Around The Primary

Dear Parents,

We all want the best for our students. We want them to be happy and to flourish. We want them to live out their dreams and to reach their innate potential.

The staff have been working through this term on the initial implementation of Character Strengths. The Character Strength approach is underpinned by the belief that at the heart of wellbeing, among other elements, is positive relationships, positive emotions and meaning. A key premise of Character Strengths is that all students have individual strengths that can be built upon to increase wellbeing, while developing a growth mindset and readiness to meet challenges. 

Our goal this term is to make the students aware of various character strengths and to help them to understand what character strengths are and to guide them to identify their own signature strength/s. Teachers have also shared introductory activities with our students that includes recognising strengths in others. 

The Year 3 Assembly item today was purposely put together to enable the Primary community to reflect on character strengths. Certificates were distributed using key words, such as, teamwork, love of learning and creativity.

Our Year Six Leaders have also been roaming around the playground at break times spotting character strengths in action and then distributing ‘matching’ strength stickers.

Together we are collectively responsible for the building and maintenance of a positive school culture. Let’s all continue to encourage the students to use and show Character Strengths such as, forgiveness, self-control, curiosity, kindness, friendship, leadership, fairness, teamwork, enthusiasm, perseverance, honesty, humour, hope, bravery and gratitude.

Kind regards,

Antoinette De Pinto

Head of Primary

House Day 

On Friday 4 June we are celebrating Primary House Day. This involves the students participating in activities to learn about the House founders of John XXIII College and to commemorate the House to which they will belong throughout their time at the College.

On the day the students are required to wear their House shirt and sports shorts.  They will need to bring their morning tea, lunch and water bottle.

As part of our celebrations for Primary House Day, each class will be participating in a special incursion or sporting excursion.

The students and staff are going to have a wonderful time on Primary House Day.

Super Stars

Well done to all the students who received a certificate for their fantastic achievements.

Magnificent Mathematicians 

In Term 2, the Year 5 and 6 Problem Solving students participated in the Computational and Algorithmic Thinking Competition coordinated by the Australian Maths Trust. This national competition is designed to encourage curiosity and promote multiple modes of thinking. The questions tested the students’ ability to accurately perform procedures and challenged them to identify and apply algorithms, in order to correctly solve problems.

We had some very pleasing results in the competition, with 4 certificates of Distinction and 1 certificate of High Distinction being awarded to our Primary students.

Congratulations to Felix McGinty (5G), Charles O’Toole (5G), Joshua Macfarlane (6G) and Lydia Defrancesco (6G) who each achieved a certificate of Distinction, placing them in the top 5% of their year level, Australia wide.

A very special congratulations to Sam Gooch (6G) who achieved a certificate of High Distinction, placing him in the top 2% of his year, and the Best in School award.

Well done to all students who participated in this competition.  Students will receive their Certificates in class next week. 

Dates to Remember

Please check the College Website to note all the important Primary school events for your family calendar. http://www.johnxxiii.edu.au/view/for-parents/calendars

200 Years of Catholic Education 

On Monday, Liam Burns (6B) and I joined Miss De Pinto & Mrs Negus to represent the College at the National Mass for Catholic Education, celebrating 200 years of Catholic Education at St Mary’s Cathedral.

We attended along with other representatives from Catholic schools and met the Archbishop of Perth, priests and others who took part in the celebration. The pipe organ was played at the Mass accompanied by beautiful singing. At the end of the Mass each school was given a candle to take back. 

It was a beautiful celebration and I enjoyed going to the Cathedral and taking part in the Mass as it was an honour to represent the College. Celebrating this important event was fun and I loved every minute of it!

Anashe Marerwa (6G)

PPP is for Plaster!

Our Kindy students learnt all about the Letter P this week and our Parent volunteer, Dr Pat came to visit and showed the Kindy children the latest techniques in bandaging for plaster casts. 

A GATE Day Out

On Tuesday the Year 6 GATE students embarked on an illustrious adventure to Loreto Primary School to talk with the United Nations Youth Representative for Australia; Lucy Stronach! Other schools included Newman College, Holy Spirit and St Domenic’s.

As gifted minds permeated the room, we were all here to give our views of how to decipher Global issues. We shared our opinions on World issues, large and minuscule, about ‘Abuse’, ‘Freedom of Speech’, ‘Equality’, ‘Education’ and ‘Climate Change’.

