Learning and Teaching
Book Week at St John's
This Year St John's Children’s Book Week 2025, will be celebrated from 18 to 23 August with the theme "Book an Adventure!". This year marks the 80th anniversary of the event, highlighting eight decades of inspiring young readers. Featured artist Jess McGeachin has created a whimsical, adventure-themed artwork to reflect the spirit of exploration that books offer. The illustrations aim to spark imagination and encourage children to embark on their own literary adventures.
Bring a Book, Take a Book - St John’s Book Swap
On Thursday, 18 September, students are invited to bring in a ‘second hand’ or ‘used’ book that they no longer require and join in our St John’s Book Swap.
Students can bring any book (it does not need to be wrapped) and add it to the bookshelf and then choose a book from a selection to take home and keep! Please encourage children to choose a book to donate that is in good condition and would be enjoyed by another student.
Book Week Dress Up Parade
Our Book Week Parade will be this week on Wednesday, 20 August at 9.00am in the Coghlan Centre. Students are encouraged to dress up as an Adventurous Book Character, or their favorite book character.
We hope that you can join us.
Nicole Webb
St John’s Literacy Leader
St John's Learning Dispositions
Every classroom at St John's Mitcham is now displaying our new poster of our revised Learning Dispositions. Teachers encourage their students every day to develop these skills to ensure they reach their full potential and become the best learners that they can be. We asked our Year 5/6 students to come up with the design and Alona in Year 6 created the winning poster. Thankyou Alona for being a fantastic learner and role model at St John's. We hope that you encourage and promote these dispositions in your child every day at home also.
DigiTech and STEM
Inform & Empower
St John's Mitcham was very excited to welcome Martin, an expert educator, and Carley, an experienced psychologist, from Inform & Empower to our school recently for a parent information evening.
The 90 minute Raising Kids in a Digital World seminar shared evidence-based strategies as well as practical tips and up-to-date insights. This ensured our parent community left with current knowledge as well as the skillset, toolset and mindset they need to be able to support their children as they navigate the online world. Martin and Carley explored a range of topics including:
- Social media
- Impacts of screen time
- Online gaming
- Cyberbullying
- Child/tween online trends
- Explicit/adult content
- Mentor parenting
- Family communication
- Parental controls
It was an informative and enjoyable session and St John's continues to support the work of Inform & Empower through our termly student webinars.
Go Girl, Go for IT
On Wednesday 13th August, 19 of our Grade 5/6 girls joined me at Deakin University’s Burwood campus for the Go Girl, Go for IT conference. This event celebrates and promotes the role of girls and women in STEM, with the 2025 theme InspireHER – Creating a Bold Future with AI.
Throughout the day, the girls were inspired by industry leaders and experts, hearing powerful stories from women forging exciting careers in STEM. They took part in engaging workshops, explored a dynamic trade show, and connected with professionals from a wide range of fields. Along the way, they collected some great resources, promotional materials, and a few fun prizes.
It was a fantastic experience that not only broadened their understanding of STEM opportunities, but also sparked ideas for future careers – and perhaps even some new STEM-inspired hobbies.
- Mrs Bayliss
Performing Arts News
National Song Writing Competition
In Performing Arts this term, the students in Years 3-6 have been learning about the different aspects involved in the songwriting process. They have been working on their own songs to submit in a National Song Writing Competition run by the Australian Children’s Music Foundation. Most students have completed writing the lyrics for their songs and this week they will move on to adding a musical element, using instruments and technologies such as Chrome Music Lab. Throughout the process, students are encouraged to record and listen to their song, making adjustments accordingly. Students are welcome to bring instruments from home to use during these next stages, it is their responsibility to look after and use these safely while at school. It has been amazing to see the talent in our students as they come up with unique songs in a range of genres, from heartbreak to fantasy, personal experiences and comedic, all eager to go in the running for one of the many cash prizes to be used towards musical equipment and tuition for the winner! Students are welcome to submit additional entries in their own time also. For more information please see: https://acmf.com.au/national-songwriting-competition/
Choir News
Our St John’s Choir is very excited to be taking part in the Whitehorse One Voice Intergenerational Singing Project this year. This experience allows our choir to unite with singers of all ages, cultures and backgrounds to ‘celebrate the joy of music and community singing’! We have been rehearsing the chosen song, John Farnham’s You’re the Voice, which we will eventually record and send in to be part of a joint video with all of the participating choirs. We will also attend the One Voice - Intergenerational Choir Workshop & Sing Together Performance Grand Finale at Box Hill Town Hall on Wednesday 29 October, where we will have the opportunity to learn and sing alongside choirs from the wider community.
We are also very excited to announce that we have begun a Junior Choir for students in Year 1/2. It has been wonderful seeing the great number of young students attending and hearing their beautiful voices as they learn songs from their favourite movies and other genres. Catch their debut performance at our Father’s Day Breakfast as they sing a tribute to the Dads and special people in our lives!
Warm Regards,
Amanda Hill
Tournament of the Minds
On Sunday 17th August, Sadie, Charlize, Lucas, Lola, Vespa, Evie, and Alona also known as “Every Stroke Counts” and Ben, Jasper, Ethan, Harshul, Isaac, Scarlett and Aimee, also known as “St John’s Spheres”, travelled to Deakin University to participate in the Tournament of Minds for 2025.
After weeks of researching, writing scripts, painting sets, assembling props, recording videos, making decisions and collaborating effectively, our teams produced fabulous performances to address their Long Term Challenge.
Our St John’s teams had two very different challenges. Every Stroke Counts worked with an Arts focus. Their task was titled “We Are The World." As a team, they presented an entertaining performance and a wonderful collage that told their story highlighting the strength of diversity and the need for unity within our world. They chose several artists as their inspiration. They included song, dance, artwork and an intriguing script which beautifully told their story. The judges gave some fabulous feedback and remarked on how well they worked as a team.
The St John’s Spheres chose to focus on STEM. Their task was titled “Re-Union”. Their task was to create a 3D emblem that represents the unity of Earth's spheres. The emblem had to comprise four interlocking parts, each symbolising one of the spheres. During the presentation, the emblem had to physically break apart to illustrate the current state of disunity and then reassemble it to represent unity. They also had to present a scale diagram. They used their collective engineering skills to build a well-designed contraption that wowed the judges with its ingenuity.
All our TOM contestants should be incredibly proud of themselves! They truly worked within the parameters and the ‘spirit’ of the Tournament of Minds and showed great skills in all aspects of the challenge. We were so thrilled to see quieter personalities shining through, strong personalities listening to each other, identifying each others' strengths, collectively and creatively designing, constructing and producing successful presentations.
The judges’ feedback was incredibly positive and the students spoke confidently about their roles in their given challenges. We look forward to receiving official results soon…but no matter the outcome, we believe you are all amazing! Well done! We hope you enjoyed the experience as much as we did.
Ange Crowe and Mel Kerwin
Extension Education