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The Informer - Term 1 Week 4

From Our Principal...

Dear Families

Welcome back to what has been a very interesting start to the year. A special welcome to any families joining our community this year.

As we start to get our kids back into some sort of routine, Covid is, more and more, making an impact on the Gladstone community. Thank you for your patience and understanding in the compliance routines we are all legally required to follow. The wearing of masks plays a big part in preventing the transmission of the virus and is mandated on all school sites.

The current restrictions are in place till March 5. As changes come through, we will communicate these to families.

At this point, we are aiming to postpone events rather than cancel them. Once we get past the March 5 timeline, we are hoping to look at a range of community events later in the term.

Again thank you for the cooperation of the past few weeks and stay safe.

Have a great week and hug your kids.

Jamie Emerick
Principal

APRE News...

Something to Celebrate!

On Friday the Year 6 students received their Leadership Badges. Father Ashwin guided the discussion with students about the importance of Blessings, Sacramentals and the responsibility of leadership within our community. The student’s responses were insightful, showing how much the children value their leadership role within our school. After the Blessing, Mr Emerick and Mrs Graham presented the students with their individual badges. Student photos will be shared on your child’s class SeeSaw page. Once we can hold a Whole School Mass, all Year 6 students will be presented to our school community. Many thanks to Father Ashwin for his ability to bring meaning to the religious rituals we encounter and to Mrs Jackson and Mrs Guinea for their photography prowess.

Congratulations to our Year 6 leaders.

Badge Ceremony

Sacramental Program Enrolments are Open

New Admin Carpark – Not for Before and After School Pick-ups or Drop-offs.

Please be aware the new Administration Carpark is NOT for student Pick-ups and Drop-offs (before and after school). It is a visitor and services carpark only.

Two children were nearly hit by a reversing car on Friday afternoon just after 3.00pm. For the safety of our students, parents are only to drop-off and pick-up their children in the allocated supervised areas – Laner St pick-up/drop-off zone, J Hickey Oval pick-up/drop-off zone, rear carpark.

Please DO NOT park on the grassed area adjacent to the Laner St pick-up/drop-off zone.

Thank you for working with us to keep our students safe at all times.

PARENT INFORMATION YEAR LEVEL POWERPOINTS

Due to the current Covid restrictions in schools, we are unable to host our start of year Parent Information Evenings.

To ensure we are communicating key information for each of our year levels, Teachers have prepared a comprehensive Power Point for parents.

All Parent Information Year Level Powerpoints are uploaded on Parent Lounge for you to access.

The individual Year Level Power Points include:

Information about what is in store for the year ahead – focus areas in curriculum, homework expectations, routines, behaviours expectations, communication, important dates etc.

While ideally, we would always prefer to meet face-to-face with parents at the start of each year, we hope that the Year Level PowerPoints keep families informed to ensure we begin the year with productive partnerships between school and home.

Please ensure you are keeping abreast of the current Covid guidelines. Any changes or cancellations due to the Queensland Government’s Back to School Plan can be found via https://qed.qld.gov.au/covid19/back-to-school

As always, if you have any queries or questions, please contact us.

ICT Code of Practice – Annual Requirements for All Students

Internet connection at St John’s is provided by Catholic Education – Diocese of Rockhampton. As part of this service, all staff, students and families are expected to be aware of the ICT Code of Practice.

Each year, the ICT Code of Practice needs to be read, agreed and acknowledged by all students in Prep to Year 6.

The ICT Code of Practice has been uploaded onto Parent Lounge for reading and acceptance by parents.

The Prep – Year 2 version must be read and acknowledged with your child and then parents must tick the “acceptance box” on Parent Lounge by Friday 18 February to accept all terms of ICT usage within our Diocesan Schools.

The Year 3 - 6 version must be read and acknowledged with your child and then parents must tick the acceptance box on Parent Lounge. ADDITIONALLY, the hard copy paper Agreement on the last page MUST be signed by parents and student and returned to school by Friday 18 February.

If acceptance is not made on Parent Lounge (tick box) for the ICT Code of Conduct, your child will have no access to ICT at St John’s (including iPads).

Teachers will also go through the ICT Code of Practice to remind students of the requirements under the ICT Code of Practice and due dates.

P & F - AGM and General Meeting

Our P & F AGM and general meeting will be held on Monday 28 February at 5:30pm.

This will be held at Kin Kora MacDonalds in the meeting room (Not at school as normal).

Nature Playground Donations Please!

As you know, our students love the Nature Playground. We are always trying to replenishing ''stock''. If any families are pruning trees, we would love your larger branches or logs or if you are having a shed clean-out, we would love any old ropes, pipes, wood, hoses etc.

If you have any questions or donations please call the office or email Jakki Graham at jakki_graham@rok.catholic.edu.au

Thank you in advance!

Buddies

If you ask any St John’s child what they love at school, most will reply ‘Buddies!’

Buddies occurs each Friday from 2.00 pm – 2.30 pm in Term 1 and we started off 2022 Buddies last week with our students meeting each other to begin the start of new connections and friendships with each other.

Buddies is a wonderful tool for building relationships, learning life-long values such as caring for others, friendliness, empathy, respect and valuing each other’s differences and forming new friendships.

Buddies

HPE NEWS...

Each year we start HPE Lessons with our 4-week Fitness Cards. Our Fitness Cards allow our students to track their improved individual results over a variety of tasks including the Beep Test, 1-minute of sit-ups, burpees, dips, side jumps and skipping as well as the sit and reach challenge.

While students can complete against each other, the main aim is for them to improve their own self-recorded results each week.

The Fitness Card also serves the purpose of preparing student’s fitness levels for our Cross Country (we practice this in HPE in Weeks 7 and 8) and Athletics (starting in HPE in Week 9).

Key events coming up for HPE include:

Whole School Beep Off – Wednesday 30 March
St John’s Cross Country – Thursday 31 March
St John’s Athletics Carnival – Friday 27 May

Our Beep Test Champs for Week One are:

Colby Smith 10.1

Shana Paterson 10.8

St John's Way Awards

Tuckshop News 2022

The Tuckshop opened for business this week with a roaring trade!

As you know we are opened 3 days per week:
Wednesday - First Break
Thursday - First Break
Friday - First and Second Break

Mrs Jess Pailthorpe, our wonderful Tuckshop Convenor, is doing an awesome job and would love any assistance from our wonderful parent body any Wednesday, Thursday or Friday in whatever capacity you can offer.

School Tuckshops are considered essential services and therefore we are able to host double vaccinated volunteers onsite. Although we have classes rostered on each Tuckshop Day, you are more than welcome to come in any time.

Please be reminded that all orders must made via our online ordering system - https://quickcliq.com.au/ and any late orders (after 8.15am) unfortunately may not be processed.

Please ensure you have updated your class to their 2022 class via quickcliq to limit any confusion in a very busy tuckshop!

Tuckshop Specials

Tuckshop Volunteers Needed

Our tuckshop urgently needs volunteers to help on Wednesdays, Thursdays and especially Fridays. If you can help out could you please let us know so that we can arrange an induction with Mrs Graham.

As per guidelines, all volunteers need to sign in at the office, follow COVID hygiene and distancing practices and have completed the 2022 Volunteer Induction.

Please also note that our tuckshop ordering is ALL via the online system at https://www.quickcliq.com.au