Around The Primary

Dear Parents

It is a busy time at school and preparations are now well underway for the new academic year. It has been very pleasing to see so many parents at our Kindy Parent Information Evening. Sincere thanks to those parents who provided the teachers with such positive feedback about the Meeting and Orientation session.

On Wednesday evening the College hosted our annual Presentation Evening here in the St Louis Sports Centre.  It is such a wonderful opportunity to proclaim our identity as a community and affirm the great work of our staff and students throughout 2019. At this important event the Primary Singers and Wanju Voices confidently shared their singing skills under the wonderful direction of Mrs Haydon.

Congratulations to the recipients of the 2019 awards for Year 6.  We are very proud of their wonderful achievements.

Today was our final Primary assembly for this school year. Thank you to Mrs Edwards and our Year 2B students for preparing this fantastic Christmas assembly.

Special thanks to all the staff for all the hard work they put into preparing the students for assemblies throughout the year.  We have had a range of assembly item themes but, there has always been a constant; the sheer enjoyment students have in presenting their songs, dances, poems, plays etc to the school community.

 I would also like to thank all the parents who have supported the children and the staff at these various assemblies as this has helped to build a sense of community within our school.

Today we also bid a sad farewell to Mrs Morell, our Primary Music teacher. After 17 years at John XXIII College, Mrs Morell is leaving us to embark upon her well-deserved retirement. During her time at the College, Mrs Morell has been responsible for the production of sixteen musicals, as well as, teaching classroom music, choir training, providing piano accompaniment for assemblies and choir performances, teaching drumming and recorder and coordinating items for assemblies.

We thank Mrs Morell for her wonderful contribution to the Primary School over these years and wish her every happiness in retirement.

Our Year 6 Farewell Mass will be held on Tuesday 10 December, beginning at 9:00am in the Chapel. All parents and friends of our school community are invited to join with us as we farewell our Year 6 students and offer our thanks to God for the many achievements and blessings that shared with us throughout their Primary School years.

This weekend is the First Sunday of Advent and so we begin our period of anticipation and preparation for Christmas.

Kind regards,

Antoinette De Pinto

Head of Primary

Super Stars

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

Dates to Remember

Save the Date - 15 February 2020

Art Excellence

Congratulations to Sophie Litic (4B) and Sofia Lamattina (6B) who entered photos in the Oz Kids Young Australian Art Awards.  Both students work was chosen to receive the Gold Medal Award for achieving runner-up in their respective section. Sophie in the Junior Photography section and Sofia in the Middle Photography section.

Game Changer Awards

Over the weekend the Year Four and Five GATE students participated in the Game Changer Awards.  These Awards celebrate and recognise digital excellence in schools and their students in STEM.  We had six teams competing to work on great problems and amazing solutions. These included:

• Water filters for a village in Madagascar;
• Pipeline and filter from the ocean to help drought plagued farmers;
• A biorhythm watch connected to a robot to help the elderly feel less isolated;
• Increasing the population of the Loggerhead Turtles by protective nests and an underground pipeline to allow the hatchlings to travel safely to the ocean;
• A power grid that is inserted into the walls of new houses that would store electricity and a switch that turns off all unnecessary power when you leave the house so power would become cheaper for everyone.

Our winners of the ‘Best Use of STEM’ in the Year 3/ 4 Category was ‘The Green Team’ - The LCM Organic Food Locator.  They created an app which uses the location services on your phone to find the cheapest and closest organic produce.

The students are to be commended for their enthusiasm, presentation skills and how they conducted themselves on the day.

Mrs Tara Purcell

Primary Digital Technologies and GATE Teacher

Sports Update

IPSHA T20 Cricket Blast

 Our Year 6 budding cricketers had a great time on Thursday at the IPSHA T20 Blast Carnival.  There was some extremely exciting cricket; some big hits; great catches; fast bowling and sharp fielding.  The outcome of two of the boys’ games was decided on the last ball of the match (and we were lucky enough to be on the right side!).  It was a hot day but I was so impressed with the enthusiasm and sportsmanship shown by our students.  Well done to all!