A message from Emily

Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back to a new term. I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable break. 

Over the holidays, we made important progress on our scheduled building works. 

As you walk through the school, you will now see that a significant portion of the terracotta roof tiles on top of the school hall building have been removed, greatly reducing the weight bearing on the existing roof trusses. 

In parallel to this, electrical and data cables running through the ceiling cavity have been re-routed. 

Following the completion of this work, independent assessors will then need to confirm that the site is structurally sound and safe for our children and staff to return. With this reassurance, we expect that our 5/6 Hub, and staff, will resume onsite learning at St John’s much earlier than we anticipated. I will be able to confirm an exact date late next week along with plans of how this will work.  

Thank you for your ongoing patience and support during this period of improvement. 

We look forward to having our children back at St John’s very soon. 

Last night we hosted a Reading Information Evening with our Prep families. This was an opportunity to learn more about our approach to teaching reading. Our approach is underpinned by important research and guided by MACS Vision for Instruction. We are grateful for these family partnerships, which contribute to positive growth for our children. I would also like to thank Lauren Davis, Amy Littley and Jenna Gladman for their planning and leadership in offering this opportunity.

This afternoon, the children in Years 3 and 5, who participated in the NAPLAN assessments, will be sent home with a sealed envelope containing their NAPLAN report. I have also emailed parents of the children a link to support understanding what this report means. I would like to congratulate all the children involved for their persistence and resilience. 

As part of the 5/6 Art program, the children have been working on an artist research project. Part of the project was to create an original art piece using a digital platform, (eg GoogleDraw or Canva), to create a digital collage inspired by their artist. The below pieces have been created by some of our children and I have included their explanations based on their learning from this project.

In art we focused on collage artists then researching some of their artworks. Once we did that we went on and made a our own collage. My collage is a 50 dollar note that is made out of a bunch woman playing sports. I made a 50 dollar note to represent the pay gap between men and a women and how women not really getting paid as much as men in sports. Derek Gores, the artist I researched and used to inspire my collage, mostly creates collages with big meanings behind them and a lot of them are about woman and girls. (Freya Morris)

This digital collage is inspired and similar to the artwork “Tilly Losch” by Joseph Cornell. I took notice that Joseph’s art has frames around them, 3D items and a basic representation but with a deeper meaning. (Alana Nguyen)

I made an artwork inspired by the bombing of Guernica just like how Pablo Picasso did. I wanted to make it look totally crazy. Now it actually looks more like the bombing of Guernica than the one Pablo Picasso made because Picasso’s one looked more like cannibalism. I even put a woman silhouette and made it green to look like the weeping woman. (Jacob Lian) 

Feast Day Celebrations:

We will be celebrating St. Mary MacKillop's Feast Day as a whole school on Friday 8 August. We celebrate Mary MacKillop every year because our school's history is deeply connected to the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. This order, founded by Mary MacKillop, guided and led St. John's for 77 years, until the end of 1999. The feast day of our namesake, St. John the Evangelist, falls on December 27th, which makes it difficult for us to acknowledge during the school year.

Mary MacKillop holds a special place in the hearts of Australians for her spirit of self-reliance, her dedication to helping the most vulnerable, and her resilience. She founded Australia's first homegrown order of nuns and was a champion for social justice, providing free education to poor children in rural and remote areas. Her canonisation in 2010 as the first Australian saint was a moment of national pride, formally recognising her life of faith, compassion, and service.

We have some exciting things planned for the day! We will begin with a liturgy, followed by house group activities focused on Irene, Alex, Flora, and Malachi, and their connection to St. Mary MacKillop. There will be a special lunch available for parents to order, and a surprise party at the end of the day. It will be a great day for us all to be together and celebrate as a community. More information with further details about this special day will be sent home soon.

Reminders :

Building works have highlighted the importance of our after-school duty staff. Their role is to supervise children leaving through the gates, making sure they are with a parent or carer, or that we are aware they are a child with permission to walk home alone.

This means the staff on duty cannot actively supervise children who are playing. We will remind children next week that they should not be playing in the backyard or Joan's Yard after school. If you'd like to arrange playdates, please use the farm area across the street where you can supervise your children directly. 

We've noticed an increase in students wearing non-uniform caps, jumpers, shorts and tracksuit pants to school. While we understand that a one-off is sometimes necessary, especially with unpredictable weather and clothing not drying, we want to remind everyone that students should be wearing items from our school uniform.

Any clothing with a school logo must be purchased through Spartan Uniforms. For bottoms like shorts, tracksuits, skirts, or trousers, please ensure they are plain ink navy with no logos. You can buy these from any retailer you prefer.

We also have a selection of second-hand uniform items available from the school office. The 5/6 students have been assisting (and will return) with their Uniform Swap for a gold coin donation - proceeds go towards ASRC. 

 We appreciate your cooperation in supporting us with this.  

Warm regards

Emily

OUR IMAGE OF THE CHILD

‘At St. John’s, we strongly believe that children are at the centre when given authentic and meaningful experiences. They flourish when their passions and interests are acknowledged and valued. Children are empowered when they take ownership for their learning. They have a right to develop autonomy through discovery.’

(St. John’s Staff, 2018)

We respectfully acknowledge the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation as the owners of the land on which we live, play and learn at St John's Primary School, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

All students attending St. John's Primary School have the right to feel safe. The care, safety and wellbeing of children and young people is a fundamental responsibility of all within our school.