Informer Term 3 Week 2

From Our Principal...

Dear Families

On Wednesday last week, I had the opportunity to go up to Yeppoon to see our St John's teams compete in the Challenge Cup

This competition has been running since 2006 and is one of the largest primary school carnivals in the state. Girls and boys from every Catholic school across the diocese gather to compete in netball and rugby league.

I think it is a wonderful event and for some of our kids, the only chance they will have of attending a carnival or being in the equivalent of a representative team.

All teams are split into four pools. Over the first two days, You play everyone in your pool and then each pool is ranked in order of wins. The success of Challenge Cup is that on day three teams will play similarly ranked teams. Every team will start day three with the chance to be in a major semi final to win their division.

The concept is an extremely successful one. There are many challenges and life lessons in the first two days. I have said before, that sport provides one of the few opportunities in our society to compete unassisted. No one can do anything for me, I have to put in my best to succeed and excuses don't change the result. Lots of great life lessons.

Over the years, I have seen and coached teams who have come away disappointed in their results and I have had teams who were ecstatic that they had won the final of division four or five.

The rain in Yeppoon made things difficult and the netball couldn't be played on the grass courts next to the football grounds. This is a shame, because one of the highlights is seeing our teams support each other and share in each other's successes and see the effort that goes into each game.

A big thank you to Mr Langdon and Mrs Hamilton for the time and effort put into preparing our teams for the carnival. I know many parents take time off work to get their kids to the carnival. I think it is well worth the effort.

Have a great week and hug your kids.

Jamie Emerick
Principal

APRE News...

First Holy Communion

This week, many of our students will receive the Sacrament of First Holy Communion.  We congratulate all these students and their families who have been preparing this year for the Sacrament of Confirmation and then First Holy Communion.  These girls and boys will now be able to participate fully in the Eucharistic celebration by receiving communion.  We pray this is the beginning of a deepening relationship with Jesus and they celebrate the receipt of this special gift often through attending mass.

As a community, we pray for these students, particularly on their special days this week.

Tuesday – Friday at Star of the Sea Church at 5.30pm.

Catholic Education Week 25-31 July 2021

Next week, is Catholic Education Week.  We celebrate across the state, belonging to the Catholic Education family of school.

We will celebrate in this week in a number of ways.

Lunch on the Lawn – Thursday 29 July 10.45 am. 
Bring a homemade or bought lunch to share with your children in picnic style on the oval. Remember, in keeping with COVID restrictions as directed by CEO to us, families must sit together as a single family (you can’t join with other families).

Random Acts of Kindness
We are all called to do Random Acts of Kindness during this week, and hopefully this will roll over into daily practices.

Random Acts of Kindness

In 1982, Anne Herbert, a writer and peace activist, came up with the phrase ‘practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty’ which she wrote on a San Francisco restaurant napkin.  In 1993, Chuck Wall, a Californian professor of Bakersfield College challenged his students to perform ‘a random act of senseless kindness’ after he had heard on the radio of a ‘random act of senseless violence.’  These two events set off the idea of practicing ‘random acts of kindness’ and this has been taken up each year as part of our Catholic Education Week celebrations.

Acts of Kindness give witness to the love of Jesus in their action.  Doing something for the good of another with no gain to self, starts the snowball for these acts to be passed on. It becomes a Pay it Forward roll.  Random Acts of Kindness are not hard to do.  Simple actions can have a huge impact on others and the ripple effect can be incomprehensible. 

It is our task next week to start those ripples in as many ways as we can.  Offer help where we see it is needed; give to those less fortunate, even though you don’t know them; say words of encouragement, thanks and love; give company to someone who is lonely through your presence or your voice; practice patience on the road; only say positive things; be kind to nature.

RCIA Enquiry Evening

Are you (or someone you know) interested in becoming a Catholic?

The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults is the process by which adults can explore the Catholic faith and journey towards baptism.

Our RCIA team will be holding an inquiry evening on 28 July from 6-7pm at the parish hall, for anyone who is interested in finding out more about the process of becoming a Catholic. There is no  obligation to join and no pushy follow ups; you are welcome no matter where you are on the journey.

If you know someone who is interested, why not offer to come along with them? All are welcome.

If you have any questions, please contact Annette Platt 0418 114 879 or speak to Fr Andrew.

Did You Know?

