ST JOHN'S NEWSLETTER INSPIRING
STUDENTS FOR LIFE
WEEK 6

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A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

The Power of Contemporary Learning Tours

Last week, we had Mrs Stein, Mrs Ridley from Henty, Mrs Schulz, Mrs Barnes, Mrs Vaccaro, Mrs Bothe and myself attend a Melbourne Learning Tour and visited Templestowe College, Newmark Primary and Prices Hill Primary.
One of the largest take-aways for me was the confirmation of the power of student-focused learning.  This tour reinforced the importance of our student focused approach at St John’s. We know the transformative power of engaging student interest and linking quality learning tasks to drive motivation and growth. We want our children running into school each day excited about engaging in learning!

I believe that investing in staff professional development is a crucial component of creating a positive and professional school culture that has a team approach to increasing student growth.

Yours in Christian service,


Brad Moss
Principal

Brad navy

Learning tours provide educators with firsthand experiences that they can't always get from readings or traditional professional development workshops. They immerse educators in real-world contexts, allowing them to observe innovative teaching methods, educational technologies, and best practices in action.

Education is increasingly diverse, learning tours involve interactions with other educators, administrators, and experts in the field. These networking opportunities facilitate collaboration, idea-sharing, and the development of professional relationships.

Learning tours provide educators with opportunities for professional growth and development. They enable educators to reflect on their own teaching practices, identify areas for improvement, and learn new strategies for enhancing student learning.

Contemporary learning tours play a crucial role in the professional development of educators by providing them with experiential learning opportunities, exposure to diversity, networking and collaboration opportunities, inspiration and motivation, avenues for professional growth, and the tools to keep pace with change, all of which ultimately contribute to improved learning outcomes for our students at St John's.

From the Deputy Desk

Contemporary Learning Tour
At St John’s, we want learning to ignite passion and purpose through deep thinking and collaboration to make a positive impact on our community and beyond. This is what contemporary learning is all about! Last week, 5 of our staff participated in the Melbourne Contemporary Learning Tour, led by leaders from Lutheran Education Australia. They visited innovative schools with a group of 30 Lutheran educators and leaders and came back with many exciting ideas for our school and feeling very encouraged with what St John’s is already doing in contemporary learning.

First Full Week of Kinder
This week is our first full week of Kinder for 2024! To help transition into school life, Kinders don’t come to school on Wednesdays for the first half of Term 1. We’re so proud of our brave Kinder children and their nurturing educators!

RAS Swimming
This week on Wednesday, strong swimmers from Years 3-6 students went to Wagga for the RAS Swimming Competition, racing against students from other regional independent schools. Successful students who qualify for the next level of interschool swimming will be able to compete in Sydney in the Country Independent Schools competition.

IEP Meetings
Parents of students on Individual Education Plans have received instructions on how to book IEP Meeting times. IEPs are an invaluable opportunity for parents, teachers, learning coaches and our Learning Enhancement Specialist to take a team approach to creating learning goals and strategies for students needing additional support in their learning.

A FEW SAFETY REMINDERS
Morning arrival to school
As explained in our last newsletter, please do not drop children off at school before 8:55am, as staff supervision only begins at that time. If this is unavoidable on rare occasion, children need to sit outside their classroom to wait for the 8:55am bell to sound.

Dry Noodles
Please avoid sending dry noodles to school for lunch which are purchased in a cup that requires hot water to be added. Children have been coming to our school office to ask for hot water to be added, which interrupts eating time and poses a safety risk to students.

Allergies and Anaphylaxis
We have several students in our school with food allergies, some who can have severe anaphylactic reactions. Nuts are the food that pose the greatest risk. Therefore, we:

 

 

 

Alison Jafari and Anna-Marie Bothe

- encourage students with food allergies to wash their hands before and after eating
- encourage students to wash their hands after eating something their classmate or friend is allergic to
- teach students not to share food with friends who have food allergy.

We ask that all families consider the needs of these students when packing school lunches. Our lunch orders do not include nut products for this reason.

FROM THE CHAPLAIN

Evening Chapel
Thanks to everyone who has come to our first to evening services for the year! This term we have some exciting events coming up.

