Learning 

Message from Wellbeing

Hello families. Welcome to the 2021 school year. 

It is with great pleasure that I write the first dedicated Well-being article for our newsletter. In the coming weeks I hope to share snippets of information around our Ready to Learn practice, sleep, friendships, childhood worry and anxiety, Berry st strategies, the zones of Regulation and much more. Natasha, our school psychologist, will also share her wisdom in this section. 

We are so excited to have your children return to us on Monday. The first days are always filled with excitement, joy and an element of nervous anticipation (for children, parents and teachers alike). 

The first two weeks back are our ‘Wonder and Wow Weeks’. Our focus during these weeks is on:

• Relationship building - rekindling and strengthening existing relationships and establishing new ones.
• Exploring our Ways of working which help to create warm, safe and trusting learning environments
• Sparking Wonder
• JOY and FUN - children who experience regular positive emotion learn more, remember more and connect more. Joy and fun is so important to us at St. John’s.

These are our St John’s Ways of Working….

If you have any burning questions related to wellbeing or suggestions for what to include in this section, please feel free to contact me. 

Warm regards,

Ashlee Owen 

aowen@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au

Message from Learning & Teaching

Introducing our Learning and Teaching Team - Gemma, Jarryd and Lauren. We are excited to welcome back our children and families and begin finding out and building on passions and interests during Discovery. Our educators have spent many hours setting up our inviting spaces to evoke curiosity, wonder and new ideas. As well as new spaces, the children will have a WOW and WONDER focus during the first two weeks back. This will help children form new connections with others, strengthen relationships, spark new curiosities and understand how we work together across our school in order to thrive.

During the beginning of our year, we will focus on investigating the concepts of identity and connection through our Community Project, using the lens of the Frog Bog at the Farm. For a 5 year old, this might look like naming people who are important to me. For a 11 year old, this might include discussions about values that underpin our government. As part of this focus, our community will prepare an ‘Installation’ at our Welcome Picnic on Tuesday 16th February that will celebrate the different people that make up our community. 

Warm regards,

Jarryd Bradford, Lauren Davis, Gemma Goodyear 

Message from Faith

Hello families, 

Wishing you all a very warm welcome to the 2021 school year. We are excited to once again gather as a faith community. We will be celebrating a number of Masses and faith celebrations throughout the year. Our whole school will celebrate an Opening School Mass at Our Lady's Church on Wednesday 3rd February. Please ensure you have signed the 2km excursion permission slip (sent via the Community portal) to ensure that all of the children can celebrate together. Our Prep children do not attend school on Wednesday's for now, however rest assured we will warmly welcome them at a Mass/Prayer Gathering later in the term!

Our staff were privileged to spend time at the Quang Minh Buddhist temple in Braybrook this week. We were warmly welcomed by The Venerable Phuoc Tan who led us through some meditation exercises and shared his extensive knowledge of the Buddhist faith with us. Learning about different faiths enables us to connect with our multi-faith community in new ways and we are keen to invite you to visit the temple with us this year - date/time to be advised. 

Our faith wonderings will centre around the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Solidarity during Term 1. Our scripture focus as a whole school will be: “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” We will be unpacking this scripture and discussing what this means in word and action. 

The dates for the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Confirmation will be advised in our next newsletter. I'm very much looking forward to being with our community this year, please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. 

Aoife Mc Carthy

amccarthy@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au