Dear St John the Apostle families,

What a fabulous Book Week we've had, including a dress up day yesterday and a scavenger hunt today. We know that parents missed the opportunity to view the Book Parade so we took plenty of photos and shared them over Facebook for everyone.

A big thank you to Mrs Georgina Jaram, Mrs Vanessa Hallaj and Ms Ellen Fletcher for organising the activities. Thank you also to our wonderful staff team for entering into the spirit of the dress up day.

Meeting our Archbishop

Today our Archbishop visited St John the Apostle Parish and celebrated Mass and  morning tea with a small group of parishioners. He is travelling to every parish in the Archdiocese to see how they are while recovering from bushfires and in the midst of the pandemic. It was a lovely opportunity for our student leaders Darcy and Eseta to represent our school. You may find them on the Catholic Voice website being interviewed about their experience of remote learning.

A Staff Farewell and Welcome

Our Library Assistant, Mrs Vanessa Hallaj, has accepted a full-time position at St Francis Xavier College. Mrs Hallaj has been working at both schools for a few years and our loss is SFX’s gain.

Mrs Hallaj began in the Library as a parent volunteer a number of years ago, always interested in supporting children reading great books. Over time Mrs Hallaj has thrown herself headlong into learning every aspect of managing the Library. She has maintained a continuously up to date collection, written library policies, managed book fairs, accessioned and covered so many books, created engaging displays, kept teachers and students informed of the latest arrivals, put together collections for classes and year levels and written regularly for the Newsletter. Mrs Hallaj is gold! We will miss her enthusiasm for great literature. We're looking now to explore the potential opportunities within the Library, continuing to make it an engaging, warm and well-resourced space for students.

We will also welcome the return of teacher Mrs Tamika Norris next year. Ms Norris joined us earlier this year as part of the Year 6 teaching team. She is an enthusiastic teacher that has built lovely relationships with her students and we know she'll be a great addition to our staff team.

Class placements for 2021

We are currently in the process of finalising which classes each teacher will have next year. Some teachers will remain in their current positions and some will move. Changing year levels is an excellent opportunity for professional growth for teachers. It stretches our knowledge of curriculum, learners and good pedagogy. We also try our best to match teachers to specific cohorts of students based on their needs. An announcement about the teachers for each year level will be made in the Newsletter later this term.

In the meantime, I welcome parent communication regarding any specific needs that they would like considered in placing their own child in a class group next year. Parents wishing to communicate this are asked to email me directly (not the classroom teacher) with the considerations they would like kept in mind as part of the class creation process. These will be treated confidentially and viewed only by me. Specific teacher requests will not be considered. The cut off for communicating these considerations will be Friday 13 November.

Thank you for continually working together to help your child learn and grow.

Matthew Garton

Principal