Principal's Report
Message from the Principal
Dear Parents and Carers,
What an incredible Term this has been! Together we were able to teach and learn creatively and productively. Our students have worked incredibly hard to continue their learning and maintain growth across all subject areas. Our Reading assessments show that students have been able to learn successfully online and not fall behind.
I am so proud of our incredible staff who worked tirelessly throughout the days, nights and weekends, to plan, create, video, assess and give feedback to all of our students.
We have maintained communication and connection through countless Google Meets, emails, newsletters, assemblies, forums, conferences, focus groups and phone calls. I am confident that our students will continue to sustain their learning and develop skills that will support them into the future.
We are excited to be welcoming back our Year Prep to 2 students on 12 October and hope that Year 3-4 students will be returning soon after. Thank-you parents and carers for continuing to support your child's learning at home. I know that it has been incredibly challenging for many families and we will do everything that we can to support you in Term 4.
Parent/Teacher/Student Learning Conferences
Tomorrow night we will be running our Parent/Teacher/Student Leraning Conferences via Google Meet. You should have received your class link from the class teacher. Please use your own email to log in and not your child's email. This will enable the teacher to admit you in so that the conference prior to yours is not interrupted.
Remote Learning Feedback
Please complete the attached survey to give us your feedback on Remote Learning for Term 3. The survey is designed to be a quick and rapid capture of learnings while the experience is fresh with the data providing valuable insights into supporting remote learning and feedback for organisational learning and ultimately for improvements in student learning.
School Fees
Credits have been made to your accounts for activities and excursion levies that haven't taken place throughout the year and are unlikely to be happening before the end of the year.
St John's Talent Show
We are recieving a great collection of videos featuring our students and their amaizng talents. We have magic acts, dancers, singers and gamers. Don't forget to send in your video for judging this week.
Walk to School Day
Last Friday 11 September was Walk to School Day. We encouraged all students to walk past the school to collect a sunflower seedling to grow in their garden. It was wonderful to see so many families out walking and enoying the Spring weather.
St John's Trivia Night
This Saturday 19 September at 7pm, we will be running an online Trivia Night. It should be fun for all the family. Questions will be via Kahoot which most students are familiar with and can be accessed on your phone or tablet on kahoot.it. Your computer can be used to join the Google Meet to begin the night and to see the questions. Peter Hanson will be our Host for the evening. There are prizes to be won and fun to be had so please join us!
Parent and Carers Forums
Thank-you to the parents and families who were able to join us for the 3 Parent Forums. They provided some great feedback on the challenges and success stories of Remote Learning. We have been able to adjust our programs over the past few weeks in response to some of your feedback.
Jokes of the week
Why didn't the invisible man take the job?
He couldn't see himself doing it.
Why couldn't the bike stand up by itself?
Because it was two tyred.
Alumni - Ben Crowe
I was delighted to discover that mentor to the Winning Richmond team in 2017 was Ben Crowe, a past student at St. John's. He is currently mentoring Ash Barty and Stephanie Gilmore, among many other very successful people. Find out more on our website https://www.sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au/about/alumni
Have a great week and stay positive!
Verona Gridley
Principal
vgridley@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au