Year 6 Canberra Fundraiser Annual Golf Day – 12 September, 2021

Join us for a round of golf and a day of fun! Raffles, Prizes, BBQ and more.

St John’s Lutheran OSHC Assistant Service Leader/Educational Leader – Position Available

St John’s OSHC are seeking applicants for the role of Assistant Service Leader/Educational Leader. Please click on the below link for further details:

Assistant Service Leader/Educational Leader – Position Available

St John’s Lutheran OSHC Vacation Care Program (20 Sept – 1 Oct 2021)

Please click on the below link for more details:

St John’s OSHC Vacation Care Program (September 2021)

Bundy Touch 2021/2022 Junior Season

Clubbercise for Cancer

Bundaberg Regional Council’s Relay for Life Team is holding a fundraiser, “Clubbercise for Cancer”.

The exercise class, which commenced on 4 August, is being held in the Civic Centre (190 Bourbong St, Bundaberg) on Wednesdays at 5.30 pm for six weeks.

City Fit Gym instructors will take the classes.

The cost per class is $5/person (under 15 free when accompanied by parent/guardian).

No bookings are required.

Outdoor Art Room – Saturday 11 September, 2021

Fe Fi Fo Fum, Year 1 Blue have had so much FUN!

About 3 weeks ago Year 1 Blue found a beanstalk had magically appeared in their room. There was a note from the Giant asking for the students’ help in measuring length. The Giant especially asked the students to measure his footprint and find objects that are longer and shorter, as well as the same length as his. Due to our interruption of starting school that particular morning the Giant had to hide before he could leave a footprint behind.

The students were so excited to find the beanstalk and spent most of the morning searching the room and school for clues on what had happened to the Giant. They wrote stories about how the beanstalk came to be in our room and Chloe and Maverick even went to see Mr Mallett on behalf of Year 1 Blue. They asked Mr Mallett if he could check the security cameras to see what happened to the Giant and how the beanstalk appeared in our room.

Over the next couple of weeks, the Giant sent us another 3 letters asking for our help and assistance as he was having difficulty making friends. To find out more about the Giant we read a number of different versions about the story of Jack and the Beanstalk as well as the Giant’s favourite book “Trust Me, Jack’s Beanstalk Stinks!: The story of Jack and the Beanstalk as Told by the Giant” written by Eric Braun.

After reflecting on the stories we were able to create a character profile on the Giant, identifying his appearance, personality and feelings. We made character concertina Giants to display different adjective words to describe the Giant and we even wrote a different ending to Jack and the Beanstalk in favour of the Giant. The Giant was very grateful for all our help and one night he brought his fairytale friends to our classroom to see all the work we had done. He was so thankful to us in assisting him to make new friends.

One early cold Thursday morning Ms. Sommers, our cleaner, saw this huge, big, hairy object leaving our room. She wrote a note on our whiteboard telling us all about it, and he even left giant footprints all over our room.  We found his last letter on this day, and he reminded us of his first initial letter asking for our help to measure his footprints. We spend our Math lesson measuring the Giant’s footprints and we found a number of objects that were longer, shorter as well as the same length. The students had a wonderful time during our hands-on learning investigation and learnt so much about using informal units to measure length. All our help now meant the Giant became super busy with visits and playdates that he had to leave our classroom.

In the Giant’s final letter he explained that he had to be going and that he had to say goodbye. The students were all so thankful for the fun learning opportunities that he provided us, that we all wrote individual thank you letters, we each addressed our own envelope and took them to Mrs Croft to be sent to the post office with the school’s mail. The post office even gave Mrs Croft a receipt to share with us that the letters had been posted. We even received a letter back addressed to Mr Mallett, sharing his thanks for our beautiful letters and how wonderful we were at relationships, working with rigour and our random acts of kindness towards him. Mr Mallett was so proud of us!

Samantha Jones

YEAR 1 BLUE TEACHER

Student Awards

ICAS

A reminder for those students participating in ICAS this year. The ICAS English test will be held on Tuesday 17 August and the ICAS Mathematics test will be held on Tuesday the 31 August. These sessions will start promptly at 9:00am. If your child is participating in ICAS, please avoid any specialist appointments being made during this time and ensure your child is at school on time. This will enable the sessions to run smoothly for everyone involved – thank you in advance.

Wellbeing

As part of our commitment to wellbeing at St John’s our teaching and learning staff have recently been involved in a Grow Your Mind staff resilience course. This course is complementary to the program we run for all students from Prep – Year 6. During the two, one-hour sessions our staff focused on learning about our own emotional intelligence and how important it is to keep our emotions and stressors intact. Some of the strategies we were reminder about were:

• Practicing mindfulness
• Moving our bodies
• Laughing
• Thinking about what we are grateful for
• Knowing and growing our strengths
• Connecting with people
• Doing something that brings us joy
• Learning something new
• Listening to music
• Showing kindness to someone
• Getting creative
• Sleeping

The above strategies were a great reminder for us all and something that I think all parents and carers sometimes need reminding of, “we can’t pour from an empty cup” as the saying goes.

Jocelyn Bakker

DIRECTOR OF LEARNING AND TEACHING

Shake off your problems

A man’s favorite donkey falls into a deep precipice;
He can’t pull it out no matter how hard he tries;
He therefore decides to bury it alive.

Soil is poured onto the donkey from above.
The donkey feels the load, shakes it off, and steps on it;
More soil is poured.

It shakes it off and steps up;
The more the load was poured, the higher it rose;
By noon, the donkey was grazing in green pastures.

After much shaking off (of problems)
And stepping up (learning from them),
One will graze in GREEN PASTURES.

I find this time of the year often brings about a sense of restlessness in our young people. I’m not sure as to the reason for it, but in many a conversation with educational colleagues from all corners of the country this phenomenon seems rather common. I encourage our young people to, as the donkey in the story above did, shake off the soil of woes and challenges and turn them into ‘green pastures’.

The Bible also provides encouragement:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

This story resonates with our common message to the students this term – Start Strong, Finish Strong, Together.

School Routines

Please be reminded that school commences at 8.30am sharp. As official roll marking commences at this time, we would appreciate your support in ensuring students arrive promptly ready for classes. Students are permitted to be on campus from 8.00am. Drop-off and pick-up routines were issued to families at the beginning of the semester.

Term 3 Key Dates

23-27 August        Book Week

3 September        Student Free Day (Staff Professional Development)

15 September       School Musical Rehearsal Day

16 September      School Musical ‘When I Grow Up’ – One Night Only

17 September       Pupil-Free Day – School Closed (Vacation Care Open and Available – Bookings Essential)

School Musical

‘When I Grow Up’

One Night Only – Thursday 16 September

Limited Tickets – Ticketing Restrictions Apply

(Please refer to details as per letters to parents dated 28 June and 3 August)

COVID-19 Update

As you are aware many parts of our nation are in the grip of difficulty regarding the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent impacts – like lockdown, quarantine, etc. I thank all in our community for adhering to recent government directives. This has certainly helped to keep all in our school safe.

There has been an exceptionally high rate of sickness in our community. Please, should you or any member of your family present unwell, seek medical advice through your GP. In the case of being unwell, we respectfully ask that children and/or adults remain off campus until well again.

We continue to monitor COVID-19 (Government) updates closely and the potential or real impacts that this has on general school operations/events/activities. As usual, we will advise as a matter of priority, any changes/impacts on normal school operations.

Thank you for working in partnership with us.

Grace and Peace.

Chris Mallett

PRINCIPAL