A message from Emily

Dear parents and carers

What a wonderful fortnight we have had as a St John's community. We've had our Parent Trivia Night, the Centenary Twilight event and our Family Maths Night, Kinder visits, basketball and AFL clinics, acknowledging Diwali and World Teachers' Day and tomorrow we have our Grandparents Day. We feel lucky to have managed all this despite the wet weather we are experiencing at the moment. These opportunities have allowed us to gather and interact with each other and help your children feel more connected to their school because their families are involved. 

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the planning committee behind our Centenary Celebration for all the work they put in over the last 6 months to make this event possible for everyone. A huge thank to Karen Dodemaide, Bess Naughtin, Dani DeLuca, Esther Navarro-Orejon, Erin Jenkins and Annelie Fowlie who gave their time to meet out of school hours to organise our Twilight Evening. 

Thank you to the parents who helped on the night cooking sausages and raising $391.45 that we will donate to people affected by the recent floods. To the families who purchased some of our Farm produce on the night, thank you and we hope you enjoyed it. $36.10 raised from these sales will go back into purchasing seeds and seedlings to grow next in our garden beds.

Thank you to Millie and her Baby Elephant team for providing the option for families to order delicious food. I would also like to thank the St John's staff who gave their own time to support this event. In times where lots of schools are experiencing a "No More Freebies" campaign as industrial action in relation to our ongoing enterprise bargaining agreement, we are lucky to have so much support from our staff. When we hold events like this, outside of school hours, it is the staff volunteering and giving of their own time and not time they are being paid for. Without this support, events like the ones we have had this fortnight would not have been possible. 

This week, it is with sadness that we announce Rosie's news. Please see her message to the community below. We feel very lucky to have found Rosie and have been impressed with her maturity and dedication as a graduate teacher taking on her first teaching position. Rosie has formed positive relationships with children, parents and staff during her 12 months at St John's. We wish Rosie all the best as embarks on her new adventure in the the UK and safe travels through Europe.

To The St John’s Community,

I am both excited and sad to announce that I will not be returning to St John’s in 2023 as I have decided to move overseas to London at the beginning of next year. I wanted to thank all staff, students and families for making my first year of teaching better than I ever could have imagined. This year of teaching has been nothing short of fantastic.

I have learnt so much in my year at St John’s and have been so inspired by my fellow educators, what amazing people you all are to learn from. To the children of St John’s, you have filled my first year with so much joy and endless smiles, you make this amazing job even better. I would also like to thank the families of St John’s who have made me feel so welcome within this community from the very first day.

I will hold nothing but the fondest memories of St John’s with me on my next adventure!                         

Rosie

You may have noticed we have had new signage installed at each of our gates along Essex and Eleanor Streets, including the Farm. These signs identify each gate with a number as well as directing visitors to our Reception and main entrance. Our Gate 1 sign was designed so that people travelling up or down Eleanor Street can easily identify who we are and visitors know where to report to when they arrive.  We also hope this helps to set up a meeting place for you and your children by identifying gates by their number. We will look at updating our signs along Everard Street next year. 

On Friday last week, I received our results from the MACSSIS Survey completed by parents, children and staff. The Leadership Team will be unpacking this information in our upcoming 2023 planning days to inform our priorities for next year, what we need to continue doing and areas we need to think differently about or dig deeper to learn more. Once we have had a chance to look at this information we will share this with the community. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete this survey. I would also like to thank the parents who responded to the St John's Farm Parent Survey. Tim O'Leary has started to collate this information and we will also share what we have learnt with the community in the coming weeks.

In previous newsletters I have mentioned that we are looking to partner with The Resilience Project (TRP) in 2023. I can confirm that we have started to work with the team at TRP and met with Courtney online last week. This will be a whole school focus next year and it will link in to our Social-Emotional Learning and our Berry Street approaches at St John's. I will share more information with the community around what this all means next year, but in the meantime I invite you to find out more about TRP via TRP@Home.

Just a reminder that Monday is a School Closure day and Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup Public holiday. I like to wish you all a wonderful long weekend and hope that you get to spend time doing the things that bring you energy and joy.

Emily