will be facilitated by Caithlin Power and Daniel O’Loughlin from ACER.
Structure: Q & A. Registered participants will be invited to provide their questions prior to the session to enable the team from ACER to address these questions within their session.
The second part of this professional learning session will focus on the Faces On the Data revised tool created by Breeana Wade.
- Register through this Trybooking link.
- Registrations will close Thursday 10 August.
CEP Webinars
Country Education Partnerships are about to start another series of webinars.
This time there will be three presenters on three different topics from our Diocese!!
Promotional Video is available here to see what these have been like so far.
The recordings of all the CEP sessions can be found here.
DIBELS Updated Data Tool
There has been a substantial update to the DIBELS Data Collection tool, and it is available for download via the DOBCEL Schools’ Hub. This update includes the addition of:
- Cohort Effect Sizes for all subtests and all primary grades (written and visual representations)
- Individual student Effect Sizes for all subtests and all primary grades
- A DIBELS Visual Dashboard, demonstrating % of students at each measure of risk for each subtest and each grade
- Recommendations for intervention points based on benchmark & Effect Size
- So What? Tabs, which assist teams to plan data-based intervention opportunities.
This tool can be downloaded by navigating to your school’s DOBCEL Schools’ Hub page at www.dobcel.com.
Please contact Breeana Wade for further information about the tool, or if you would like assistance in moving data over from a previous tool.
Please Note: If you are a Level 0 or Level 1 Structured Literacy School, your customised 2023 & 2024s tool include these elements and you will therefore not need to download this tool.
Data Literacy : Sharing Your School’s Journey
The final phase of this spaced professional learning which commenced in Term 1 with participants engaging with Dr. Selena Fisk will culminate with primary schools presenting to colleagues in a regionalised or online setting their school’s journey on either the 5th or 7th September.
These sessions will enable participants to share their Action Learning and to learn with and from each other. If you are from a primary school and didn’t receive an email on Monday outlining the process for the session please contact Teresa Hadden.
The participants from the Secondary schools will also be provided with an opportunity to share their work.
Amplifying Secondary Student Voice: Professional Learning Session
Yellow Arrow facilitates leadership training for secondary students. The organisation is offering a short professional learning opportunity/promotion of services:
- When: 9am - 11am Thursday 7th September 2023
- Where: Over Zoom - register via Eventbrite to get the link: Eventbrite link
- What: Join us for an engaging and interactive professional learning session hosted by Yellow Arrow, focused on promoting student voice and empowering leaders beyond the formal student leadership program.
“At Yellow Arrow, we believe in fostering a culture where every student's voice is heard, and leadership opportunities extend far beyond the formal student leadership roles. This session will delve into practical strategies that empower students to take charge and make a difference in their schools. This will be a hands-on session, with opportunities to connect with teachers from other schools and share with them.”
Quality Teaching Model
The Quality Teaching (QT) Model provides a conceptual foundation for classroom and assessment practice. Developed by Associate Professor James Ladwig and Laureate Professor Jenny Gore from the University of Newcastle, the Model provides teachers with a shared understanding around what we mean by quality teaching informing discussion and analysis of classroom and assessment practice, student engagement and matters of curriculum. It empowers teachers to enrich student learning through a collaborative, teacher-driven framework that enables participants to analyse and improve their practice.
Currently the Australian Government is funding the “Strengthening Induction through QTR” project for early career teachers and key colleagues.
Further information about the QT Model and this professional learning opportunity can be found below.
QTR – Opportunity for Early careers teachers and their key colleagues
Student Wellbeing Update
Social Emotional Learning – Masterclass with Professor Helen Cahill
Professor Cahill is the previous Director of the Youth Research Centre, and has been the Deputy Dean, in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is a leading innovator of Australian school-based wellbeing interventions addressing mental health, social and emotional learning, resilience, gender education and drug education.
She has developed a number of violence-reduction, gender rights and sexuality programs. Including being the lead author of the Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationship Curriculum for schools. Helen also sits on international committees with WHO and UNESCO to improve outcomes for young people worldwide. She specialises in the use of collaborative learning strategies as a transformative pedagogy within wellbeing education. Her passion is translating her research into classroom practice at the ground level and increasing the knowledge and capability of school leaders and teachers to help to build their confidence for positive change and outcomes.
