Dear St John the Apostle families,

Wow! What a term. It's hard to imagine that it all started with remote learning and now ended with an almost complete return to usual practice at school.

Thank you to staff, parents and students for the amazing collaboration that has been shared throughout the term. It has been quite a journey and we know how much rest everyone needs at the moment.

I was so happy today to spend time with students as part of our brag tag celebrations. Students who earned more than twenty brag tag stickers this term spent time playing games with each other. Kindergarten and Year 1 shared this time together in the morning and the Years 2 - 6 students shared a time together during the middle session.

All of the staff who assisted were so impressed with how well students were able to play together. There was no technology, just packets of cards, board games, dice, tokens and lots of laughter. They were a great example of the expectations we have for students and the celebration was well earned by them all.

Code Camp

I'm excited to let you know that we have a great after school extra curricular program being offered next term called Code Camp. Code Camp are an organisation that help students to learn about increasingly sophisticated coding. The sessions will be available from Years 2 -6 and run each Tuesday afternoon until 4.30pm. If your child has been showing interest in this area, beyond the coding that might be taught in class, I would encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity. Please visit https://www.codecamp.com.au/after-school for more details.

Road Map to Return

Next Term we will be a step closer to a full return to usual practices post COVID-19.

A few updates include:

• hiring of school facilities by outside organisations can begin with precautions in place;
• Parent-Teacher Interviews can resume as face-to-face while also respecting the physical distancing and hygiene practices in place for adults;
• continued additional cleaning of the school with extra measures for student desks, the playground equipment and high touch areas of the school;
• parents and volunteers can attend the school site with physical distancing and hygiene practices in place;
• strict records of those on site at any time are kept should ACT Health require them;
• excursions with the region can begin again;
• overnight camps can begin again with additional ACT Health practices in place for adults;
• assemblies can begin again with limitations on parent/adult numbers;
• on site discos can go ahead again; and
• fundraising events, such as fetes, can go ahead again with broader community restrictions in place.

Prior to the beginning of term we will inform everybody more specifically about what will happen here at St John the Apostle.

Parent Commitment Agreement

From 2020 onward, offers of enrolment for schools in the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn Catholic (CECG) School system will be conditional on parents of prospective students agreeing to the Parent Declarations and Commitments that are made in a new document called the Parent Commitment Agreement (PCA).

The purpose of the PCA is to clearly set out at the commencement of each child's educational journey with Archdiocesan Catholic schools the expectations that CECG has of parents. It is designed to help us all feel safe and be aware of our responsibilities to each other and the community.

We rely on parents supporting our schools, our teachers, our support staff, and principals like myself. Cooperative relationships with parents and carers are very important for us to be able to deliver our educational program in an environment that us safe and respectful. Thank you all for the ways you model this to your children.

Congratulations Rebekah Brown

I wanted again to offer my sincerest congratulations to Ms Rebekah Brown on her appointment as the Assistant Principal for St John the Apostle Primary School. Rebekah has made some outstanding contributions to the educational programs offered to our students and has shown enormous support for families. I look forward to the opportunity for her to continue to have such a positive impact on our community and the achievement of our students.

I sincerely wish everyone the most restful of holidays for the next two weeks. I hope that everyone is able to find time to move into a much more relaxed pace and way of being and come back to Term 3 rested and ready for a more settled school experience.

God Bless,

Matthew Garton, Principal