Dear St John the Apostle families,

Welcome back to Term 4.

Having been on leave for the second half of Term 3 I have returned refreshed and ready for Term 4. It's been lovely to see families and children in our community. I'd like to thank Rebekah Brown, Bree Dess, Rebecca Stevenson and Stephanie Stewart for their collaboration and leadership during my time on leave. It's always comforting to know that we have such capable and caring leaders in our school.

Director of Catholic Education

Last week Mr Ross Fox, Director of Catholic Education for our Archdiocese, announced his resignation, effective from the end of this year. Mr Fox has been instrumental in bringing about a change in the teaching & learning practices across all of our schools, aligning them to the Science of Learning and Science of Reading. 

As a Principal I have always believed that when a leader finishes their role in a community they should leave it 'better' than they found it. This doesn't mean that anything was 'wrong', just that a leader should have added something very valuable to that community. Mr Fox has certainly done this in initiating the Catalyst professional learning program across our archdiocese. The achievement of all of our students and the knowledge and skills of our teacher are evidence of this. Thank you Mr Fox.

Term 4 Overviews and Sport Days

On our school website you can find a summary page of what your child will be learning about this term. Please follow the link to the Term Learning Overviews page to find out more. There is also a list of the sport uniform days for every class on that page.

Term Dates 2025

Please see the following letter from the Director regarding Term Dates for 2025. Our online school calendar has been updated to reflect this. 

Matthew Garton

Principal

Sorry about the break in the information about Rosenshine’s Principles of Teaching . I really wanted to finish the series and hope it is helping make sense of some of the ways we support student learning in our classroom.

This week the two areas of focus are “Obtain a high success rate” and “Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks”.

7. Obtain a high success rate

We aim for 80% success.  What does that mean?

Tom Sherrington explains that when practising a skill or recalling knowledge correctly 80% pf the time then most of what students are doing is reinforcing error free, secure learning. This really improves fluency and confidence.

Imagine your child practising in their swimming lessons. If 80% (or more) of the time they are doing the strokes correctly then they are reinforcing that skill, hardwiring it into the brain.

Anything lower than this, students end up reinforcing the mistakes or incorrect skills andf knowledge. If the success rate is too low then we have to reteach, re-explain or remodel. Nothing new, just more practice. 80% is an overarching benchmark, not on every task, and we hope to see closer to 100% on something like a knowledge test at the end of unit of work.

8. Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks

An excellent example of this is the wonderful parenting moment of teaching your child to ride a bike. You do not put them on a bike and walk away.  You put strategies in place to support the steps in their learning. You adjust, adapt and practise the skills. You may use training wheels or run alongside them. You know they are going to fall and you are very aware and focussed on the wobbles that come just before the fall sideways. Mostly you are consistent and encourage resilience and persistence.

When we teach a new concept, we do the same thing. We break complex skills and knolwedge down into parts to provide structure.

A great example of this is in writing. Writing is a complex task, especially when students are older and writing more complex pieces. To teach students how to write a paragraph we use a 'scaffold' such as a 'single paragraph outline'. We model it, practise doing it together, then have them use it indepdenently (we call this I do, We do, You do). It really helps students to construct a paragraph. You can read more about it here. https://www.thewritingrevolution.org/

Stephanie Stewart

What Students Are Learning About

What’s going on in Year 1? Thanks to Grace Payne and OSHClub, the garden got watered over the holidays.  The students were pleasantly surprised when we came back to school and lots of things started sprouting.  At the moment we have cosmos and carrots starting to make an appearance.  How exciting!  Miss Olivia Etzrodt

God's creation is wonderful! In the beginning, God made everything we see around us. God created the bright sun, the twinkling stars, and the gentle moon. Then God made the beautiful earth with tall trees, colourful flowers, and sparkling rivers. God also created all the animals. Finally, God made people to enjoy and take care of this amazing world. Everything God made is special and shows how much God loves all creation! Thank you Year One for being on earth the heart of God and taking care of creation in our school.