- Date: Friday 18 August
- Time: 9:00am – 12:00pm
- Venue: Mildura Rowing Club
- Cost: $70
- Registration: Click here
School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)
The Student Wellbeing Team has also been blessed to partner and engage with St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Werribee. They have generously agreed to welcome DOBCEL staff to their school and share their experiences of SWPBS. They will be discussing how they currently use SIMON, especially highlighting how they record over 1,000 commendations.
The date is set for the 8th of September onsite St Joseph’s Werribee, starting at 10.00am and concluding at 1.00pm.
If you would like to participate in this visit, please register you name and dietary requirements by the 1st of September to Anne Ruddell.
Student Wellbeing Boost
The Australian Government’s Student Wellbeing Boost provides one-off funding to schools to address the impacts of COVID-19 on the mental health and wellbeing of Australian students.
- All Victorian government and low-fee non-government schools will receive base Boost funding of $15,000 plus additional per student funding. All DOBCEL Schools should be eligible for this funding. Only schools with enrolment above 200 will receive the additional per student amount.
- Victorian Catholic schools will receive their funding allocation via a one off CECV bank transfer in July 2023 and are required to spend or commit to spending the money by 31 March 2024.
- The Schools Mental Health Menu may be used as a guide. The Menu includes initiatives that promote student mental health and wellbeing, enable schools to intervene early to support students and provide targeted and more individualised support for students who need it.
- Schools must spend their Boost funding on mental health and wellbeing activities, which may include:
- extra school mental health professionals, camps, excursions, sporting and social activities that improve students’ wellbeing; and proven student wellbeing, student engagement and mental health initiatives.
For any further information please contact Tony Perkins or Liz McIntyre.
Designated Teacher Training Online – Term 3, 2023
LOOKOUT is offering Designated Teacher Training online to all schools in the South Western Victoria Region in Term 3, 2023.
All schools are required by the Department of Education to have a trained Designated Teacher to ensure they are compliant with ‘The Partnering Agreement’.
To support this requirement, the SWVR LOOKOUT Centre is providing an opportunity for schools to complete Designated Teacher Training in 2023.
Training is offered to anyone who has been appointed as a Designated Teacher in their school and it is free. There is no need to attend if you have already been trained, unless you would like a refresher.
Please share this information with your school leadership and colleagues who may be interested in taking on the Designated Teacher role in the future.
The Designated Teacher role supports schools to deliver improved education and wellbeing outcomes for students in Out-of-Home Care (OoHC). If your school requires Designated Teacher training for staff, and for more information please see the attached flyer and register from the link below.
Tickets are available now and will end on 11 August at 5:00pm.
The two part training will be held on the following dates:
- PART A Tuesday 15 August 2023 10:00am - 11.30am
- PART B Tuesday 15 August 2023 1:30pm - 3.00pm
OLT Understanding and Supporting Behaviour - VC
This course is open to LSOs when attending with a Class Teacher and requires to attend 2 online sessions from 3:30pm to 4:30pm on Thursday August 24th and Thursday October 26th and 20 hours of self-paced online course.
This course aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills of those working with children and young people with behavioural difficulties to support inclusive practice:
- Understanding behaviour
- Assessment for Learning
- Interventions
- Case Studies
Presented by: Maria Richards & Patrice Rickard
Career Opportunities in the Diocesan Education Community
Principalship Opportunities.
- Principal - St Patrick's Primary School, Koroit (closes 21 August)
- Principal - St Mary's Primary School, Clarkes Hill (closes 15 September)
Catholic Education Ballarat.
- Psychologist – ongoing position at 0.8 FTE (closes 14 August)
- Early Years Planning and Implementation Consultant – fixed term position at 1.0 FTE (closes 14 August)
School Vacancies.
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Swan Hill – fixed term position at 1.0 FTE (closes 11 August)
- Junior Primary Teacher – St Mary’s School, Robinvale – fixed term at 1.0 FTE (closes 11 August)
- Subject Teachers - Expressions of Interest for all Subject Areas commencing 2024 - St Patrick’s College, Ballarat – ongoing position at 1.0 FTE (closes 16 August)
- Finance Officer – St Patrick’s School, St Arnaud – fixed term position at 0.6 FTE (closes 23 August)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Swan Hill – fixed term position at 1.0 FTE (closes 25 August)
- Teaching Opportunities 2024: Expressions of Interest – Monivae College, Hamilton – ongoing position at 1.0 FTE (closes 28 August)
- Classroom Teacher – St Mary’s School, Donald - ongoing position at 1.0 FTE (closes 8 September)
- Casual Relief Teachers – St Columba’s School, Ballarat North (closes 2 October)
Article submitted by Sarah Hanley.