Kids Church – 6pm March 15
Our next Kid’s Church is on Friday March 15. Our Year 6 Band will be leading us in musical worship, and Pastor Will from St Luke’s Albury will be giving us a fun engaging message titled ‘Jesus in Colour’.

Maundy Thursday Agape Meal – 6pm Thur March 28
Agape means ‘unconditional love’, and it was a tradition of the early Christians to eat a weekly ‘agape’ meal together as a type of church service. This year we will be recreating this meal, and talking about the significance of Jesus’ last supper.
The event is free, but bookings are essential for catering purposes! If you would like to join us, please click here to book a table.

Good Friday Stations of the Cross – 3pm Fri March 29
We are looking for both adult and child actors to help us reenact the easter story through an interactive ‘stations of the cross.’ If you or your child would like to act in the retelling, please contact Peter – peter.reed@stjls.nsw.edu.au

Life Groups
We’re starting weekly groups for adults to get together to talk about life and faith. ‘Christianity in Context’ looks at today’s social issues through a biblical lens to understand the many different positions Christians come to on any given topic. ‘The Story of the Bible’ looks in depth at what was happening during Bible times to understand what message the entire Bible is telling. Life groups can be run in person, or online, and are open to anyone. If you are interested in either of these groups, please contact Peter – peter.reed@stjls.nsw.edu.au

Newsletter
St John’s Chapel now has a regular newsletter. Click here to sign up, and keep up to date on church events.

SWIMMING CARNIVAL RESULTS

8/9 Years

1st

Ivy Tervet

2nd

Lily Knight

3rd

Angel Baker

10 Years

1st

Indi Knight

2nd

Lily Ross

3rd

Evie Noordam

Girls Results

Boys Results

11 Years

1st

Scarlett Barber

2nd

Emma Sumbler

=3rd

Tully Heath

=3rd

Eloise Schilg

12/13 Years

1st

Meggie Kinning

2nd

Darcy Smith

3rd

Ella Mighalls

8/9 Years

1st

Fletcher Barber

2nd

Benjamin Lustig

3rd

Coby Miller

10 Years

1st

Joel James

2nd

Jim Berry

=3rd

Leo Jensen

=3rd

Lincoln Heinrich

11 Years

1st

Deon Byers

2nd

Ian Wang

3rd

Isaac Hartley

12/13 Years

1st

Daigan Whelan

2nd

William Frohling

3rd

Hudson Piltz

HOUSE CUP RESULTS
SWIMMING CARNIVAL 2024

1st Place: Dight (266 points)
2nd Place: Luther (201 points)
3rd Place: Goessling (189 points)

Premier's Reading Challenge

What is the Premier's Reading Challenge?
The NSW Premier's Reading Challenge is on again! It is not a competition but a challenge for each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. Its aim is to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure and to enable them to experience quality literature. The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is open to all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 10, and many students have rushed to express their interest in participating this year.

The PRC involves students reading books from predetermined lists, logging them online and at the end of the Challenge, receiving a certificate of completion. Any books on the Premier’s Reading Challenge booklist that your child has read or you have read to your child during the summer holidays can be counted towards this year’s challenge, just note the title and the author. The PRC Booklist can be found here PRC Booklist

How do students participate in the Premier's Reading Challenge?
To complete the Challenge, students are required to read the following number of books:

Challenge level

Number of books you must read

Minimum number of PRC books

Maximum number of Personal Choice books

PRC booklists you can read from

K-2

30

20

10

K-2, 3-4, 5-6

3-4

20

10

10

3-4, 5-6, 7-9

5-6

20

10

10

5-6, 7-9

7-10

20

10

10

5-6, 7-9, 9plus

3-10 (refer to rules on PRC site)

20

10

10

All booklists

Here are the dates for 2024 Premier’s Reading Challenge
Monday 26 February 2024 - challenge opens
Friday 23 August 2024 - challenge closes


To log in
Use this link: NSW Premier's Reading Challenge
Go to ‘Logon’ on the left pull down box. Then enter your child’s username and password (sent home this week by their class teacher)

This is the link to find books to read......Home Page: NSW Premier's Reading Challenge (det.nsw.edu.au)

If you have any queries regarding the Premier’s Reading Challenge visit the PRC website NSW Premier's Reading Challenge or send me through an email with your concerns and I will endeavour to answer your questions therese.schmidt@stjls.nsw.edu.au.
Your school’s PRC coordinator is Mrs Therese Schmidt...'Mrs T'.

