Dear St John the Apostle families,

Welcome back to school! 

What an amazingly settled start to the school year for our community. From the first day teachers were organised and prepared while students remembered and participated in our well established routines that create a predictably safe environment where we can focus on learning.

I visited every classroom on the first day to welcome students back and to also hand out birthday stickers to anyone who celebrated their birthday in January. One of my own goals this year is to visit a collection of classrooms every day, wandering in and talking to different students to see their every day learning in action. As a teacher first, I genuinely miss having my own class to teach and am looking forward to these visits.

A community where you belong

In last year's Year 6 cohort we had over 30 families whose youngest child at the school graduated. These families finished their time at St John's. This year we welcomed 54 new Kindergarten students, as well as many other students in Years 1 to 6. This is a big change in our community. One of our big focuses this year will be to provide opportunities to build connections between students and families, helping everyone to feel that they belong. When families feel they belong, children thrive in their learning. Let's do this together.

Some great opportunities to connect with other families are coming up this term:

• Information Night & BBQ - Tuesday 13 February, 5.30pm
• School Fete - Friday 15 March, 4.00pm

Staffing changes

Welcome to new teachers Mrs Louise Osborne-Goldsbrough (3 Maroon) and Ms  Olivia Etzrodt (1 Blue). Louise and Olivia have joined the teaching team with great enthusiasm and excitement and children in their classes are already smiling and very happy to have them. We feel very fortunate to have found two very dedicated, positive and caring teachers for our students.

Ms Olivia Etzrodt	Mrs Louise Osborne-Goldsbrough

One of our dearly loved teachers, Ms Collins, needed to return to her home in Melbourne over the holidays and will not be returning. We wish her all the best for the future and look forward to hearing about the birth of her baby. During Term 1 Ms Collins was to assist in teaching the classes of Executive Team members. Due to teacher shortages we are doing our best to replace her but this is challenging. Mrs Bree Dess will be returning from Term 2, which will assist enormously. She's looking forward to seeing our students again.

Mrs Debbie Milne, finance officer, retired at the end of last year. We have already been through an unsuccessful initial recruitment process and are expanding the search for a new finance officer. Please feel free to continue emailing the finance.sjaps@cg.catholic.edu.au address with any fee queries. We are monitoring and responding to the emails as soon as we are able. In the meantime, should you know anyone who would be suitably experienced and interested in the position then please encourage them to contact me via email.

Temporarily unfilled staff positions can put considerable stress on others. To minimise the impact on student learning the Executive Team and Front Office are picking up many of the extra responsibilities. We're very happy to make sure that everyone experiences a smooth start to the year, we just ask your understanding as we try to assist everyone. We should be back to a full contingent within a few weeks.

New School Counsellor

Catholic Education, in Partnership with Marymead CatholicCare provide counselling services for students and families in all schools in our system.

These counselling services are short-term services, designed to provide some initial short term support for students and families. Where long term support is required these counsellors will refer families to the relevant support services.

Welcome to Cameron Day, our new school counsellor. Please find a message below from Cameron:

Greetings St John the Apostle families. My name is Cameron Day, and I am excited

to be the school counsellor this year. I am available Thursdays and Fridays.

I am a Social Worker with a passion for working with children, young people, and their families. I have previously worked in education, child and adolescent mental health, and acute mental health.

When I am not working, I enjoy reading, eating, spending time with my family and friends, and being physically active.  

In my school counselling work, I provide short term, client centred support to students, drawing from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Solution Focused, Mindfulness and Trauma informed approaches in a developmentally appropriate context.

I look forward to working with you all this year.

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We hope your child has enjoyed a positive start to the school year and that families are enjoying the return to a school routine. If ever you have any questions or concerns please always feel free to contact your child's teacher or myself. We're more than happy to do our best to assist you.

God Bless,

Matthew Garton

Principal

Welcome back to all of our wonderful students and families! It has been so lovely to see how excited and happy our students have been to return to school. I hope everyone had a restful and joyous holiday.

Spelling Mastery

On Monday, we will start Spelling Mastery across our school from Year 1 to Year 6. This will run on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 9.05-9.30am. Kindergarten will start the first semester learning intial sounds through the Sounds~Write Program and will then transition to Level A Spelling Mastery in Semester 2. Alongside Spelling Mastery, K-2 will also learn the Let's Decode Program (phonological awareness and decoding). 

