From the Office
SCHOOL FEES
Parents would have received their accounts last week and you are encouraged to pay them as quickly and as best as you can manage. Meeting these commitments is very important in the smooth running of resources and financial expenditure for the school.
Parents are encouraged to contact the office and make arrangements if you are experiencing financial hardships. All families who had arrangements in 2020 will need to reapply for 2021.
COMPASS REMINDER
- Please continue to email the school or contact the office to explain partial absence.
- A Parent or guardian must explain or partial absences
- SMS's are sent to parents of students who are absent each weekday morning
- Please phone the office to explain your child's absence
- Please do not respond by text, the Compass system does not accept text messages.
- If you notify the office beforehand that your child will be late, you will still receive an SMS.
- All students must report to the office if they arrive late.
- On occasion you may be sent a text message even though your child is in attendance at school, this may be because they have arrived late and have not reported to the office. If this is case please feel free to contact the office to verify.
It has been noted that some parents have updated their mobile phone number by taking out the gaps within the phone number. This is not required and may make receiving compass messages until the matter is fixed from the office.
School Fees Billing Cycle Change: Annual Billing
Following a series of meetings and workshops, the CSO and principal representatives committed to changing the school fee billing cycle so that each family now receives an annual bill at the beginning of the year. This replaces the previous arrangement whereby families were billed school fees over Terms 1, 2 & 3.The benefit of annual billing is that fee payers are able to see their full fee obligation for the year from early in Term 1, which will enable them to budget and plan their payments.
Payment method can be via direct debit with the CDF,
http://www.cdfmn.com.au/forms
BPAY using the fee statement reference number, or credit card over the counter or cash.
- Each fee payer can tailor frequency of payments to suit individual circumstances
- Direct debit payment frequency options can be established as weekly, fortnightly or monthly
- BPAY can be at your discretion and can be set up as an automated payment.
Some fees, such as excursions and incursions, may continue to be charged separately during the course of the year prior to the event being held.
Statements will be issued regularly to allow monitoring of fee status. All fees must be paid in full by 30 November.
The amended School Fees Policy and procedure will be published on the CSO Website shortly.
Parents are asked to complete the school fees payment frequency form and return to the office as soon as possible. All payments of accounts need to commence prior to the 31st March 2021.
New Finance System
Our finance system will be replaced and centralised within the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese. This will require a new platform for Compass and a brand new Finance System.
Today, you will receive a verification report for each student. Could you please check all details are current and up to date, sign the form and return to the office as soon as possible.
This is the first step in changing over systems and your prompt response in returning the forms would be very appreciated.