Library Borrowing
Please don’t forget that the library is open each lunch time for quiet reading and the opportunity to borrow books. Class time is also allocated for weekly borrowing. Students will require a library bag for the safe transportation of library books between home and school.

EVENTS

LOST PROPERTY

Please check out our lost property and contact the office if anything in the photo belongs to you. A friendly reminder to clearly name all items (especially hats!) so we can return them to their rightful owner.

thank you

A big thank you to the O’Grady Moll family who kindly donated a Didgeridoo and wooden figure.

STUDENT INFORMATION
WHAT'S HAPPENING IN CLASS

KINDERGARTEN

The Kinder room has been a hive of activity…with Slothy going on fun adventures over the weekends, to Kinders sharing things they love to do outside of school for show and tell. We have enjoyed getting to know each other a bit more!

In the mornings for Literacy, we have been learning to count the number of syllables in a word and how many words in different sentences. Then in our hands-on learning sessions, we have been exploring the alphabet and letters we might recognise. We are all very excited to be learning our first sounds this week!

In Kinder Maths, we have been learning to subitise this week…the students found it fun just saying the word ‘subitise’! We developed our skills to be able to quickly recognise how many objects in a group by playing snap, memory game with dice and creating our very own subitising book with dot patterns for different numbers. We LOVED the partner games.

The Kinders all became Safety Investigators at school in PBL by designing and creating a safety hat - they were so creative! The students used different areas around the school, such as the playground, bases and the classroom, thinking about how to use these spaces safely. Now we are on the lookout to make sure we are all safe!

YEAR 1

During InitiaLit, we are continuing to work on creating and writing super sentences. This week students enjoyed constructing joint sentences. We sat in a circle and Mrs Perdon gave us a starting word, we then took turns going around the circle, with each child adding a word to create the sentence. When the sentence was finished, we shouted ‘full stop’. The students collaborated and supported each other when needed.

We have been enjoying reading our class story, Josephine Wants to Dance. This book contains some wonderful language that the children have been able to discuss and act out. Ask your child to show you how to sway, leap or to demonstrate a sob!

During Maths, we have had a strong focus on counting forward and backwards and developing our understanding of number bonds to 10. Students have had lots of hands-on activities with connector blocks and have been challenging each other to show their answers using part/part/whole.

During our Art lessons, we have been looking at printing. First, we created a watercolour wash on cardstock and then collected natural materials from around the school (mostly leaves) to use as our print material. We then rolled black paint onto our material and gentle pressed them onto our watercolour paper. The prints have turned out amazingly and we can’t wait for you to see them all.

YEAR 2

English- InitiaLIt
The Year Twos love to sing and do chants to consolidate their learning. This week we have been learning about Nouns and Pronouns through our InitiaLit program.

Story Writing/Imaginative Text
In IntiaLit, the students have been learning about the components of Imaginative Texts. For example: Introduction-Who, Where, When, Why? Followed by a complication/problem and then a solution in the end. During our morning sessions, students have been enjoying Partner Reading and Choral Reading of different types of Imaginative Texts. Last week they then had the opportunity to create their own story and now they look forward to editing and coming up with their own writing goals.

Mathematics
Over the last week students have been using different strategies using number bonds and the relationship between addition and subtraction to solve problems involving partitioning. Students have been using ten frames, counters, bundling and number lines to solve a variety of problems.

PE and PBL
For PE and PBL students continue to enjoy a variety of activities and participation in different ways to keep our bodies fit and moving. Last week Mrs Kellie led us through lots of fun ways to move and play using hoola hoops. The Year Twos enjoyed being part of a team and showed great sportsmanship and competitiveness.

YEAR 3/4 PV

What a busy week of swimming at Gould Swim Centre last week! It is always wonderful to see the improvement over the week, as students had the opportunity to participate in lessons every day. On Friday, the instructors went over water safety and students had fun swimming a relay race and sliding on giant mats.