Spelling Mastery builds dependable spelling skills for students in Years 1-6 through a highly structured method that blends the following approaches:

• Phonemic approach - helps beginning spellers learn the relationships between spoken sounds and written letters and then apply them to spelling
• Morphemic approach - exposes advanced spellers to prefixes, bases, and suffixes
• Whole-word approach - gives spellers at all levels the meaning and root of a word and shows how the word's spelling is influenced

Targeted Intervention & Support

This year we will continue to provide targeted literacy intervention to a number of students across the school. I would like to welcome out new Inclusion Teacher, Mrs Bethany Fear. Beth has been a classroom teacher at St John's for many years and we are excited to welcome her into the role of Inclusion Teacher. Beth and our Inclusion Assistants will be running small group intervention across the school. We will continue to use two programs that we had great success with in Semester Two last year. These are called Early Reading in Interventions (K-2) and Corrective Reading-Decoding (Years 3-6). We have completed assessments on students across the school to ensure the intervention is tailored to the needs of each individual student. If your child has been identified to receive intervention, we will contact you in the next few weeks. 

Early Interventions in Reading (K-2)

Early Interventions in Reading is an evidence-based program designed to help children build a strong foundation in reading. This program focuses on key areas of early literacy, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. By engaging in fun and interactive activities, students will have the opportunity to develop critical reading skills in a nurturing and supportive environment.

Corrective Reading (Years 3-6)

Corrective Reading is an evidence-based program designed to help students who may be struggling with reading fluency, word recognition, and comprehension. This program is specifically tailored for older students who need assistance in developing essential decoding skills to enhance their overall reading proficiency.

If you have any questions about the intervention please contact myself or Bethany Fear (bethany.fear@cg.catholic.edu.au) 

Rebekah Brown

Catholic Life and Reflection

What Students are Learning About

As the school year begins, we reflect on our rules, routines and expectations. One of those is how to pray.  We model to all students every morning how to make the sign of the cross.  This is an important part of praying as a community. It is a signal to others and ourselves that we need to focus on the words we are saying and that, for a brief moment, our thoughts are only for God.

Each class teacher spends time setting the prayer expectations in their own classrooms too. This year all staff have been provided with some new items for their prayer tables. The plushie Jesus for K-2 has been a big hit! A huge thank you to Mr Garton who washes and irons a set of cloths for each class.

What Staff are Learning About

On Monday all inclusion, office, and teaching staff gathered to reflect on our 2024 theme.

“Filled with the Spirit.” Acts 2:1-4

We spent time learning about what people need in their lives and used Maslow’s research as a way of talking about belonging. What does it mean to belong? How people's experiences of belonging differ? What is the difference between belonging and fitting in?

Belonging is action. We can’t belong in a passive way. To belong to a community, such as St John the Apostle, means we have to use our gifts to serve others. Therefore, our scripture focus this year is the Pentecost story. The Holy Spirit gifted the apostles and they didn’t stay in the room! They went out, shared the love of Jesus and built a community.

We are called to serve others using the gifts we have received from the Holy Spirit. 

Catholic Life and Reflection

Oh how I loved the holidays! We spent a few weeks at Tuross with my sister and brother in law. Amazing how quickly you get into a routine of not doing very much, lurching from one fabulous meal to the next! We played board games, walked the dogs, went to the beach and pottered around. 

Suddenly, we are back at school and Week One is done!  What a joy it always is to see students after the summer break. They are full of stories and always so happy to see you! What a joy to see so many new Kindergarten students as well. In their uniforms that always seem so big and bags that make them look like little turtles! It has been glorious to return to this community again.

I hope you had the chance to spend some time with your children over the summer and to rest. I look forward to catching up with you or meeting you if we have not yet had the chance. As the year speeds up remember that even Jesus took some time to rest when he needed it.

Mark 6:31

³¹ He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

God bless and go gently.

Stephanie Stewart

Religious Education Coordinator

Happy birthday to Ashley C, Jack H, Noah M, Angus G, Ikem I, and Emilio V who all celebrated a birthday over the last week.

NOTE: All donations can start to be dropped off in the Front Office from now until the Fete.

Our school Fete will be on Friday 15 March 2024 from 4-8pm (Term 1, Week 7). We are already well on our way with preparations. Please see information below about requesting volunteers in the lead up to the Fete and requests for donations. We really rely on our school community working together to ensure the success of our school Fete. 

Store Conveners 

Thank you to all of the parents who have contacted me to help out as store conveners. Please contact Rebekah Brown rebekah.brown@cg.catholic.edu.au if you would like to take on one of these roles or if you have any questions. 

At times, we may need to ask the store convenor to purchase some of the items required for the store. However, this money will be reimbursed as quickly as possible. 

Donations 

The Fete Committee has decided to send out all of the requests for donations for the 2024 Fete at one time so that families don't feel like there are requests every week or two. We rely on our community to donate a couple of items per child. Please see below a list of the items we are requesting. All of these items can be sent to school with your child or delivered to the front office. Thank you in advance for your donations and support. 

Tombola

For the 2024 Fete, we are doing Tombola a little differently. We are asking that a full jar is donated. In the past, we have asked for empty jars and the Store Convenor has filled the jars. The items also don’t need to be in a jar. They could be in a zip lock bag, a plastic container or anything that is enclosed and we can stick a raffle ticket on. 

