Each year, across Australia, The CBCA brings children and books together celebrating Children’s Book Week. During this time St John’s and Dymocks come together for one glorious week to celebrate Australian Children’s Literature.

St John’s will celebrate Book Week this term in Week 7, from Monday 22 August – Friday 26 August 2022.

The theme for this year’s CBCA Book Week is ‘Dreaming with eyes open…’

St John’s will spend a week celebrating books and Australian authors and illustrators by highlighting the importance of reading. Classroom teachers will introduce and read books to the students that have been shortlisted for 2022 book of the year awards. They will also be participating in activities and class competitions.

St John’s will culminate Book Week on Friday 26 August with a fancy-dress day. Students can come dressed as something they ‘dream’ about being when they grow up or dream about being someone special. Class competitions will be held throughout the day, and we will make sure to post lots of photos from the day on the school’s website and Facebook page for all to see.

St John’s would like to ensure safe distancing for everyone so the Book Fair will be held in the Hall. To help with numbers we have alphabetically allocated days (last names). Come and browse and buy from the Book Fair in the below available times.

St John’s 2022 BOOK FAIR

Grace and Peace

Billie-Jean Anderson

TEACHER LIBRARIAN

NAIDOC WEEK

Prep Red

In Prep Red, children explored Indigenous culture and learnt about the traditional owners of Australia. We read various Dreaming stories and completed art activities related to the stories. We learnt about an Acknowledgment of Country and why it’s important we acknowledge the traditional owners and pay our respects.

We also learnt some Taribelang language – Yee’gee means hello, Booru is kangaroo, Mee-bar is a saltwater turtle.

Year 5

Year 5 students participated in a variety of activities to celebrate NAIDOC week. One activity was reading in groups about the history of NAIDOC Week and this years theme of ‘Get Up, Stand Up and Show Up’. Students also learnt about the history, symbols and uses of the Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander and Australian flags. Then using their knowledge and understanding of NAIDOC Week and the significance of each flag, students designed a new Australian flag to represent all three cultures.

Year 3 SeaLife Excursion

On Friday 22 July, the Year 3 class went on an excursion to SeaLife at Mooloolaba. During Inquiry lessons, we are learning about living things, particularly those that live in our Australian coral reefs. The students had an amazing time and were able to see and learnt lots of exciting things!

Here are some quotes from the students:

• I saw Sea Lions. They were really cool because in the show they did cool tricks. One of them did a handstand. (Harlow)
• When we went down to the seal enclosure we saw the seals doing tricks in the water and getting ready for the show. We saw a massive seal called “Grouch”. (Nate)
• There was a reef walker shark and it could walk and breathe out of the water. (Aleeyah)
• I found it interesting that the last time I was there it was just one big tunnel but now they have lots more animals in different areas. There was a unicorn fish in the tunnel. Tsunami was the name of the largest sting ray. (Jack)
• The Nurse shark was very interesting because of how big it was and I could see its teeth. They were sharp. (Isaac)
• I learnt that the walker shark had lungs and could come out the water. They lived with the dinosaurs and they still exist. (Layla)
• I didn’t know that Unicorn fish existed and I didn’t know they had a horn on their head. (Georgia C)
• There are three different ways sharks have babies – born/ eggs/ hatch inside the mum and then the weakest get eaten and the strongest are born. (Ava)
• Seahorses don’t have a stomach or a brain and no backbone. (Sophia)
• Sea Jellies are made out of mostly water. (Seavanna)
• Horseshoe crabs have blue blood and so do the octopus. (Jonathan)
• There is a type of jelly fish that lays on its head upside down and grows like a coral. (Eamon)
• There are Sea Jellies that are called Moon Jelly and they have no brain, blood or bones. They need sun to grow their tentacles. (Charlotte)

SAVE THE DATE – Shalom Markets – BBQ Fundraiser

Please pop into the Shalom Markets on Sunday, 14 August 2022 from 6am – 12:00pm where we will be holding a Fundraising BBQ, raising money for the Year 6 Camp.

All support is greatly appreciated.

Family Faith Evening – St John’s Church

Student Awards

Grow your mind

Wellbeing can be described as ‘the state of being comfortable, happy or healthy’. It involves a balance in all aspects of life. Our Grow Your Mind program suggests that to support the wellbeing of others, particularly that of our children, it is essential to put on our own ‘oxygen mask’ first!