God bless,

Rebecca Stevenson

Notices from the Parish

Latest Parish Compact 20th October 2024

Happy Birthday to Oscar Pardy, Marian Le, James Stephensen, Tessa Vera, Edith Bradbury, Rohanika Khattri, Tia McNamara, Ziva Zaire, Kiri Foster, Rylee Terron, Lachlan Frankcom, Annika Nilsson, April Malcolm, Saba Khoram, Kelvin Nguyen, Lilijana Tundulin, Maxwell Wheatley, Diyana Weerarathna, Natasha Speechley, Sky Ho and Henry Ton-That who all celebrated a birthday over the last three weeks.

This year we will be presenting a number of awards to students. Please see below the scedule for this term. Most awards will be handed out on a Friday morning.

At St John the Apostle we teach a number of programs that focus on mastering particular knowledge and skills in literacy and numeracy. Students are taught based on their individual, current level of mastery. Two of the programs we teach are Spelling Mastery and Rocket Maths. We regularly collect data from students in both of these programs so we can track that they are having continous progress. Students work hard to achieve mastery in these programs, so we celebrate the students who show mastery in these programs by giving them awards.

Students will receive Spelling Mastery Awards once they reach mastery three times at their Spelling Mastery level. For some students this is 10/10 and for others it is 25/25. For Kindergarten students will receive Spelling Mastery Awards when they receive 10/10 for each unit they complete in Sounds~Write.

Students will receive Maths Mastery Awards each time they beat their Rocket Math Two Minute Goal.

This year we will also be presenting Brag Tag Awards. These will be handed out each time a student receives 20 brag tags. 

Brag Tag Awards - presented on Friday 25th October, 8.50am (Week 2)

Year 1 have been enjoying our learning this semester. We had a great time at Questacon last term and have been working very hard with our reading and Maths. We are learning new vocabulary words through our Shared Reading Program and have a ‘House of Words’ to add our new words for every story. We have Year 6 reading buddies, which is great fun. Here are some pictures we want to share:

Hi! My name is Julia Larby and I am the new Student and Family Counsellor at the school.

I have a Masters of Counselling degree from the University of Canberra, as well as a Bachelor of Nursing degree, which has led me to have an extensive career working in the mental health sector.

I have worked with individuals, young people, and families in various mental health settings, providing one-on-one therapy and consulation, case management, and psychoeducation and health promotion.

I have a passion for working with children and their families to improve their wellbeing. I work from a client-centred perspective, and utilise tools from various therapy approaches, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and mindfulness.

I will be working at the school on Mondays and Tuesdays,  and can be reached via email: julia.larby@mccg.org.au

I look forward to working with you and your school for the remainder of the year, and into next year!

Its back again! Our Family Photo Fundraiser
It will be on 2-3 Nov and for only $30 you receive an  A4 professional family photo and shoot.

After all the great feedback we got last year we are again running our family photo fundraiser, with photos taken outdoor at Lake Ginninderra.

You will need to book a place online https://fundraisingsjaps.com.au/photofundraiser and then pay your $30 via Qkr! (under Community Council Events).

Places are limited - book now so you don’t miss out

On the day you will meet our fabulous photographer Kieran at the Lake, who will take multiple shots, poses and arrangements, so if you want to buy additional pictures to your A4 family shot, they will be available. However there is absolutely no obligation to buy.

The shoot will only take about 20 minutes of your time and you get the best value photography on the market today.

More information is available on the website booking page here https://fundraisingsjaps.com.au/photofundraiser.
Please note the booking calendar is located at the bottom of the page

Any questions please email Belinda Duke at Belinda.duke@hotmail.com.au or call 0402424392

With Christmas trees adorning the shops and fruit mince pies filling the shelves, the festive is upon us!
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That’s a saving of $70 before you’ve even activated your Membership!

Hurry, this offer is only available for a limited time:

Order Here - https://subscribe.entertainment.com.au/fundraiser/2323z3

Opening Hours

A friendly reminder that St Johns is a nut free school. Thank you.