Items that can be put in the tombolar jars/containers:

• Lollies and chocolates 
• Jar of trinkets - small toys, erasers, stickers, hair accessories, craft supplies, stationary etc.

Hampers

We are asking that each child in each year group, donates one or more items for the below hampers. Each year level has been allocated a theme. Year 6 has not been allocated a theme, as they will no longer be at St John’s in 2024. If Year 6 students would like to donate an item, they can choose any theme. Please see below images of past hampers. 

Kindergarten - Baby hamper (e.g. wraps, clothes, nappies, rattles, baby toys, wipes etc.)

Year 1 - Pet Hamper (eg. pet toys, treats, feeders, bowls etc.)

Year 2 - Kids Toy hamper (e.g. puzzles, fidget toys, board games, balls etc.)

Year 3 - Pamper hamper (eg. bath salts, candles, body products etc.)

Year 4 - Parents hamper (eg. wine, beer, chocolates, nuts etc.)

Year 5 - Home hamper (eg. tools, cleaning products, Bunnings gift card etc.)

Books

We will be having a book stall. We would love donations of books to sell at the Fete. These can be picture books, children and adult novels, recipe books etc.

Lucky Lock

We will be having a Lucky Lock competition again for the 2024 Fete. An esky is filled with wine and beer and locked with a padlock. We sell keys and one key opens the lock. This lucky person wins the esky and its contents. To run this competition, we would love donations of the following:

• Wine, beer etc.
• Old keys that are no longer useful 

Pre-loved Soft Toys

We are asking for clean and in good condition pre-loved soft toys to be donated. 

Thank you so much for all of your support in making out 2024 Fete a success.

Kind regards,

Fete Committee

Please see below a letter we are sending out to local businesses to support our upcoming 2024 Fete. If you have a business that would like to sponsor the Fete or you know of someone who would be interested in sponsoring our Fete, please see the below information. If you would like this letter to supply businesses with our letterhead, please email Rebekah Brown (rebekah.brown@cg.catholic.edu.au).

Supporting our school – Supporting our students

We hope this letter finds you well. We are writing to you to seek your support for our schools upcoming Fete.

We are hosting our highly anticipated Annual Fete on Friday, 15 March 2024 and we are extremely excited about creating a memorable experience for our students, families and the wider community. For over 40 years St John the Apostle Primary School has served a community that includes families from over 30 different locations in the ACT and NSW.

This event is not only a great opportunity to celebrate our school’s achievements, but also a chance to raise funds for various academic and extracurricular activities, including the continued upgrading our playground and kitchen garden space.

In order to make this event a resounding success, we are reaching out to businesses like yours, which have demonstrated a commitment to community and education. We would be grateful for any donation you can provide, whether it is in the form of monetary support or an in-kind contribution. Your contribution will go towards purchasing items for our stalls, including our BBQ, drinks, gelato, popcorn and fairy floss, chocolate toss, and many more!

As a sponsor, your business will receive significant exposure and recognition at our Fete. We plan to acknowledge our generous sponsors in our signage, social media platforms, school website and our school newsletter with a heartfelt thank you for your support.

We understand that businesses receive numerous sponsorship requests, and we truly appreciate your consideration of our request. Your support will have a direct impact on the educational opportunities we can provide to our students.

Please find enclosed a sponsorship form that outlines the various donation levels. We kindly request that you review the form and select a sponsorship level that aligns with your business’s objectives and budget. If you are able to support us, or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Rebekah Brown our Assistant Principal on (02 6258 3592).

On behalf of the entire St John the Apostle Primary School community, we thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Garton             Katie Matthews

Principal                        Community Council Chair

St John the Apostle Primary School Fete Sponsorship Form

Thank you for considering sponsoring our Annual School Fete, we truly value your support. Please review the sponsorship levels below and select the one that aligns with your business' goals and budget.

Gold Sponsorship - $1,000 or more:

• Prominent recognition as a Gold Sponsor on event signage
• Company logo featured on our school website and social media platforms with a link to your website
• Acknowledgment and thank you at the event
• Opportunity to place promotional materials at our event booths or information stands

Silver Sponsorship - $500:

• Recognition as a Silver Sponsor on event signage
• Company logo featured on our school website and social media platforms
• Acknowledgment and thank you at the event
• Opportunity to place promotional materials at our event booths or information stands

Bronze Sponsorship - $250:

• Recognition as a Bronze Sponsor on event banners, flyers, and signage
• Company name showcased on our school website and social media platforms
• Acknowledgment and thank you at the event

Please contact us using the details provided below to arrange payment of your sponsorship contribution. We will then reach out to discuss further promotion and recognition opportunities. We sincerely appreciate your generosity and support.

The Uniform Shop Opening Hours

If you have any questions or concerns please email the uniform shop on stjohnsclothingpool@gmail.com