Informer - Term 4 Week 8

From Our Acting Principal...

As the school year ends, we tend to be galloping into the next year at full speed. It is inevitable that we have to continually think ahead and plan for the future.

This year, one of our major Strategic Goals is to develop a St John’s Student Wellbeing Framework and this will continue to be a major focus into 2022. The development of the framework is to pull together the variety of student wellbeing measures we already have in place and to focus on areas where we see a further need for development.

We place our students at the heart of all that we do and as a school community we know that we have a critical role to play in fostering positive and sustainable characteristics that enable our students to achieve their full potential.

It is always our goal to create an environment where our students realise their full potential, experience positive social interactions, allow opportunities to develop social and emotional skills and know that they are valued and listened to.

In the initial stages of the development of our Student Well Being Framework we have looked at a "pathway" of 7 areas of focus which include:

• Catholic Identity
• Student Voice
• Community Connectedness
• Trauma Informed Approaches
• Positive Behaviour Approaches
• Resilience
• Co-curricular Approaches (buddies, pastoral care, Child Safe Curriculum etc.)

In our Pupil Free Days in January 2022 and throughout the 2022 year, we will begin a focus on resilience through the founder of Unleash your Personal Potential, Luke McKenna. Luke and his team specialise in working with schools to build growth mindsets, grit, wellbeing, and leadership for all students.

During the focus on resilience in 2022 we will also engage with Luke’s newest approach, Making Wellbeing Practical, with our staff.  The Personal Wellbeing Practices focus on the PERMAH pillars (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishments) to ensure the language and approach of resilience is consistent and achievable throughout our whole school.

Throughout 2022, we will continue to share our St John’s Student Wellbeing Framework and the 7 pathways of focus.

Jakki Graham
Assistant Principal - Administration

APRE News...

Story of the Badjaos in Davao, Philippines

For a few years now, the Year 6 students have sold glow light products at our Spirit Night with all monies raised going to the Marist Mission Centre in the Philippines to help the Badjao children.  The sisters do wonderful work with these families and are the only ones who are trusted by the parents.  Usually, the children would be on the streets begging for money, but the sisters have worked hard to help the parents see the value in education to make a difference to their future lives.  So, the Marist Centre, while providing basic education for the children, also feeds them during the day so they can concentrate on their work.  This group of people are not even recognized by the local Philippino Government and are considered outcasts.  It is hard for us to believe that such a situation could be possible. As such they receive no help whatsoever and live in makeshift stilt houses along the water’s edge, having no land themselves.  They rely solely on begging, mainly in high tourist areas to survive.

This year we will not be selling glow light products but instead, our Year Six students will be walking around to collect donations for this cause.  We ask you to please support this collection, so we can help make a difference to the lives of these little children, who don’t have a chance to be better without outside help. 

WE CAN EACH MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Socktober – Catholic Mission

Our 10c challenge last Friday was a HUGE success.  I had set the challenge to line up 10c coins around the outer basketball court line….111m approximately!  I wondered if the bar was set too high, but I needn’t have worried!!!  Prep, Yr 1 and Yr 2 students lined up their coins and completed the entire court boundary!  I was amazed to say the least.  These little ones are always so generous.

Yr 3, 4 covered the inner white rectangle and Yr 5 & 6 students covered the inner two circles. 

What a HUGE effort by all.  The little ones were so excited to line their coins up and everyone was amazed at how far we got with lining the coins up.

When the coins have been taken to the bank and counted, I will report back on the total monies raised.  But a HUGE thank you for your support and generosity in helping our children collect so much.

The Sisters of the Good Shepherd Kindergarten in Bangkok will make good use of these monies to help take children off the streets, feed them, clothe them and get their education started.  Thank you!  Thank you on behalf of those children in Thailand who will benefit from your generosity.

Christmas Collections

Please don’t forget the collections at this time of the year.  St John’s have always been very generous in thinking of others through these collections.  Thank you in advance for your thoughtfulness and generosity.

St Vincent de Paul Christmas Giving Tree – all donations are given out locally;  No gifts over $35 please; don’t wrap gifts but tape the gift tag to your gift.

St Vincent de Paul Christmas Hamper – distributed locally; non-perishable foodstuffs

Christmas Gifts

It’s hard to purchase a gift for someone, who either seems to have everything they need or whom you don’t know that well or you don’t know what they need.  Have you thought of giving a Christmas Global Gift.  These gifts can be purchased from www.globalgifts.org.au.  Gifts fall under the category of being either a gift of water, food or sustainable living.

Step 1: Choose from a wide range of Global Gifts

Step 2:  Select a delivery option for your chosen Global Gift card (posted card or digital e-card) to send to your loved one

Step 3:  Your gift will help support vulnerable people living in poverty

Once purchased, a card is sent to you to then pass on as a gift card to the recipient, informing them of your purchase.  These gifts help others while also giving joy to others knowing the gift purchased on their behalf has helped another.  It’s a great gift suggestion.