We certainly have some swimmers in our class - they received their ribbons from our school Swimming Carnival. Good luck to those going onto the next level.

In Design Lab, with Mrs Miles, students were working in groups through the design process to build a Straw Tower to hold 2 ping pong balls. They could use 20 straws and tape. Balls had to be at least 30cm off the ground.

Mr Moss took our class in to see how our new learning space is coming along. Students were certainly excited to see how different it’s looking inside…it’s getting there, and it won’t be long now!

To top off our week, our class led Chapel. Our message was about God, our Father. I am super proud how well the class spoke and performed on stage, with only being given their scripts the day before. Well done, team!

YEAR 3/4 LK

Weeks 4 and 5 have seen the students very busy with the Swimming Carnival and swimming lessons. The students were outstanding with their behaviour and efforts during both events.

In English we have been working on writing orientations that start in interesting ways to hook the reader in. The students were proud to share their writing with Mrs Bothe when she visited during our writing time.

YEAR 5/6

Year 6 Leadership Day
Our Year 6 students were joined by other Year 6 students from Lutheran School Wagga, St Paul’s Henty, and Victory Lutheran College to learn about skills of a leader to equip them not only this year but also for years to come. Students learned about the 4S’s of Leadership, which are spiritual leadership, significant others, servant leadership and support in leadership. We look forward to the seeing these in action around the school! It was a fantastic day seeing the students collaborate and develop new relationships with students from the other schools.

PBL Forces Exploration
During PBL this term, Years 5 and 6 have been looking at the different forces that help make our lives easier. The students have been exploring how they can be used to manipulate, move or slow down objects. They have also been learning how to draw diagrams to show these forces at play.

We started with Applied Forces, which delve into how we push and pull objects to move and shape them. Then we moved onto Gravity and how the centre of the Earth (and other planets and moons) pull objects towards its centre. We then followed up with Air Resistance, Tension, Elasticity, Buoyancy and finally, Friction.

Stage 3 have covered a lot of content so far this term. What we’re going to come up with is truly exciting. Stay tuned!

THEIRCARE
BEFORE & AFTER SCHOOL CARE

26/02/24 – 01/03/24

This Week:
This week’s theme was all about the last week of Summer. Because it has been so hot this week, we have been doing a lot of fun and creative indoor activities and group games in the hall.

We had a lot of fun with creating and doing lots of art activities this week. Making our own button trees, paper caterpillars and paper plate fish being our favourites. As a large group, we also enjoyed making a giant tree display, the children drew and cut out their own designs of flowers, snails, butterflies and other insects and creatures.

The Children enjoyed putting on a talent show this week ‘TheirCare has Talent’, the kids were able to put together their own performances and showcase these in front of their peers.

On Wednesday, we made Nachos with toppings, such as lettuce and sour cream for afternoon tea. It was SO yum!  

We have been continuing our reward system this week and it is wonderful to hear the children’s suggestions of who of their peers, they think deserves to receive a sticker, and to see how many stickers the children have on their charts already. Keep up the great work!

Next week:
Next week we welcome in the new season, Autumn! We will be making Autumn leaf sun cattchers, Autumn trees and Owls out of felt.

Reminder:
Strict no hat no play rules apply at here at ThierCare, so remember to bring one along just in case and we can enjoy the sunshine together outside.

PRAYING FOR YOU

At St John's, we pray for our students and their families and staff members.
This week, we are praying for:

Week 5
Mackenzie & Tyler Perdon
Hannah & Mia Thomson
Darcy Smith
Kenzie Medcraft, Lance Taylor, Sam Evans
Alison Perdon

Week 6
Harper & Indigo Sutcliffe
Jett & Cruz Smith
Isabel & Jack McGrath
Ella Donaldson, Max Moore
Emma Miles

2011overheadhires
LOGO WHITE LS Lower

MERIT AWARDS

Kinder
Ella Lewis & Ezra Harper
Year 1
Alex Hoek & Leon Bradbury
Year 2
Norah Heath & Evie Wright

Year 3/4 LK
Angel Baker
Year 3/4 PV
Gloria Wang & Frankie Marshall
Year 5/6 GC
Ella Mighalls & Jaxon Fraser
Year 5/6 DB
Zoe Hancock & Maison Holm