Principal's Message
Dear SJV Community
Welcome to the end of Wk 3
Merciful God, you called us forth from the dust of the earth; you claimed us for Christ in the waters of baptism. Look upon us as we enter these Forty Days bearing the mark of ashes, and bless the journey through the desert of Lent to the font of rebirth.
Year 5/6 Camp
Next week I will be attending our annual school camp with all of 5/6.
This is a time for children to build resilience and make new friendships, knowing that they should be able to rely on anyone from their 5/6 team. Whilst I am away if you need to contact me, please direct your correspondence to Mrs Nina De Rosa our Assistant Principal.
Uniform Shop
Beginning next week our Uniform Shop Opening time will be every Tuesday between 8:50 am and 9:10am. If you need something from the shop I ask you to try and make it at this time as it takes the stress away from our Front Office. I thank Mrs Rebbechi for continuing to support us by managing this important service.
Important Dates
After discussion with our School Community Council, a decision has been made to stop producing the fridge magnet parent calendar. Instead of this calendar, important parent dates will be placed in the first week of each term in my newsletter piece. This will probably not contain every possible date and I still ask parents to to look at the School Calendar on a weekly basis. Please note, for events like Prayer Assemblies, Masses and Holy Celebrations, these will only be found in the on-line Calendar.
Important Dates are -
NAPLAN Yrs 3 and 5 - 11th March to 18th March
School Disco - TBA (later in March, possibly the 22nd)
Access to the School Calendar - How to navigate
Access the school website either through your computer or phone following this linkhttps://www.sjv.act.edu.au/
Mobile Phone – Scroll down until you see the second last coloured tile which I have pasted below. Follow this link to our school calendar.
Computer – Scroll down until you see the second last coloured tile which I have pasted below. Follow this link to our school calendar.
NAPLAN
NAPLAN begins on the 11th March. All children are expected to participate unless a parent wishes to withdraw them for a specific reason. Please see the NAPLAN Ad in this edition as well as the attached letter to parents. Letter_to_parents_from_principal_re_NAPLAN_online.pdf
Spelling Mastery
Mrs DeRosa has written a very informative article of our new Spelling Program: Spelling Mastery, I would advise parents to read this.
This new program is being implemented this term as we believe it is superior to our last program, being more complimentary for the Direct Instruction methodology used at SJV. It is worth noting that children are not necessarily with their classroom teacher as middle and upper primary (Years 3-6) students move to 6 different levelled groups (decided by a whole school placement test) to be taught specifically what they need to learn. As Mrs DeRosa mentions, a prime objective is that students experience mastery, so words may start off simpler before they become harder.
All students move beautifully into their groups at 12 noon every day of the week (except Wednesdays) to immediately start work, our quiet corridor rule makes sure that they begin this session very settled.
Class Contacts
Currently Year 2 and Kinder have filled their parent positions, we are still waiting for more parents to put their hand up for the other five classes. Please put your name forward so we can fill these positions.
God Bless
Peter Rodda
Principal