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, as we continue to proudly live and learn on their land.

Dear Families and Friends,  

We hope you've had a great week.

Thanks for all your ongoing support for the various things happening within our community, including the special lunches, Trivia Night (free dress today for hampers), Confirmation (coming up in the next few weeks), Rosies (tea, coffee and milo donations), Fair on the Hill (sponsors and volunteers currently required), Student Led Conferences, assemblies, excursions and much more. Whilst these are often seen as wonderful social events, they are important events which help build community and set a great example for our students. As always, we greatly apprecaited the support from and for each other.

Feast Of The Assumption - Tuesday 15th August

On Tuesday 15th August we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, 

the mother of God. We celebrate Mary’s passing from this world into the glory of God. 

We remember that Mary had great faith in God. She trusted God even when things were difficult. She also trusted her Son, Jesus, and knew that he was a special gift from God. 

We pray that we are inspired by Mary’s life and that we will see her as a model of faith and trust in God.

Prayer

Gracious and generous God, 

you chose Mary who was faithful and true to be the mother of Jesus. 

Mary taught Jesus to be faithful, trusting and loving and to believe that God was always with him. 

May we be inspired by Mary’s constant hope and faith in you, 

always believing and always trusting in your goodness. 

We ask this through Jesus, your Son. 

Amen.

Remembering Fr Michael Wheeler

Today is the anniversary of Fr Michael Wheeler, our founding Parish Priest. Fr Mick passed away on 11th August 2020 at Epworth Hospital. He was aged 82 years.

Fr Wheeler was ordained a Catholic priest at St Patrick’s Cathedral, East Melbourne on 22 May 1971.  He was appointed Assistant Priest at Belmont (December 1971 – March 1972), Collingwood (1972), Jordanville (1975), Manifold (1978) and Newport (1979). He was then appointed as Chaplain to the Repatriation Hospital, Heidelberg in 1981 and then appointed Parish Priest of the newly established parish of Wheelers Hill in 1986.  In 2016, Fr Wheeler retired and was appointed Pastor Emeritus. 

Fr Wheeler was Parish Priest of St Justin’s for 30 years. In that time, he built a school, a Parish House and a beautiful Church. But more importantly, he built a Christ centred community, rich in love, care and compassion. 

We continue to be grateful for the amazing work of Fr Mick - may we have the courage, dedication and commitment to continue his great work. 

School Review

Over the last few weeks, our school has undergone our School Review. The School Review takes place every four years for all Catholic Schools and has two dimensions: 

1. Improvement: supports self-assessment and reflection of performance and growth in school improvement and informs planning for future growth. 
2. Compliance: an audit/verification process of the minimum standards for school registration and other State and Commonwealth requirements for Catholic schools is conducted for all schools engaging in the process of school review.

Mrs Mary Bourke, our School Reviewer from Valadsolutions, has spent a number of days over the last few weeks validating our data and self-assessment, in order to help our school develop and implement a new four-year School Improvement Plan (SIP). Mary will feed back to the leadership team on the 5th October. 

Hoop Time

Today our Year 6 students participated in the Wellington District Hoop Time Tournament  at Knox Stadium, Boronia. By all reports they all had a great day.

Thanks to all involved.

Update: Congratulations to all teams, especially to the All Star Girls who took out the grand final is an absolute nailbiter. The game went to overtime and the girls triumphed by 3 points. 

There was heart break for our All Star Boys team who went down by a solitary point in their Grand Final. They showed fantastic team work along with grit and determination right to the end. 

Our Future Stars and Rookie Teams enjoyed great results throughout the day as well. The most pleasing thing was everyone giving it their all and in some cases trying a new sport for the very first time. 

Thank you to the attending staff who helped manage and coach the teams on the day. 

Henny Penny

As part of the whole-school curriculum focus this term, ‘Relationships’, the Preps have been learning about how living things grow and change over time. On Monday we welcomed some chicken eggs to St. Justin's to help us to develop this understanding. We have been waiting patiently and have been lucky enough to see some of the chicks hatch throughout the week.

Have a look at our eggcellent photos to see the learning and fun we are having with our chicks!

Year 4PD Assembly

4PD were excited to have the opportunity to share our learning from Term 2 at our assembly this morning. Our Inquiry unit called ‘How are we called to change?’ gave us the opportunity to investigate how change can affect a state of matter and ultimately, change our environment and the way we live.

We researched changes in temperature, changes in our environment and how we are called to change, and presented our findings through Book Creator. We each designed our own digital books to showcase our learning which we added to during the term. 

We represented the states of matter through art by creating our own versions of a solid, liquid and gas. We used paper and oil pastels.

Conducting science experiments was a highlight during this unit.  We did a number of experiments such as melting ice, freezing solids and water filtration. The results were very surprising! When we freeze a liquid it turns into a solid and when we heat a solid it turns into a liquid.

As part of writing, we learned to write detailed procedures and experiments. We wrote a hypothesis, the materials we used, listed our steps in order and recorded results of the experiments we did. 

Changes in temperature affect our environment too. There are some major changes happening in the world right now; deforestation, global warming, the rising of sea levels and pollution.

But there are many things we can do to slow down global warming and protect our beautiful planet. Saving energy, planting more trees, reduce, reuse and recycle are  small but powerful actions we can all take. We are all called to change, so let’s become the heroes our planet needs and spread the word! Our future is in our hands. 

Student Code of Conduct Form

It is now a requirement from MACS (Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools) that all students who attend a Catholic school complete the Students Code of Conduct. Our prep families have already completed this form.

Staff will go through this form with the Year 1 to Year 6 students and clearly explain the expectations of  acceptable and unacceptable behaviours at school. Students will need to sign this document and bring it home for parents/guardians to read over and also sign and date.

This document ensure that students, parents/guardians and teaching staff all have the same understanding of the expectations around being enrolled in a Catholic School.

All Code of Conduct forms need to be returned to the classroom teacher one week after the form has been sent home.

We appreciate your cooperation in regards to the initiative that has been implemented by MACS.

School Fees

A reminder that all School Fees are due to be finalised by Tuesday 31st October. 

By families keeping up with payments or organising for assistance this allows us to maintain activities and programs we already have in place at St. Justin's. We would greatly appreciate your support in regard to this matter.

As is our ongoing practice, should any family’s financial situation have changed, please contact Patrick Torpey or office staff on 9561 7644 or email office@sjwheelershill.catholic.edu.au

Where's  Mr T

Can you find Mr T? He's hiding somewhere in the newsletter.

Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you all next week.

Kind regards,

Mr Patrick Torpey

Principal