As we commence the new term, I hope that the return to school routines comes after a very well-deserved holiday period and a blessed Easter season for all our students, parents and friends of the College.

With the new term comes a further development in the COVID-smart measures that we have been following under the direction of NSW Health and Catholic Schools NSW. As Mr Lo Cascio mentioned earlier this week, I remind you of the following main developments that will guide our return to school this term.

Since 6pm on 22 April 2022, close contacts (including household contacts) have been able to leave isolation with certain exemptions in place.

This means that in Term 2, 2022, staff and students who are close/household contacts and have no symptoms may continue to attend school in line with the following requirements:

• They must notify the school that they are intending to return under this provision.
• They should conduct a daily rapid antigen test (RAT) and return a negative result each morning before attending school for 5 school days (results do NOT need to be provided to the school).
• Staff and secondary students who are close contacts must wear a mask indoors except when eating or exercising.
• No student or staff member identified as a close contact will be permitted to participate in overnight excursions, including school camps/retreats.
• Once staff or secondary students have completed their 7-day isolation period, they should wear a mask for an additional 3 days (for days 8 to 10)

Please note that students who test positive for COVID-19, or who are unwell or showing COVID-19 symptoms, must continue to isolate at home.

An additional pack of RAT kits will be provided to families next week. These RAT kits can be used for testing when your child is symptomatic or for daily testing if they are a close contact but choose to return to school under the new measures outlined above.

As always, I thank you for your support of these directives which allow us to continue providing a safe learning environment for all staff and students. If you have any questions about these directives, please do not hesitate to contact the College.

Kind regards,

David Cloran

Assistant Principal

Optimise means to make the best or most effective use of (a situation or resource).

Term 2 is a critical  time in the learning cycle for all students. For students in Yr 7-10 it is the opportune time to optimise their learning and continue to implement the strategies they have developed in Term 1 to assist them in working towards their learning goals. Both Yr 11 and 12 cohorts move past the halfway point of their academic year. So it is critical that they maintain positive learning behaviours to ensure that they achieve outcomes that reflect both their effort and ability. Students are encouraged to optimise the resources available to them, whether that be their teachers, studying collaboratively or taking extra opportunities for learning outside of class time.

DUE DATES FOR UPCOMING FORMAL ASSESSMENT TASKS

Ms Chardy Miller & Mrs Alison Kripal

Leader of Learning - Curriculum Pedagogy & Leader of Learning - Curriculum Administration

Over the Easter break, I gave considerable thought to the direction my Newsletter articles would take in Term 2. While the importance and value of reading was the focus for last term’s Literacy Links segment, this term’s focus will be on the other major literacy element, writing. The two activities of reading and writing are powerfully linked.

My plan for this week’s article was changed, however, after listening to last Sunday’s ABC radio program ‘Minefield’. Presented by journalists and academics Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens, ‘Minefield’ negotiates the ethical dilemmas and complexities of modern life, often while exploring the power of language in its written, spoken, and visual forms. Sunday’s program was entitled ‘Disciplining the Eyes’. The two commentators discussed the power of images in our world and how they can corrupt our lives, clutter our vision, and spoil our imagination. This week’s program prompted my thinking.

Our contemporary culture is highly image-based. We are saturated with images. The study of visual texts – film, multimedia, photography, and paintings – occupies a prominent place in the teaching of English from Year 7 through to Year 12. The capacity to engage actively with the visual images that form part of our daily lives, requires an awareness of the ways these texts make meaning and influence and manipulate their audience. Like print texts, visual texts operate according to a set of conventions or codes which draw the viewer into the world of the text and influence their responses. In their acquisition and application of visual literacy skills, students learn to ‘read’ visual texts as they would ‘read’ print texts – alert to the range of ways that images operate and viewers interpret, discriminate and critique in the process of making meaning.

One of the most useful activities I incorporate in the classroom when students are responding to a visual text is to ask three questions: What do you see? What do you think? What do you wonder? Aside from encouraging students to analyse images using terms such as salience, gaze, foregrounding, and camera angles, I want them to think beyond the surface of the image and question its meaning-making ‘power’.

In a world saturated with pictures, we need to promote a visual literacy which will encourage critical thinking and an intelligent and discerning ‘reading’ of images. The ‘Minefield’ commentators last Sunday spoke of language as a form of moral encounter. They highlighted the importance of all of us ‘seeing the world more clearly’. Given the problematic nature of social media, the constant exposure to images depicting global conflict such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even the election process currently underway in our own country, the importance of visual literacy is critical. I will finish with a quote from the French philosopher Simone Weil: ‘Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity’. Attending carefully to the images which now pervade our contemporary world, is something we are all called to do.

Clare Murphy

English Coordinator and Literacy Instructional Coach

Mount Carmel Second Hand Uniform Shop sells pre-owned College uniforms at less than half the cost of new uniforms. 

You can bring your child's uniforms to the shop when they no longer fit or you no longer need them (Uniforms must be clean and in good condition. Blazers must be dry cleaned). The Second-hand Uniform shop will sell the uniforms on your behalf, and after they sell the P & F Committee will transfer the money to your nominated bank account.  The P & F will keep 10% of all sales.  You are also able to donate the uniforms and then the P & F will benefit from 100% of the sales.  

The uniform shop is open from 2.30 - 4pm on the days listed below, usually the first Monday of each month.  The shop will next be open on Monday 21 March 2022. The shop is run by parent volunteers to raise money for the P & F Committee and to help families of the school with low-cost uniforms. 

If any parent wishes to volunteer in the Second-hand Uniform Shop please contact the school office.

Term 2 2022

Monday 2 May

Monday 6 June

Term 3 2022

Monday 1 August

Monday 5 September

Term 4 2022

Monday 7 November

Monday 5 December

Cash only - no EFTPOS facilities

The Campbelltown District Netball Association Competition is finally up and running after a delayed start due to wet weather and the Easter break. Mount Carmel Netball Club has 4 teams this year and the results to date are:

2/4/2022

15’s defeated by East 9 - 33

Grad C’s defeated Macquarie Fields 31 - 21

Division 6 won a forfeited game

Division 5 Bye

9/4/2022

15’s Bye

Grad C’s won a forfeited game

Division 6 defeated by Ingleburn 12 - 22

Division 5 defeated by Glenquarie 9 – 25

23/4/2022

15’s Major Bye

Grad C’s defeated Thunder 53 – 5

Division 6 defeated Cobras 15 – 9

Division 5 defeated by Cobras 16 - 17

To register, please click here