Jubilee Year 2025 – Pilgrims of Hope

Prayer for Pope Francis

O God, shepherd and ruler of all the faithful,

look favorably on your servant Francis,

whom you have set at the head of your Church as her shepherd;

grant, we pray, that by word and example

he may be of service to those over whom he presides

so that, together with the flock entrusted to his care,

he may come to everlasting life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Dear Parents,

You may have noticed that there have been some work vans parked and a large skip in the car park. We are currently refurbishing the back portables and the room beside the Clothing Pool. We are going to use these as learning spaces and a Spanish room. The students will also have new interactive boards in these classrooms, fresh coats of paint and new carpets. The skip allowed us to clean out the shipping containers and provided us with some room to pack away the Fete items and store some furniture.

If you drive past SJA during the holidays you will notice that we will be undergoing some facility upgrade including external painting, gutters replaced, the front entrance pavers will be removed and replaced as will the uneven cement. The arborists will be here to lop some our trees and ensure they all safe. Internally we will have autex (pinboard fluffy material) placed on the walls around our new Interactive Boards and new K-2 toilets which will include an Inclusive Toilet and shower.

A big thank you to our Community Council for providing funds for new soccer goals, new netballs, basketballs and other specialised Physical Education and play equipment. Your donation has ensured that all of our students are using great resources.  Thank you to our new Community Council Members and our Chair, Max Rise who took over the reigns officially this week. There was a great vibe at the meeting. In our next newsletter, we will provide information about the dates and times for our meetings and as always, we extend a warm welcome to all of you.

InitiaLit comes alive at SJA

St John the Apostle Primary School has been on the CE Catalyst journey. Over the past 3 years we have worked with a number of highly experienced Educational Consultants including Dr Lorrainne Hammond, Toni Hatten Roberts and a number of educational consultants in Catholic Education. Early next week we will welcome Toni Hatten-Roberts to continue to work with our Staff embedding High Impact Teaching Practice and Explicit Direct Instruction. 

Centered on improving learning outcomes, our High Impact Teaching Practice (HITP) approach is based on the Science of Learning and Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction and will help us realise our goal of “high impact teaching practice is visible in every classroom”.

Ms Hatten-Roberts from CogLearn will continue to support our staff and provide feedback on a number of explicit direct teaching strategies. She will demonstrate lessons and continue to share her knowledge on the Science of Learning and Reading with all of us.

Part of the implementation of the CE Catalyst Program is to introduce targeted programs that continue to provide opportunities for our students to be the best they can possibly be in the areas of Literacy and Numeracy. 

In the next few weeks our Staff from K-2 will impliment the InitiaLit Program. InitiaLit is an evidence-based whole-class literacy program providing all children with the essential core knowledge and strong foundation to become successful readers and writers. InitiaLit is a three-year program, covering the first three years of school (Foundation to Year 2).

InitiaLit–Foundation focuses on two main components:

1. Phonics, to systematically and explicitly teach the basic alphabetic code in a set sequence. In addition to learning letter-sound correspondences and how these are applied to reading and spelling, children will be introduced to common morphemes and simple grammatical concepts.
2. Vocabulary, oral language and listening comprehension through quality children’s literature. Detailed lessons, including writing tasks, are provided for each of the storybook titles selected for use with the program.

Our students in Kinder are really enjoying the time to identify the letters and sounds this week.

InitiaLit–1 continues on from InitiaLit–Foundation in providing an explicit and effective model for teaching reading, spelling and related skills to children in their second year of school. As in InitiaLit–F, InitiaLit– Year 1 focuses on the two main components of:

1. Phonics, to systematically and explicitly teach the basic and advanced alphabetic code in a set sequence. In addition to learning letter-sound correspondences and how these are applied to reading and spelling, children will be introduced to common morphemes and simple grammatical concepts.
2. Vocabulary, oral language and listening comprehension through quality children’s literature. Detailed lessons, including writing tasks, are provided for each of the storybook titles selected for use with the program.

By Year 2, most children will be well on their way to reading independence. The program builds on the skills taught in InitiaLit–F and InitiaLit–1, with the focus shifting now to consolidating children’s reading and spelling skills, working specifically on reading comprehension, fluency, spelling and vocabulary.

InitiaLit– Year 2 has four main components:

1. This component reviews phoneme-grapheme correspondences and spelling concepts taught in InitiaLit–1 and teaches the remainder of the advanced alphabetic code systematically and explicitly. Children will also learn new spelling rules and morphological concepts.
2. Reading comprehension and fluency. In this component, children will be taught comprehension strategies explicitly and how to apply them to different types of text. They will also be given regular opportunities to work on reading fluency through echo, choral and paired reading.
3. Grammar. Children will be explicitly taught key grammatical features and how to apply them to a writing task.
4. Vocabulary, oral language and comprehension through children’s literature. Detailed lessons are provided for each of the 15 storybook titles selected for use with the program, including detailed writing tasks. Two novel studies are included for use towards the end of the year.

How can parents and carers  support the program?

For young readers, one of the most effective ways parents and carers can offer additional support at home is byspending as little as 10 minutes each day on supported book reading. In addition to sharing a wide range of books, in which you explore together the joy of reading – delving into imaginary worlds, exploring playful language, and investigating special topics of interest. Over the coming weeks your child will take home sequential decodable readers. These are books designed specifically to offer plenty of opportunities for children just starting to read to develop decoding and fluency skills. If you have any questions, your child’s teacher is the most valuable resource.

Yours in Faith

Jo Reed

Principal