Co-Curricular Lunchtime Clubs

Our wonderful Year 6 Leaders have commenced their co-curricular lunchtime clubs for Term 3. Students from all grades are offered opportunity to attend a variety of clubs across a number of days throughout the week. Our Year 6 students have been preparing and planning for the promotion and enactment of these clubs during the first three weeks of term, in an allocated leadership session. Staff have kindly offered to supervise and assist students to facilitate the clubs on offer. What a wonderful way for our students to engage and communicate with one another, fostering relationships across the school and building the capacity of our student leaders.

SSRC Hamper Drive

Congratulations to our SSRC, and whole school community upon the facilitation of the Angels Group Community Hamper Drive. As you can see, our school community overwhelmingly supported this initiative, and our students were extremely proud of the combined efforts. Thank you to our school community for the amazing support.

Communication

Communication between home and school is paramount. As per our Parent Handbook, your child’s teacher is always the first and foremost point of contact. However, as teachers are unable to come to the phone during class time, please leave messages at the office and the teacher will contact you at the earliest convenience. Urgent messages will be relayed to the teacher before the end of the day. Communication between parents and teacher is important. Informal chats are a good way of communicating; however, please understand that in the morning teachers have preparations for the day to complete and may not be able to talk for long. It would be better to arrange an interview about lengthier matters after school. Sometimes a short note via the student’s diary is an ideal way of leaving a message. Teachers will have conveyed their preference for communication, whether it be via the class Seesaw app, via email, phone etc. That said, as Director of Pastoral Care and Wellbeing, I too am available for support of students and families.

Uniform Expectations

It certainly has been cold of late; with the recent cool weather in mind, we respectfully ask that students please wear correct school uniform. If you are unsure of the uniform expectations, or would like to place a uniform order please  visit our ‘uniforms tab’ on our school website where you will be able to download a uniform order and pricelist Uniform Shop – St John’s Lutheran Primary School (stjohnsbundaberg.qld.edu.au)

Our uniform expectations states “the students are to view themselves as ambassadors of the school in that the uniform is worn correctly.”

Grace and Peace

Tamara Carroll

DIRECTOR OF PASTORAL CARE AND WELLBEING

Year 2 Showcase – Tourist Information Centre

Why visit Bundaberg?

Showcasing a Digital Media series of brochures

In Term 2, Year 2 were busy doing many exciting things related to HASS. Students conducted inquiries seeking to deepen their understanding about – Why visit Bundaberg? including: why is Bundaberg so special and what places reveal about the past and present? Some of the preliminary inquiries involved students conducting surveys of their Year 4 buddies and peers to gather and analyse data to determine a list of significant places to visit during their Year 2, Bundaberg History Tour.

The History Tour was jam-packed, and classes visited many interesting local attractions including East Water Tower, Millaquin Sugar Mill, Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, Mon Repos Conservation Park, The Hummock Lookout, Bundaberg Tourist Information Centre, Botanical Gardens and Hinkler Hall of Aviation.

Students then inquired further into a local site of their own choice.

Students created informative brochures which they drafted, edited and published.

These brochures are being showcased at our local Information Centre. Year 2 are hopeful that they will lure you to visit or re-visit our amazing local areas!

ICAS

Our parent payment system and application to take part in ICAS is now finalised. We look forward to those students who have nominated taking part in English and/or Mathematics in August. English will be held on Monday 15 August and Mathematics on Monday 29 August.

Science Week

National science week runs from the 13 – 21 of August 2022. As part of this celebration, we are running a Super Science Expo on Monday 15 August. On this day, all students will take part in rotational activities led by our Year 5 and Year 6 students. We look forward to this exciting event!

Year 6 Market Morning

Our Year 6 students have been working hard on their Business Unit. They will be holding a showcase “Market Morning” on Friday 19 August. Keep an eye out for more information from our Year 6 students, coming soon.

Grace and Peace

Jocelyn Bakker

DIRECTOR OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Welcome to Term 3!

Welcome back to all students and families. I trust that your holiday break was a time of family, fun and relaxation. I particularly welcome new students to our school community. This term is significant in many ways, particularly the amount of planned activities and events!

Chapel Offerings

Our offerings this term continue to support our Compassion child. Students are reminded to bring their offering along each Friday morning.

Contact Information

If any changes to contact details (home address, phones, email contacts etc.) has occurred in recent times and these have not been updated at school, please use your Parent Lounge to update and or check your contact details. This is extremely important should we need to contact you urgently regarding your child.

