Dear Parents/Carers,

Sunday’s Gospel

Gospel -John 15:1-8: Jesus described himself as the true vine and his Father as the gardener. Branches not bearing fruit are removed, while fruitful ones are pruned for more yield. He emphasized staying connected to him, akin to branches on a vine, as the key to bearing fruit. Without him, nothing can be achieved. Unfruitful branches are discarded. Fruitfulness in believers brings glory to God and proves discipleship.

Term 2, 2024 Class and Whole School Mass Timetable

Mother's Day Mass

Mother's Day Mass is being held on Wednesday 8th May at 12pm. Mothers, grandmothers, aunties, carers and visitors are all welcome to attend.

Class Masses will be updated in the near future.

      Happy Birthday to

Frederick Miles and Trudy Sturgess

who celebrate their birthday's during this week.

We hope you enjoy your special day.

Dear Parent/Carer

Re: Consent to Australian Early Development Census (AEDC)

This letter and the attached Fact Sheet include important information about the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) and the proposed handling of your child/children’s personal information.

Our school will take part in the AEDC between May and July this year. The AEDC is a national census that is conducted every three years by the Australian Government, in partnership with state and territory governments. It measures how children have developed by the time they start their first year of full-time school.

The AEDC is voluntary and it does not measure how well children are doing at school, nor how their school compares to other schools. Instead, it shows how children are growing and progressing in five key areas, what is being done well and what can be improved. AEDC data is used by schools, early childhood organisations, researchers and governments to help plan and improve services and supports for children and families. This is why it is important for all children in their first year of school to be included in the AEDC. You can learn more about the ways AEDC data is used at https://www.aedc.gov.au/.

What does this mean for your child?

The AEDC is completed by teachers based on their knowledge of the children. Children do not need to do anything to be included in the census and will attend class as usual while the census is conducted. The census will start on 14/5/2024

Teachers will answer questions about the five key areas of early childhood development, which are: physical health and wellbeing, emotional maturity, social competence, language and cognitive skills (school-based), and communication skills and general knowledge. You can see all the questions at https://www.aedc.gov.au/avedi.

You can be confident that your child’s privacy will be protected.

We understand how important it is to keep your child’s information private. This is why the AEDC uses a secure website to collect and keep their information.

More information about how AEDC data (including your child’s information) is collected, protected and used is in the Fact Sheet.

What do parents need to do?

For the purposes of the AEDC, the Australian Government Department of Education seeks your consent to collect personal information about your child from our school. This includes known information about your child’s health.

If you consent to the collection of your child's information, you do not need to do anything.

If you do not consent to the collection of your child's information, please contact Damian Collins Acting Principal before 3/5/2024, and no information about your child will be collected.

You can also withdraw your consent after this time. If you do so, then the Australian Government Department of Education will stop using your child’s information and will not provide it to anyone else. However, information that has already been shared, reported or published cannot be removed and may continue to be used (but your child will not be individually identified in that information).

To find out more about the AEDC, please read the frequently asked questions section on the AEDC website at https://www.aedc.gov.au/parents/faqs or phone 1800 092 548.

Your child’s information will only be used for the purposes described in this letter and in the Fact Sheet. The Privacy Statement contained on the AEDC website provides more detail on how their information will be protected and shared, and can be found at www.aedc.gov.au/parents/privacy-statement.

Thank you for supporting the AEDC.

Damian Collins

FACT SHEET – COLLECTING, PROTECTING AND USING AEDC DATA

What information is collected?

Data collected as part of the AEDC will include personal information about your child, including names, addresses, cultural and linguistic background, and information about their health. This information may be taken from school records, to help teachers complete the AEDC.

When completing the AEDC, teachers may be supported by cultural consultants who are employees or contractors of our school and can help them understand the cultural context of First Nations children.

How is AEDC data managed?

The AEDC is managed in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). The APPs regulate the collection, use, disclosure and storage of personal information by Australian government agencies, and some private sector organisations, and is part of the Privacy Act 1998 (Cth).

Personal information about your child will be used to link AEDC data with information from other organisations, such as health departments, which will keep it confidential. Your child’s AEDC results will be kept separate from their identifying information and no-one will be able to access both at the same time.

 AEDC results for individual children are never reported, and all published AEDC data is anonymised, meaning that names, ages, addresses and other identifying information are removed before the data is published.

You can see how data is collected and presented by visiting www.aedc.gov.au/data. Data from the 2024 collection will be presented in a similar way.

 Who is AEDC data shared with and how is it shared?

Schools

Eligible schools receive a summary of the AEDC results in the form of school profiles. School profiles do not report any AEDC results about individual children. Schools may share their profiles with other organisations or people in confidence for purposes like better supporting children, but cannot make the profiles public. To further protect the privacy of children, schools with less than six children participating in the AEDC will not receive a school profile.

Governments and school sector peak bodies

State and Territory government departments and Catholic and Independent schools' peak bodies will receive anonymised information for all children in their school sector.

Integrating authorities and data linkage units

Selected agencies will receive personal information about children participating in the AEDC to link their AEDC results with other data. Depending on the mechanisms used for data linkage, they may also receive anonymised AEDC results. These agencies include Commonwealth agencies, State and Territory governments, universities and research institutes that have demonstrated to have secure enough systems to protect the privacy of children.

Researchers

AEDC Data Management Agency

Personal information and anonymised AEDC results are held and managed on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Education by a nominated Data Management Agency.  The AEDC Data Management Agency is carefully selected to ensure that AEDC data are managed in accordance with the highest security standards. The current AEDC Data Management Agency is the Social Research Centre.

   ANZAC Day 2024

Well done to all students for their effort last term in our school Cross Country. The day was held in beautiful conditions at the West Wyalong  Showground on the last Thursday of term. Below are the results.  A reminder that the first five in each age group are invited to represent St Mary’s at the Western Region Cross Country Carnival on Thursday in Batlow. Students were notified late last term on compass. If you haven’t provided consent or you are declining to go please do so ASAP. Please note that the 8/9 year olds run together at the Western Region Carnival, the successful students are highlighted in red. The 8/9 year old girls’ first five were all 9 year olds.

Mackillop 3rd

McAuley 2nd

Tennison Woods 1st

The Paul Kelly Cup is the largest AFL primary school competition in New South Wales and the ACT and is open to students in Years 5 and 6. The Paul Kelly Cup consists of 12 player teams competing in round robin gala days. Games are played on a smaller field using modified rules.

Our Year 5/6 students are competing in Wagga on Friday 10th of May if we can get the numbers for a team.

Please logon to Compass to consent or decline this event before Friday 3rd of May.

The following events are in the calendar in the next few weeks.

The Compass Calendar is updated to show Mass times, sporting events, important events.

Day	Event	Location
Tuesday 30th April	Term 2 Begins - All students return to school	At School
Thursday 2nd May	Western Region Cross Country	Batlow
Wednesday 8th May	Mother's Day Mass @ 12pm. All welcome.	St Mary's Church
Friday 10th May	Paul Kelly Cup @ Wagga	Jubilee Park, Wagga
Wednesday 15th May	School Book Fair	At School
Friday 17th May	CG Cross Country	At Stromlo
Wednesday 22nd May	Mortimer Shield	At Temora
Friday 7th June	School Athletics Carnival	McAllister Oval
Monday 10th June	Public Holiday - June Long Weekend
Friday 21st June	WR Athletics	TBC

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