The Bible: 

To truly gain the most from reading the bible, the reader needs to know some essential ideas so it makes more sense.

The word ‘bible’ is a Greek word and means ‘the books’.  It is really a library; a collection of different works in two sections – the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT).  The word ‘testament’, originally in Hebrew, means covenant so the bible is a collection of books telling us about the agreement (covenant) between God and Israel through Moses initially, then Abraham, and then David.  Finally the new covenant was fulfilled in Jesus.

There are 73 books in total in the bible for Catholics and 67 books for Jews or Protestants (who only recognize the books written in Hebrew, not Greek; Catholics recognize these 6 books).

Building Works

On Thursday 22 July, a major concrete pour will be taking place at the front of  the school at the construction site from 6.00am – 11.00am. Traffic Control will be in charge of all truck movements in and out of the site. Please be aware that there may be some delays and extra caution and patience would be greatly appreciated during this time. We thank you for your understanding.

P & F Meeting Tonight

Our P & F Meeting is on tonight July 19 at 5:30pm in the school library.

ALL WELCOME!

St John's Cooking Club

Week 2 of our Cooking Club saw 12 eager chefs pull together a fabulous and nutritious meal – Nachos!

Spiced up red kidney beans replaced the traditional mince and a fresh salsa (red onions, tomatoes, fresh basil and cucumber) and guacamole (avocado, lemons juice and fresh basil) topped off a superb dish!

Students learnt safe cutting practice, the importance of whole foods, measuring, adjusting spices to taste and just as importantly, sharing a meal together.

Please find attached our recipe and hopefully you might find the time to make it too!

PS – thank you to Mrs. Hermann who dropped in to help us with the washing up!

Student Voice

The last Student Voice Question asked students what extra "gear" would benefit them in their classroom sports bins for their play breaks?

The traditional requests of footballs, tennis balls, kicking tees and soccer balls were high on the agenda, but pogo sticks, dance ribbons, squishy balls, elastics, and frisbees were popular too.

Some more tricky requests were made of which we may not be able to facilitate – namely ping pong tables and squash courts (too big for sport bins really!) and dart boards and golf clubs both of which are great, but not quite safe enough for a school environment!

Time to source some new gear for our students to restock their sports bins.

Auskick

Prep 2022

Volunteer Tuckshop Roster

Tuckshop Menu

Tuckshop Specials

Our Tuckshop is now offering gluten free bread and wrap options.
Prices available on QuickCliq

St John's Way Awards

OSHC News...

Our St John’s App Is Live!

We are very excited to announce that the St John’s is live and ready for parents to download to their devices.

Please follow the instructions step-by-step for downloading the St John’s App. The one-off St John’s set-up passcode is 8892.

Additionally, to download the St John’s App to your iPad, laptop or PC, please follow the following link - https://stjohnclinton.schoolzineplus.com/subscribe

Once you have downloaded the App you will see we now have a one-stop-shop for all information you need to stay informed at St John’s.

In the top banner you will see Home, Feed and Manage.

Home will take you to the tiles and Feed will take you to alerts/messages (as Dojo did).

The latest ‘feed’ will be displayed on the home screen above the tiles.

The ‘’tiles’’ we have used are as follows:

• Parent Lounge – takes you straight to the Parent Lounge sign-in page
• Latest Newsletter – each week the newsletter will be uploaded to this tile
• Website – takes you straight to our website
• Forms and Documents – in this tile the following documents have been uploaded – simply tap on the link:
  

Parent Handbook
School Uniform
Behaviour Management
Fees and Levies Schedule
ICT Code of Practice
Tuckshop Menu

• School Calendar – all key dates for the upcoming term (continually updated)
• Tuckshop – takes you straight to the online tuckshop log-in page
• OSHC – links to required forms
• School Contact – takes you straight to our phone contact
• Facebook - takes you straight to our Facebook page
• Seesaw – Our new ‘Dojo’’ – please note that this is still a work in progress
• Newsletter Archive – each weekly newsletter will be archived to this tile for referral where required
• Subscribe to Newsletter – please note that all existing families will be automatically uploaded to this new platform. This tile is for new families in the future

While we feel we have covered all bases, things can be overlooked so we look forward to your feedback or suggestions on information that would be a benefit to be included. As always your feedback is valued; please email Jakki Graham at Jakki_graham@rok.catholic.edu.au