The Gift of Water…from $25.  Help vulnerable communities access clean, safe water for drinking, hygiene and sanitation

The Gift of Education…from $25.  Help support adult literacy and numeracy classes to help break the cycle of poverty

The Gift of Food…from $15.  Help vulnerable families to avoid hunger and put food on their tables

This Christmas, think about these unique gifts for your family or friends.  These gifts will make a big impact on those at the receiving end.

End of Year Mass

Date: Thursday 2^nd December 2021

Where:  Nazarene Place (Shed at St John’s School)

Time: 11.40am.

We start each year with a mass and we end each year with a mass.  We invite you all to join us in giving thanks for what we have achieved throughout the year and for the challenges that have helped us to grow.

Following the Mass, we will have the announcement of the Year Six Awards, as well as the announcement of our 2022 School and House Captains.  All are welcome to attend this great celebration of the past year and be there to congratulate our Award winners and new leaders for 2022. 

Spirit Night

Prep to Yr 2 Wet Day Information

Prep – Year Two Wet Day – Tuesday 30 November 2021

Our P-2 Wet Day is on Tuesday 30 November on the school oval. It is always such a great day and the children (and the teachers!) are already very excited!

We have a little bit of time left over after the P-2 students have had their fun and 6 classes where drawn out of the hat for their chance to join in the fun.

The timetable for the day is as follows:

8.40am – 10.10am             Prep

10.10am – 11.40am           Year 2

11.40am – 1.10pm             Year 1

1.10pm – 1.40pm              Year 3S and Year 3L

1.40pm – 2.20pm               Year 4K and Year 4P

2.20pm – 3.00pm               Year 5R and Year 6D

General Information

• The school day will begin at 8.40am as usual. 
• Students will meet at their classrooms for sunscreen, hats, water bottles and rule reminders after Parade.
• The first of the activities will begin at 9.00am (approx.).
• Students are to bring their fruit break and lunch as normal. Please pack ‘easy’ lunches on this day. The tuckshop will be running as normal.
• All students are to arrive at school with sunscreen applied and wearing ‘boardies’ or togs with a sun safe shirt and school hat. Thongs are allowed during wet play. NO HAT OR SUNSHIRT = NO WET DAY ACTIVITIES.
• All students must bring a school hat, a towel, change of dry clothes (their school uniform, including school shoes and socks).
• Please be aware environmental and skin sensitive soaps are used in some activities. If you have any concerns, please see your classroom teacher.
• Students will then return to their classes after the Wet Day activities conclude

If behaviour leading up to the Wet Day activities is not acceptable within our school rules, students may not be invited to participate in this extra-curricular event.

We are really looking forward to the day; what a great way to end a great year!

Thank you and God Bless,

Families Leaving

As we have many students on our waiting list and our total enrolment drives many aspects of our school (staffing, budget, class sizes and structure) it is important that we try to be as accurate as possible in predicting the school enrolment for 2022. If you know that you will be leaving at the end of the year could you please notify the office as soon as possible? Your assistance with this matter is greatly appreciated.

P & F and Board Meetings

Our next P & F Meeting is on TODAY Monday 22 November at 5:30pm in the Library. All Welcome.

Our next Board Meeting is on TONIGHT Tuesday 23 November at 6:00pm.

Prep to Year 3 Swimming Program

Please note some changes have occurred since last week's newsletter.

Soccer

St Vinnies Christmas Hamper and Giving Tree

We have started collecting for the St Vincent de Paul Christmas Hamper.  Please consider adding some extra non-perishable food items to your grocery shop and sending these along for our Christmas hamper donation box.  This box will be in the front Administration office.  All goods are sorted by the St Vincent de Paul volunteers and made up into small family Christmas hampers.  These are delivered locally to those in need to brighten up their Christmas day.

The Christmas Giving Tree   Our tree is up!  Please take a gift tag for a specific age level from the tree or send an envelope along with our child and the Admin ladies will put a tag inside.  Then purchase an appropriate gift for a child of this age.  Please don’t wrap gifts.  Just sticky tape the gift tag to your gift and place under the tree.  Just for your information, I am told there is always a shortage of donated gifts for teenage children, so please consider purchasing for this age level to help fill the gap.  Gifts or a gift vouchers are accepted.

The St Vincent de Paul volunteers tell us each year, what a difference these gifts make to those who receive them.  It tells them that someone cares and that means so much to them.

Thank you in advance for your generous donations

Booklists

You know the school year is concluding when the 2022 Booklists are prepared!

As always, we try to ensure the smoothest and most cost-effective way for purchasing booklist requirements.

We allow families two options for filling your child’s 2022 booklist requirements:

1. Using Office National Gladstone as a pre-priced online (and in-store) option.
2. Take your child’s 2022 booklist to a newsagency of your choice.

The 2022 Booklists have been uploaded onto Parent Lounge.

St John's Way Awards

OSHC Vacation Care Program

Tuckshop Special

Volunteer Tuckshop Roster

Tuckshop Menu

Community Events

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