Child Safety:

Our Child Safety team on staff is:

Declan McDermott, Danielle George, Marcia Janky and Jessica Jo

2025 School Fee Structure and supporting docs:

St Thomas More - MACS - Concessional Fee Policy:

Student Absence Procedures:

Please see below the school's policies around Responding to Absences.

BARR (Bushfire at Risk Register)

Bushfire nearby

Indications: A bushfire is burning nearby, which may threaten the MACS school.

Procedure

Monitor conditions. Ensure key school leadership staff have watch zones set up in the VicEmergency app to notify them if warnings are issued for the area surrounding the school. Be reasonably vigilant for signs of a developing emergency nearby, such as many sirens, the smell of smoke or a building smoke plume. Phone MACS Emergency Management if you are uncertain and require advice.
Monitor and follow warnings. ‘Advice’, ‘Watch and Act’ and ‘Emergency Warning’ will be issued via VicEmergency and provide critical information on what action to take in the event of a bushfire. Read these warnings and consider the impacts on the school, and what actions the school can reasonably and safely take to comply with the warning directions. Phone MACS Emergency Management for advice if required.
Consider whether it is appropriate to close the school or conduct an offsite evacuation before the school comes under direct threat from the bushfire. Phone MACS Emergency Management for advice if uncertain.
Prepare to initiate the shelter-in-place procedure if a bushfire threatens the school, a ‘shelter now’ warning is issued, or if the principal or delegate determines it is necessary. Phone MACS Emergency Management for advice if required.

Shelter in Place:

Indications: An external incident or emergency is underway. It is unsafe to evacuate, and the safest course of action is to remain inside a designated building in the facility.

Procedure

Trigger the shelter-in-place signal according to the instructions, ensuring the internal assembly area location is communicated to everyone, along with any key information (such as routes to take or areas to avoid). Alternatively, it may be most appropriate for all students and staff to shelter where they are.
Take your school’s emergency kit, first aid kit, a copy of this EMP, and attendance lists for staff and students to the shelter location.
At the shelter location, check all students, staff and visitors are accounted for.
Phone 000 and notify emergency services (call Police in the first instance, who have responsibility for evacuations); include information on how many people are sheltering, where they are sheltering and any individuals not accounted for.
Liaise with emergency services to provide any necessary information and support.
Notify your region’s General Manager and/or MACS Emergency Management of the incident.
Maintain a log of all activities.
Notify parents/carers as appropriate. This would usually include instructions to stay away from the school, as attending may place parents/carers at risk from the incident.

School Uniform:

Flexible School Uniform 2025:

In 2025 the school will be adopting a more flexible uniform approach. There are some guidelines and they are outlined below:

Students can wear which ever uniform they like on any-day of the week (students can wear sports uniform 5 days a week if they please).
Sports uniform is to be worn with WHITE SOCKS.
Girls and Boys can wear the polo / pants or shorts combination (must wear sports uniform on sports days). Polo / pants or shorts combo must be worn with BLUE SOCKS.
Red jumper or Blue Zip up fleece are the only jumper options (apart from Year 6 Jumper)
There is to be no non-school uniform worn (different jumpers, socks, shorts).
Girls can continue to wear the dress or tunic options.
Runners can be worn at all times with any uniform.
On School Photo Days all students will wear Full Sports Uniform.

Schools can be extremely busy places and communication with families is very important. In order to keep you up to date with everything that is happening at St Thomas More Primary School we use different forms of communication tools. Below is a list of each of the programs we use and how they are used.

SCHOOL STREAM

School Stream is our online communication platform. We will send messages and important information on the app. You can download this app from your smart phone app store.

SCHOOL NEWSLETTER

The school newsletter will be emailed home weekly, if email is provided, and published on our School App – School Stream. This is an invaluable source of information and we encourage you to read it. Notices for the newsletter should be handed to office staff by the Monday prior. Classroom teachers will also share a termly class newsletter, this will give families a further insight into what is happening at school.

OPEROO

Operoo is a Health and Safety System that automatically keeps medical and emergency details up to date for any organisation with a duty of care. Operoo was implemented at St Thomas More in 2017 and automates the permission and consent form process. We will also send all notifications out via School Stream email.

SOCIAL MEDIA

We also have social media accounts using the Facebook and Instagram platforms, these can be found by searching our school name in the search function. These are less formal communication lines and are used to share current events happening at school.

EMAILS

Emails can be sent at any time to either the school office or classroom teachers, we ask teachers to not answer any emails in the evening for their own mental wellbeing so please be understanding of this. If you have sent an email and not had a response within 48 hours please contact the school office.

SMS (text messaging)

It is my preference for teachers not to hand out their personal mobile numbers to members of the school community for school communication purposes but understand this does happen on some unavoidable occasions. Please where possible use email to communicate with classroom teachers. If a parent does have a teacher's personal phone number I would ask that this is not shared with others and is not used to text or call the teacher if not previously discussed.

Teacher email addresses:

Declan McDermott - Principal - dmcdermott@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Danielle George - Deputy Principal - dgeorge@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Marcia Janky - School Leader, 4/5 Teacher - marcia@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Belinda Saville - School Leader, Teacher - bsaville@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Donna Anderton - School Leader and Art - danderton@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Jess Jones - 5/6 Teacher - jjones@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Katherine McLoughlin - Year 3 Teacher - kmcloughlin@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Lakota Dugan - Year 3 Teacher - ldugan@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Grace Hiosan - Year 2 Teacher - ghiosan@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Joanne Piaser - Prep/1 teacher - jpiaser@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Jeanette Wicks - Sport and Performing Arts - jwicks@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Kaori Bawden - Japanese - kbawden@smbelgrave.catholic.edu.au

Parents and Friends