After 10 minutes of incredible conversations, we split into groups to tackle our own important dilemma we believed needed to be unravelled.  Charlie, Chris and I decided to take the problem of disadvantages to people with Autism and other Disabilities.  With the ideas we comprised, our view was that more open-ended creative jobs needed to be opened for people affected by this. We also believe that many schools must unveil a program, which helps people with these disabilities; like Mary Ward. Finally, we thought that discrimination in the work field must stop as this is causing a large number of mental health and bullying instances. For us, we believe that disabilities were a different ability and that we need to listen to others who think differently, as they could help solve our issues. As a group, we concluded that the government should provide funds to make these jobs and programs happen.

After this mind-provoking task, we all handed in our worksheets and completed a survey from Lucy’s team ready to send to the UN.  In this survey, we were asked about the biggest dilemmas for us and how we can solve them. As we left Loreto, we were all happy to have been part of the incredible talk and we were grateful to have been given the opportunity through our wonderful school, John XXIII College. 

Sports Update

Year 5 & 6 Winter Sports

Another fun and successful round of matches for our Year 5 & 6 sports teams.  This week they played against Carmel School in Netball, AFL and Soccer.  The Hockey teams had a training session to hone their skills for next week’s away matches against Newman College.  

Cross Country Training 

We have had a fantastic turn out this week for Cross Country training.  Thursday morning looked slightly different with Alistair Murray (WAIS Hockey athlete) taking the runners through some speed, agility and quickness activities to start the session.  It was well received by the 50 runners (and some parents!) who all had smiles on their faces at 7:30am on a brisk morning!  All Year 3 to 6 students, parents and younger siblings are welcome (a parent must stay with the session if a younger sibling is participating).

Training takes place on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 7:30am to 8am in the St Louis Sports Centre (Gym) and the Canteen is available for students to purchase items after training. 

Mr Steve Williams

Primary Sport Coordinator

Music

Year 3 Performance

Congratulations to the Year 3 students who performed in today’s assembly. The students have worked hard in Music this term to prepare and practice the item, learning about ostinatos, parodies, playing as an ensemble, keeping a steady tempo, the importance of practice, and performance etiquette. In doing so, they also demonstrated many of the character strengths that they sang about today. 

Primary Choirs

Congratulations to the students in Wanju Voices who performed at St Joseph’s Church in Subiaco at Pentecost last weekend. The students were excellent ambassadors for the College, and there were many wonderful comments from Monsignor Long, the parishioners, and the parents of the children who were received the Sacrament of Confirmation during this Mass. 

Music Eisteddfod Entries

Entries for the Music Eisteddfod are now open and will take place during the day from Sunday 13 June to Monday 14 June (timetable for specific sessions and instruments is to be confirmed). This is a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their hard work.

Students who learn an instrument at the College will have their entry arranged by their Music tutor. Primary students who learn an instrument outside of school and who would like to participate are to use the link below to submit their entry.  Entries close at 4pm on Wednesday 2 June 2021.

https://forms.johnxxiii.edu.au/Forms/Music-Eisteddfod

An accompanist will be provided for students as required and rehearsal times will be arranged closer to the date. 

If you have any queries regarding Primary music, please contact me via email catherine.haydon@cewa.edu.au

Mrs Catherine Haydon

Primary Music Teacher

Inspire - Cyber Safety Education Session for Parents

Protecting children in their digital worlds is an ever-evolving task for Australian families. Now more than ever parents are looking for guidance in how to manage screen time and navigate the world of games and social media.

The Parents’ Association is pleased to help our parent community by offering a crucial and engaging education session with ySafe, Australia’s leading provider of cyber safety education. This practical, strategy-rich session will cover the most important points that all families need to know about online safety, covering key information about social media and gaming, screen time recommendations and step-by-step instructions on how to set up a cyber safe home for kids of all ages.

If you’ve ever struggled with getting your children off their games and into bed, worried about the content of the games that they are playing or felt concerned that your child was spending too much time in the digital world, this workshop is for you! The session covers information for parents with students in Kindergarten to Year 12.

The session will take place on Tuesday 8 June at 7:00pm in the Gonzaga Barry Lecture Theatre.

Please register for this event here https://www.trybooking.com/763942 

Jodi Mills

Inspire Parent Education Coordinator