Learning
Learning & Teaching/Wellbeing/Faith & Farm
Seesaw Schedule
Hi families, Over the coming weeks, you will notice that our Seesaw Learning Posts have been created in collaboration with our children. The posts will feature a reflection of a piece of work that they believe shows their current achievement and “next steps” in their learning. As always, each post will be based on our learning progressions, which have been adapted from the Victorian F-10 Curriculum. We believe that this process will strengthen your child’s voice and agency in talking about their learning and progress. This is a trial process that we will evaluate and refine its effectiveness at the end of the year. We look forward to sharing the children’s reflections and goals for their learning! St. John’s team. |
NAPLAN
To our current NAPLAN families,
Our children in Years Three and Five will be participating in the NAPLAN tests that will be held from Tuesday the 10th of May until Friday the 20th of May. As always, we are incredibly proud of our Literacy and Numeracy data, and the learning growth that children achieve each Semester. We are also equally proud of all the things that these results do not measure and that equally deserve celebration.
NAPLAN does not measure how creative and kind our children are. It does not measure how resilient and persistent they are. It does not know all that we as families and educators are lucky enough to know your child’s interests, their love of sport or their siblings, their kind, brave and gentle nature. It does not know that your child greets their peers and educators in the morning with a “hello” and a smile or that they are showing incredible growth in their guitar lessons. We are lucky enough to know those qualities.
At St. John’s we place our kids at the heart, and celebrate and continue to grow these qualities, alongside our academic results.
We wish the children who are sitting NAPLAN this year all the best, and we will look forward to celebrating their growth and achievement with them.The children’s NAPLAN results will be received and shared with their families in Term Three.
Literacy
Literacy Design
Educators met last week to design learning for Literacy. Here is a snapshot of some of the learning experiences children will be engaging in over the coming weeks.
Bookmaking
Children in P-2 are Bookmaking! Bookmaking is a great strategy for building a connection to reading via joyful experiences with picture books, whilst creating their own personalised books. Children engage in the writing process by illustrating and putting words to their stories. When young children are in the act of making, they feel encouraged and motivated to write.
Book making makes the writing bigger than just one piece of paper. As children create their own texts they start to build their identity as a reader and as a writer.
Book Club (3-6)
Children in our 3-6 spaces have started setting up Book Clubs - there was a real buzz in the 3-4 space as they perused a range of possible books, exploring the learning question “how do we decide what book to choose?” Learners gave such responses as: “we read the blurb”, “we ask for recommendations”, “we consider the genres we enjoy reading”.
Book Clubs offer a brilliant opportunity for children to truly immerse themselves within a text, engage in dialogue with their peers and, ultimately, build metacognition whilst labelling the strategies successful readers use to make meaning of text.
All children, regardless of age, build metacognition whilst reading:
If you have any further questions about how you can support your child’s reading or writing at home, or any other Literacy-related questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Daniela De Luca
Literacy Coach
ddeluca@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au
Wellbeing & Learning Diversity
We are so excited to announce that this term sees the re-launch of our lunchtime clubs! We thank the below educators for sharing their time and passions with the children on these days:
Tuesday is LEGO CLUB with Karen
Wednesday is CHOIR CLUB with Helen
Thursday is CODING CLUB with Bess
While these lunch time clubs offer opportunities for JOY and CONNECTION, they are also on offer to acknowledge and support children who like to ‘play’ in different ways. These clubs offer a quieter space away from the ‘business’ of the yard, a structured space for interacting with peers, support from an educator and a place to foster connections, passions and interests that may not typically happen on the yard. We hope that children will enjoy these clubs and as always, we welcome feedback!
WE ARE SEEKING DONATIONS OF LEGO. IF YOU CAN SUPPORT THE LEGO CLUB IN THIS WAY, PLEASE CONTACT KAREN kdodemaide@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au
Wellbeing Support Staff
St. John’s is in the fortunate position of welcoming Benita Murray to our school. Benita is studying a Diploma of Counseling and is currently completing her final placement with us this term. Benita is a former teacher and has a wealth of knowledge and experience working with children. Benita will be here each Monday and Friday for 8 weeks.
