As we approach Week 10 of Term 1 we are looking forward to celebrating the achievements of our students.

This Monday afternoon we will present our End of Term Awards to students who have displayed Academic Excellence, Discipleship and Consistent Effort over the course of the term. On Wednesday we will invite all students who have received 20 or more brag tag recognition stickers this term to a celebration session.

It is very important to recognise excellent behaviour, attitude and learning. It reminds us all to be our very best for others, for the world and most importantly for ourselves. We are all made in the image and likeness of God and when we strive to understand and live this to the full we can have such a positive impact on the world around us.

Autism Awareness Month

It is Autism Awareness Month. Some would like to re-name this as Autism Acceptance Month. It depends on your experience of people's responses to autism. Regardless of the name, and in light for my previous paragraph, it is a month to remind us that when we are 'made in the image and likeness of God' we are not all made identical to each other. In fact, humanity is extraordinarily diverse...and that is good.

Autism is just one of many ways that we are diverse. It is recognised as a disorder, though I think that can be a very negative label. Autism spectrum disorder, commonly known as ASD, affects how people communicate and interact with others. It affects how they make sense of the world.

The term “spectrum” is used to emphasise that autism presents differently in every single person. People with autism have a wide range of challenges as well as abilities. In fact, autism is reported to occur in every racial, ethnic and socioeconomic group across the world. Currently 1 in 100 Australians have a diagnosis of ASD and each of them experience it differently. In fact those who know autism well would say "If you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism."

Take the time to understand a little more about autism this month. 

School Uniform, Term 2

We do have a Uniform Policy at St John the Apostle and we provide an opportunity for families to access new and second hand uniform items to ensure that wearing the uniform is easy. As Term 2 is coming I would remind everyone to look at their child's winter uniform and see whether some items need to be replaced since last year.

Please make orders through the Qkr app or email the Clothing Pool at stjohnsclothingpool@gmail.com

CatholicCare Counselling

We are very fortunate to have Hannah from CatholicCare with us each Wednesday and Friday to offer counselling services for students and families. At the moment there is no waiting list so if you feel that your child may benefit from such support please contact the Front Office to obtain a referral form.

URFab

Next term the URFab team will begin working with our school to prepare for running a program with Year 2 and 3 students about understanding and responding effectively to feelings and related behaviours. Please see the section further on in the Newsletter for more information.

Feedback requested – Active Streets

The Active Streets for Schools program is an infrastructure program – supported by educational resources – to make it safer and easier for children to walk or ride to school. Our school will be supported by the program over the next four years.

Active Streets helps to make school environments safer and more accessible by providing a range of tailored solutions depending on the school and local environment. Improvements may include new or improved footpath connections, more dedicated crossings or traffic calming (e.g. speed humps) to ensure the trip is safe and easy for children to navigate.  

To commence the program, Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) would like to discover how children currently travel to and from school and find out where you think improvements can be made around the suburb and the school.

TCCS have set up a survey to gather this information. All the information collected will be de-identified and confidential. The final survey question asks about the type of infrastructure improvements our community would like considered through the program. To complete this question you can either:

• Provide an explanation in the text field in the survey, or
• Drop a pin on our Ride or Walk to School map and provide a comment

To drop a pin on the map, you will need to be signed in to a Google account, which is as simple as signing up if you don’t already have one. More information about setting up an account and dropping a pin on the map is available in these instructions.

TCCS will also welcome feedback about our Ride or Walk to School map, so please use the drop pin feature to comment on the highlighted routes. Alternatively you can print our map, write on the map and return it to TCCS.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to complete the survey. Your response will help to influence how the program is delivered to suit our school community.

I hope you are enjoying the cooler weather.

Matthew Garton (Principal)