Student Wellbeing Groups

Dear Parent/Carer,

Jacana School for Autism is looking forward to another great year of teaching and learning and would like to advise you of Jacana School for Autism’s parent payment arrangements for 2025.

Jacana School for Autism is very proud of the quality programs that we have put in place to cater for the needs and interests of our students. Each year our student contributions, set by School Council, provide vital funds necessary to ensure we maintain a high quality of education for our students. On an annual basis School Council prepares a budget to provide resources for educational programs, administration, facilities development and maintenance. Our school’s income is currently funded from two sources:

Department of Education and Training (DET) Student Resource Package (SRP) Provides for the teaching of the standard curriculum and basic operational costs such as school administration, utilities and services, staff salaries, urgent works, maintenance, cleaning and general school operations.

The payments and contributions provided by our parent community are an essential component of funding. The three areas for which parents may reasonably be invited to make a payment or contribution are:

• Curriculum Contributions are items and activities that students use, or participate in, to access the Curriculum. These include classroom consumables, materials, equipment, digital online subscriptions, software & licences and classroom devices.
• Extra-Curricular items and Activities are those items, such as excursions, incursions, camps and other activities or services that are offered in addition to the standard curriculum program that are on a user pay basis.
• Other Contributions are invited to be made by Parents/Guardians. The voluntary contributions or donations to the school are for maintaining our buildings & grounds, playground and climbing room improvements and extensions. These contributions are donations to JSA and are tax deductible.

The Other contributions are the minimum amount considered essential to enable School Council and JSA Staff to maintain our excellent educational programs, successful outcomes and high-quality standards that have become the hallmark of Jacana School for Autism.

Please find the links to the Parent Payment Arrangements for Primary, Middle & Secondary below.

Jacana School for Autism makes every effort to keep the cost of items and activities to a minimum and affordable for all parents.

Jacana School for Autism understands that some families may experience financial difficulty and offers a range of support options, including:

• the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) – Families who qualify with a health care card may access CSEF funding towards camps, swimming, excursions/incursions, outdoor education programs and transport to school organised activities. Applications are available from the office.
• State Schools Relief- State Schools’ Relief provides support to any Victorian student attending a government school (primary, secondary or specialist), on the advice of the school. Schools are able to submit an application directly, whenever they believe there is a need to support a student whose family/carers are facing difficulty in providing appropriate uniform, footwear or educational items for attending school.
• An individual Payment Plan to assist families with Curriculum Contributions, Extra-Curricular items and User-pay activities such as Camps.

1. Online Parent Payments 

Pronounced ‘Quicker’ is a FREE app to enable mobile payment for school-based accounts to save you time. The app enables you to use your smartphone to make all school payments including Senior School Canteen, without having to give your children cash to carry to school.

Although the app is a MasterCard initiative, it enables payment from most financial institutions and major credit cards with Safe and Secure MasterCard technology. Once you have downloaded the app and registered your email address, select ‘Jacana School for Autism’ and follow the prompts. (For those living outside a 10km radius from JSA, please go to the search bar and enter ‘JACANA.’)

Getting Started ‘How to’ Guide

Should you have any questions regarding the use of the QKR! app please contact the school. We hope you enjoy this flexibility in managing your school payments.

2. EFTPOS (Debit/Credit card)

Further information on the Department’s Parent Payment Policy.

For a confidential discussion about accessing these services, or if you would like to discuss alternative payment arrangements, please contact Shirley Wain (Assistant Business Manager)

Ph: 03 9309 6258| Email: jacana.school@education.vic.gov.au

Parent Payment Policy 2024_