St. John’s is delighted to welcome Sarah Moss to our school in the role of School Psychologist. Sarah also works in private practice and has knowledge and experience in a variety of interventions to support children with their mental health and wellbeing needs. She also has a teaching background and is very familiar with working in school environments. Over the next few weeks, Sarah will be contacting families of children who have recently accessed psychology services here at St. John’s. She will also work closely with the School Care Team to identify students who may benefit from psychology services. Sarah will be here each Wednesday working with individuals and small groups.
Families who would like to enquire about a referral for their child are asked to contact Karen at kdodemaide@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au
Karen Dodemaide
Co-Deputy Principal and Wellbeing Leader
kdodemaide@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au
Community Projects & Discovery
Our Community Project this Term is called ‘Healthy Me, Healthy Us’. Through this project, we will explore the concepts of choice and balance through the Curriculum lens of Health and Wellbeing. Our children have engaged in a series of immersive experiences, known as the ‘First Encounters’, some of these experiences included Zumba sessions, cooking, incursions and much more. From these experiences, our educators will gather data on the children’s curiosities, wonders and prior knowledge. The educators will then design experiences that will identify possible pathways of exploration. We look forward to sharing our learnings with you, as our projects unfold over the Term.
Our children have been welcomed back into the Discovery Spaces with new and inviting provocations. Our children will spend the first few weeks familiarising themselves with the spaces, and reacquainting themselves with the expectations and dispositions of an effective Discoverer. Our children in Years Three to Six have re-entered their projects as they continue to reflect on the ‘launches’ of their projects and how they can further develop their skills as a Discoverer.
Some of the skills that our children in years Three to Six have been developing include:
- Articulating the purpose of their project
- Using the co-constructed criteria of an ‘Awesome Project’
- Using timelines to monitor their project
- Reflecting and evaluating the impact of their projects by gathering feedback
Faith
Happy Month of Mary (May). How fitting that we celebrate Mother’s Day within the month of May that is recognised within our Catholic Church as a month to reflect on Mary, and how she survives as a symbol of ultimate sacrifice, love and care. I invite you to make the sign of the cross as we read through the following prayer:
A Mother's Day prayer for the women in our lives,
to thank the Lord above
for blessing us with a lifetime
of tenderhearted love.
We thank God for the caring
these women have shown us through the years,
for the closeness we've enjoyed
in time of laughter and of tears.
And so, we thank the women in our lives from the heart
for all they’ve done for us
and we bless the Lord for giving us
the best mother, grandmother, aunty or sister there could be
On this very special Mother’s Day, we pray that all the women in our lives, our mothers, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, friends are greeted with love, kindness and peace.
Holy Week/ Easter
A big thank you to each hub, our wonderful school leaders and educators for preparing our Holy Week and Easter celebrations. Thank you also to our families who came along to watch and participate.
We would also like to take this opportunity to wish our Muslim families Eid Mubarak! Eid-al-fitr celebrates the conclusion of the Ramadan fast. We would like to extend a Kalo Pasxa to our Greek Orthodox friends and families who have also celebrated Jesus’ resurrection last week. We are very lucky to have such a multi-faith community.
Sacrament of Confirmation:
This term, our year 6 candidates will participate in their Sacrament of Confirmation, on Thursday the 9th of June at 6:00pm, at Our Lady’s Church in Maidstone. Further information will be provided during our Confirmation preparation evening, on Tuesday the 17th of May at 5:30pm in the 5/6 hub.
Mitch Hayes
(Faith/REL Leader)
mitch.hayes@sjfootscray.catholic.edu.au
Sport
Last week, Jimmy Bua from the Five/Six Hub competed for St John's in the 2022 Primary Swimming State Championships. Jimmy swam the 50m breaststroke and came in an amazing 3rd. Well done Jimmy and congratulations on your fantastic achievement!
Regards,
Kelly Edgar
Physical Education