Routines and Expectations

Please observe the following in preparation for your child/ren’s return to school.

• Particularly, during winter months formal jumper must be worn with formal uniform only and sports jacket is to be worn with sports uniform only. Sports jacket is not to be worn with formal uniform, please.
• A school hat is essential. Spare hats won’t be issued meaning ‘no hat, no play’.
• We respectfully ask that toys, games and other general personal items be left at home, please.
• Children are to bring their own (named) water bottle, lunchbox (brain-break), fruit snack, morning-tea and lunch.
• General Expectations – Our expectations of courtesies, manners and general behaviour remain as high as always. Our 6Rs have been designed so that the school community functions within certain standards of safety, comfort and hygiene. We would appreciate it if you could continue to reinforce our 6Rs and ensure that they are followed.
  • Respect
  • Responsibility
  • Random-Acts-of-Kindness
  • Rigour
  • Resilience
  • Relationships

The Road Not Taken

Some time ago I went bushwalking with some family. We were on a grassy trail and came to a fork in the path. We wondered which route to take, as they were both unmarked. We all reached for our devices for a resolu­tion, some hit up Google Maps, others searched for a pdf map of the area. I went straight to Google and hit up Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken. I hadn’t thought of it for years but the imagery from the poem matched exactly the choice before us. I attempted to read it out loud to our group, they rolled their eyes and moved on, mumbling generally how unhelpful I was being. The poem has been on my mind ever since, so I shall share it here with some reflection.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

This is probably the most famous American poem of all time. You see bits of it reproduced on coffee mugs and wall plaques and hear it in motivational speeches, ‘I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference’. It is touted as being an ode to having a go, thinking out of the box, being bold and so on.

But that’s all incorrect.

The author tells us that for all intents and purposes, on that day and at that time, the two roads were essentially identical. That the choice really didn’t make much difference. Read it again and see. The clue to this poem, the key to unlocking its cleverness is in the last verse. Robert Frost recognises that he is about to make a choice that really makes no dif­ference whatsoever, but, when he reflects on his journey in the future he will brag or boast about how he did it the hard way or made the tough choice or made some visionary decision that no one else recognised and it led him to some great achievement.

How Fortunate We Are

Let us never underestimate the value of positive attitude and belief in ourselves and each other. Our world is truly great- even though we are often bombarded with portrayals of violence and despair – just look at what’s happening in the world at present. Dennis the Menace (of all people) once said, “People wait for opportunity to come along……yet it is there every morning.” Each morning that we come to St John’s we can be thankful that we do indeed come to a terrific school where people matter. St John’s encourages an environment that allows parents to feel included, valued, fully informed and knowledgeable about the school and the progress of their children. As such I encourage you to continue to speak with your child’s teachers about their academic and social development. Of course the offer also extends for you to reach out to Jocelyn and myself.

An Interview with God

Author Unknown

I dreamed I had an interview with GOD.

“So, you would like to interview me?” GOD asked.

“If you have time,” I said.

GOD smiles.

“My time is eternity… what questions do you have in mind for me?”

“What surprises you the most about humankind?”

GOD answered…

“That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.”

“That they lose their health to make money…. and then lose their money to restore their health.”

“That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future.”

“That they live as if they would never die and die as though they had never lived.”

GOD’s hand took mine….. and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked, “As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?”

GOD replied…….

“To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved.”

“To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.”

“To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.”

“To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them.”

“To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most but is one who needs the least.”

“To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply do not yet know how to express or show their feelings.”

“To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.”

“To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another but they must also forgive themselves.”

“Thank you for your time,” I said humbly.

“Is there anything else you would like your children to know?”

GOD smiled, and said…..

 “Just know that I am here. Always.”

 I don’t know about you, but all too often, I fall into the trap of the busyness of life. I’m making an effort to stop and breathe, pray more, love more and be faith-filled. A couple of weeks ago on Saturday night, as is customary in our home, we watched a movie. Which movie you ask? Kungfu Panda! Although positive messages around the plight of never giving up – keep on, keeping on – among others, one message stuck with me which I found very apt.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift which is why it is called the present. Savor each moment today. It’s God’s gift to you and me.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways. Proverbs 3:5

Thank you for working in partnership with us.

Grace and Peace

Chris Mallett

PRINCIPAL