Learning & Teaching

Lisa Burman Visit

Last week the children and educators at St John’s had the incredible opportunity to work with Lisa Burman, a pedagogical coach in Writing, to learn new strategies to teach and explore writing concepts through a Discovery lens. 

Lisa was blown away by our community of writers and their amazing story ideas, books they had created and different writing techniques that they were trialling and using. She commented on how privileged she felt to have spent time working with and chatting to the amazing writers at St John’s. 

As part of our annual action plan, our learning focus this year in building our writing process at St John’s. To support this, Lisa worked with and planned with the educators to form our writing approach, and continue to build our community of writers. 

In Term 3, Lisa will come for her second visit to St John’s to continue to work with the educators and children to build and refine our writing approach. 

Faith Sacrament Dates

Term 2 - Sacrament of Confirmation (Year 6 children)

• Family Faith Formation Night Thursday 25th May 6pm @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone
• Presentation of candidates of Confirmation - Sunday 4th June 10am @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone
• Sacrament of Confirmation - Thursday 8th June 5:30pm @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone

Term 3 - First Communion (Year 3 children)

• Family Faith Formation Night Thursday 27th July 6pm @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone 
• Presentation of candidates of First Communion - Saturday 5th Aug 5pm @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone

Sacrament of Eucharist - Saturday 12th Aug 5pm @ Our Lady’s Church Maidstone

Digital Safety & Wellbeing

Resources from Inform & Empower’s Raising Kids in a Digital World information session are available to all St John’s families. The webinar replay will be available for a couple more weeks so be sure to check it out if you haven’t already. 

Marty is a leading cyber safety educator and Carley is a psychologist (and mother of 3 school-aged children) so they are an extremely interesting and helpful combination!

Parent Toolkit/Resources

Available for the entire year

Webinar Replay

Available for 30 days

Password: may2023

Students in Years 1-6 have also just participated in Inform & Empower’s Term 2 Live Streamed Incursions. These digital incursions happen every term, which gives students and educators an opportunity to deep dive into different aspects of Digital Safety & Wellbeing. This term’s focus was digital health and wellbeing. For a breakdown of what each group focused on and a link to a helpful tip sheet for parents and carers, see below:

Years 1/2

• Balancing screen time with green time
• Healthy digital habits
• Putting down the tech
  Parent Tip Sheet

Years 3/4

• Balancing screen time
• Healthy digital habits
• How different tech makes us feel
  Parent Tip Sheet

Years 5/6

• Balancing screen time
• Building a healthy relationship with tech 
• Why it can be difficult to put down devices
  Parent Tip Sheet

‘Embrace Kids’ Screening - Sun Theatre, Yarraville

Inform & Empower is also hosting a screening of ‘Embrace Kids’ at the Sun Theatre in the next school holidays. Embrace Kids is an uplifting film by 2023 Australian of the Year, Taryn Brumfitt. It brings together a vibrant collection of stories from young people and famous friends alike, who share their experiences about body image, bullying, gender identity, advocacy, representation and more.

This film aims to improve the body image of young people across Australia and the world. Aimed at an audience of 9- 14 year olds, but equally engaging for adolescents, teachers, and parents, this film inspires, educates, and advocates for a world where we are not held back by the thoughts we have about the way we look. Instead, young people are encouraged to figure out what makes them unique and special, and use that to spark change. 

EMBRACE KIDS

Tuesday 4 July, 12PM 

The Sun Theatre8 Ballarat St, Yarraville

Adults: $20 

Children: $15

For more details and to purchase tickets, head to the Eventbrite page For more details about the Embrace Collective, click here.

Engaging with Place (Farm)

Last week at the farm the children harvested some delicious Bok choy  and cooked a healthy stir fry to share. We would like to share our recipe with you so you could make this quick and easy, delicious and healthy stir fry at home.

Bok Choy Stir- Fry

Ingredients

• Baby bok choy  
• Grated ginger
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Soy sauce (for serving)
• Cooked rice (for serving) 

Method

1. Cut and wash bok choy.
2. Crush garlic
3. Grate ginger
4. Place the pan on the stove with olive oil to heat. 
5. Add garlic, ginger and bok choy
6. Stir bok choy for 1 -2 minutes for crunchy bok choy or a little longer for well done.
7. Serve on a bed of rice with soy sauce 

We hope that you enjoy the recipe and look forward to your feedback.