14 February 2020

Newsletter Articles

Important dates

Friday 21st February – School photos

Thursday 27st February – Clontarf Year 7 Sleepover

Thursday 5th March School Council AGM

Friday 6th March – Swimming Carnival

Wednesday 11th to Friday 13th March – Clontarf Year 8/9 Camp

Thursday 19th March – Clontarf Year 7, 8 & 9 Cricket Carnival

Friday 20th March – Battle of the School Bands

Friday 12th April – last day of Term 1

From the Principal

Dear families

Thank you to all of our families who joined us for our Meet the Teachers event last night. We enjoyed meeting parents and carers and hope that you had some fun having a go at some of the organised activities. We value developing relationships with our families, and see these relationships as crucial in supporting the learning of the young people in our care.

If you missed our Meet the Teachers evening, we encourage you to get in touch with your young person’s teachers. Sometimes it can be tricky to work out who to speak to, so the following information might be helpful:

• The homegroup teacher or year level Team Leader can assist with day-to-day learning, wellbeing and behavioural concerns. These people know your young person best.
• The subject teacher can provide specific feedback and advice on how your young person is progressing in that learning area.
• The Team Leaders and Principal can assist with more serious or complex matters

.

Ms Laryssa is our Team Leader for Year 7, Mr Rowlands for Year 8 and Mr Fecteau for Year 9. Beyond this office staff can inform you and connect you with your young person’s teacher.

In addition to teacher staff we have a range of people in the school who can assist more broadly. For example, the Counsellor, Aboriginal Education Officer, Home Liaison Officer, Health Promoting Nurse, Clontarf and Girls Academy staff are all available to assist with wellbeing, attendance, health or other concerns or support required. We will more formally introduce these people in our next newsletter, but you can arrange to meet with them before this by calling the office and making an appointment.

Next Friday (21st February) we have our school photos. Forms went home yesterday with students, and additional forms are available from the office. Envelopes need to be returned to the office, either containing money or you can pay online. Please note, Please note that the school does not handle any funds – everything goes directly to the photographer. There is also the option to have a sibling photograph taken and sibling information and envelopes can be collected from the office. Regardless of whether families are purchasing photos, all students will have their photos taken. Photos will be outdoors and scheduled throughout the day. (The morning Year 9 swimming group will move to a different so that students will look their best for photos.)

Warm regards
Paul van Holsteyn
Principal

Assessment Schedules

Each term we will provide you with Assessment Schedules so that you know the key assessment tasks your young person has to complete in each subject area and the timeframe for when items are due. The Term 1 Assessment Schedules are below.

If you have any questions, please contact your young person’s teacher.

School news and updates

Girls Academy

This year at Girls Academy we welcome a new Program Manager; Emma Stubbs

In week 4, we will also be welcoming Emma Lake, our new Development Officer who will work alongside the legendary Auntie Michelle Dhu our other Development Officer who has now been with us since 2018.

“Welcome to all our amazing girls on returning back to CMS as well as our new Year 7 girls. We welcome you all with open arms in joining the Girls Academy. I can’t wait to continue on this journey with all our talented girls! Keep strong with your education and maintaining your respect!”

Auntie Michelle

The first two weeks of Girls Academy have gotten off to a smashing start.

• Week 1 we saw an influx of new Year 7 Girls coming from numerous primary schools around Alice Springs to start their journey at Middle School.
• Week 2 Girls Academy hosted our “Wrap Wednesday” which is held every fortnight, we invite all girls from CMS to share a healthy meal and a chat. We also celebrated the birthdays of all Girls Academy Girls for the month of January 2020.

From Year 7

Year 7’s in Contact time are making sculptures for the Alice Springs Town council Youth Recycling Art Prize. After spending time designing their sculpture, they are now busy building the armatures.

Next week they are lucky enough to be going on an excursion to the Rediscovery centre where they have the opportunity to collect materials to add to their sculpture and thanks to ASTC this is free of charge.

We are looking forward to seeing the finished sculptures.

VET Hospitality program

For the Year 9’s this year we have commenced a VET Hospitality program delivered on site at CMS one day a week. It’s a great opportunity for our young people!

Social Media

Many young people start to use social media during their time at middle school. There are many positive things that are made possible through social media. Unfortunately, many issues arise from how young people and adults use social media and there is increasing evidence suggesting a link between increasing use of social media and worsening mental health outcomes.

We have unfortunately seen numerous examples where students are exposed to inappropriate content including violence, damaging rumours, threats, harassment, naked images and requests of a sexual nature. Often the young person in turn responds inappropriately to what they encounter.

We strongly encourage you to discuss and continue discussing with your young person how they use social media. This communication will help them to feel that they can raise any concerns they may have with you. We also strongly encourage you to monitor your young person’s use of social media. Please note that in our experience young people commonly have multiple accounts on each platform that they use.

If you or your young person have any concerns around interactions on social media, we encourage you to let us know.

If we can identify students involved in matters that are reported to the school, we will typically bring the involved students together to seek to resolve the issue and make an agreement on how to interact in future. We find that face-to-face people are typically more respectful than online.

If we cannot identify students involved or if others involved are not from CMS, it becomes more difficult for us to respond. This is where it can be appropriate to report the concerns to the police.

In our discussions with students, we recommend a – SCREEN SHOT / BLOCK / REPORT approach.

• Screen shot
  Take a screen shot of the concerning interaction/image. (It is helpful if previous interactions are also recorded to provide the context of the conversation.)
• Block
  Block the profile of the person who has sent the concerning interaction/image.
• Report
  Report the concern to a trusted adult for support, such as a parent or teacher. Reports can also be made to the social media platform, which needs to be done before blocking.

Please note that inappropriate activities on social media can result in suspension from school or police involvement.

To start the school year, let’s talk about road safety.

This is particularly important at the beginning of the school Term, while both students and other road users adjust to the increased traffic in and around school zones.

Throughout the first part of Term 1, Northern Territory Police will be pro-actively targeting school zones.

This is in relation to not only driver behaviour, but also road safety around riding bicycles.

The major message here is around helmet safety, through education and awareness.

Recent studies show that the risk of serious head injury is reduced by nearly 70% from wearing approved bicycle helmets.

They also reduce the risk of fatal head injury by 65%, and general head injury by 51%.

From a legal point of view – ALL bicycle riders under the age of 17 years MUST wear a helmet at all times when riding a bicycle.

If your child is riding to school, I would encourage you to have a conversation with them about road safety and ensuring they are wearing an approved bicycle helmet.

I’ve also attached a Cycle Safety flyer with some great road safety advice.

I look forward to seeing you all more throughout the school year.

Constable First Class Tai Gavin

Community Announcements

Free autism workshop for parents and carers in Alice Springs

Federal Netball Club Sign on day

The Federal Netball Club is having a sign on day at the Pat Gallagher Netball Courts on Saturday 15 February. Juniors from 2-4pm and 17's and under and open from 3-5pm. All players must register online prior to the date, sports vouchers are accepted. See poster below for all

Sports voucher

Semester 1 2020 Sports vouchers are now available. Parents and carers will need to apply online each semester by going to the following website:

Please note if the details of the young person are already on the system, a voucher will be available to print or save straight away, if the details are not found by the system a voucher will be sent to the email address you have provided within 7 days.

More information is available at the link below, alternatively you can also contact our Sport Voucher team by phone on 1800 817 860 or by email sport.voucher@nt.gov.au.

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