From the Principal

St Justin’s Primary School acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as Australia's First People and Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways on which our school stands.

We pay our respects to the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, and their elders past and present, and emerging as we continue to proudly live and learn on their land.

St Justin's Primary School - Celebrating 40 years of Catholic Education

Dear Families and Friends, 

We thank you for another busy and rewarding term. I wish to thank all staff for their commitment and tireless efforts on behalf of your children. I’d also like to thank all those who do so much to help our community to thrive – very much appreciated. We wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing break with your families. Stay safe.

Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal

Thanks to all those who were able to support our Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal - we had a great response which was greatly received by the St Vincent de Paul Society of Victoria. It will certainly help many families. The donations were collected Monday by Noel and his wife. A letter of appreciation is attached.

Student Wellbeing 

Throughout their childhood, children experience a variety of illnesses, bugs and viruses. Whilst it is impossible to protect our children from them all, there are certain things we can do to help:

• Make regular checks and take appropriate action for ‘nasties’ – headlice, coughs and colds, worms, etc.
• Inform the school if any ‘nasties’ are found
• Talk to your child about good hygienic practices.

The holidays can be a good time to check on these things.

Year 1L Assembly

Today Year 1L presented their assembly to the whole school. They shared with us some of their learnings around The Resilience Project, especially GEM - Gratitude (which is paying attention to what I have), Empathy (which is understanding how other people feel), and Mindfulness (which is being calm and present in any given moment).

The Year 1s then told us about Dunsin, who lives in a little village in the far north of India. The village has no running water or electricity. Dunsin recognises little things in his day that he is grateful for. But because Dunsin doesn’t speak English very well, he says ‘dis’ instead of ‘this’ when he points to what he is thankful for. “Dis”, Dunsin says as he points to his shoes. “Dis!”, as he eats his rice for lunch every day.

The Year 1 assembly was a strong reminder that we should be grateful for the things we have, and not take the simple things for granted. 

Fair on the Hill - student participation

Whilst our Annual Fair on the Hill is still some time away (Saturday 9th November 11:00am - 4:00pm) there has been an amazing amount of planning going on. 

Once again, we are offering the students from Years 3-6 the opportunity to run their own stalls. On the day (depending of how many student stalls we have) we plan to run these from:

• Group 1: 11:00am - 12:00pm then
• Group 2: 1:00pm - 2:00pm

The holidays are a good time to think about possible stall options. More details will be available next term.

Our School Choir, Guitar Ensemble, Drumming Beats and the St Justin's Aerobics Team will also perform  - a timetable will be sent next term to help parents plan their volunteering options. We also welcome performances from outside the school - contact Mr T for further enquiries.

As always, we still welcome any new ideas (although many things have had to be locked in already) and we would love any extra support.

St Justin's 40th Anniversary Celebrations

Thanks to everyone for your contributions to our 40th Anniversary Celebrations. 

Celebrations of our 40th Anniversary are being planned for October. If you have any memorabilia, photos or stories they would like to share with us, please contact the office or email office@sjwheelershill.catholic.edu.au

Use of Photographs

Thanks to all the families who have completed the permission forms to use (or not to use) photos.  As many of our families have requested that photos not be used, especially on Social Media (which includes our newsletter which is published online) it will be very challenging to use group photos in the future.  Our newsletter may look a little different, but I'm sure it will still be a great read.

Please remember that if at any stage you take a group photo of students, it should not be published online unless permission has been granted.

All the best,

Pat

Mr Patrick Torpey

Principal