Dear SJV Families

Welcome to the end of Wk 3.  In the spirit of what many of us have been watching on television, I have chosen the following prayer. 

God, thank you for the opportunity to enjoy watching some of the world's top athletes compete in their sports. Use their passion and dedication to bring joy to many people. May they inspire those who are watching to discover, develop, and use their own talents to the fullest

Help the Olympians be positive role models for a hurting world that needs joy and inspiration from the Olympics.
Bless the athletes as they do their best to contribute to the world, and let their efforts point us all toward you God, the source of all hope.
Amen. Stacy Paper

Trivia night

A massive thank you to Bec Battaglini and her wonderful team who put on a fantastic Trivia night.  Whether it was the Hungry Hippo game (seen below) the coin toss for a bottle of something nice, heads or tales or best dressed, everyone had an absolute blast.  

Community Garden Project

Our indigenous inspired community garden has really taken shape over the last few months!  The site has been cleared, our sandstone blocks are now in place in a beautiful yarning circle, the garden beds have been formed and planting has begun in earnest with a number of native trees provided from Transport Canberra City Services, and the endless job of mulching continues!  There are a few feature items to come in the garden and the garden will have a formal opening later this year too, so stay tuned.  

The School Community Council and delivery team are excited to make this project happen with the assistance from the ACT Government under the Parent Engagement Grant Program, which is certainly living up to its name!  Our parent engagement has been exceptional!  From the many families who helped with site clearing at our first working bee in May, Sukfateh's family (Year 2) who wielded their bobcat to tame the space, the Hering family and their friend Mark for beautifully positioning our sandstone blocks, and Fr Michael for allowing us to turn his tree into mulch for our garden as well as the Spackman girl's Nana Judie, for cutting, clearing and planting in the space.  A true community engagement activity!

SJV School Community Council (SCC)

The School Community Council team met on Monday 5 August for the first meeting of Term 3.  The next Council meeting is on 9 September, and is the annual Open meeting - more details to follow!

This meeting, we took time to reflect on school business (eg the annual plan, parish news, upcoming activities, enrolments and staffing) as well as the current Council activities such as the Community Garden project, fete preparations as well as smaller initiatives that have been delivered over the last few months, such as new netball hoops, and school branded tablecloths.  The trivia night held on Friday 2 August was a great night - thanks to Bec Battaglini and the year 5/6 families that made it possible!  We are looking forward to the upcoming Fathers day event too!

The Council continues to consider proposals from the Student Representative Council, and invites suggestions from our broader community that can support academic excellence, community engagement, facilities or resources to benefit our kids. If you have any suggestions, please grab a form to submit to the Council from the office, or email sjvparent@gmail.com with any questions.

TTFM (Tell Them From Me) School Survey - TBA

As mentioned before we will be sending a school survey out to all parents.  You will be sent a code via Compass which will enable you to access this survey.  It would help us greatly is you are able to spend 10 minutes to complete this. 

The code and the start date for the survey will be sent soon via COMPASS. 

School Musical - Selling Fast 

The children are well over the rainbow in search of Toto, flanked by scores of munchkins!!!!   Certainly a musical that is not to be missed.  The night performance still has some space but with over 235 tickets sold, we are filling up fast.  Use the link below to secure your place. 

https://www.trybooking.com/CTVLM

Absence Notifications - Tuesday 13th August System Goes Live

A new initiative started by our SCC will be moving forward within the next two weeks.

Soon our school will be set-up for families to automatically receive an absence notification if their child is away from school.  By approximately 10:10am every morning families will receive an email notification if their child is absent from school if an explanation has not been placed in our Compass Roll system.

This email is to give parents an easy way of seeing that their child has made it to school safely. 

We have trialled this system for five weeks and believe that the data being sent to parents will be accurate.  It is worth noting that there still can be human error with any system, however we believe we have processes in place that will eliminate these factors.  We will appreciate your patience if there are some bugs we have not found yet.   

Welcome Staff and Families

Welcome to our new staff members Mr Toth (Fridays in Year 3) Mrs Diskin (5/6J for the remainder of the year) and Ms Kim (Learning Support Mondays)

Another big SJV welcome goes to our new families who have joined us recently,  the Aubrey, Donald Dencil, Ford, Henderson, Hering, Jadric, Jasi, Lapota, Karunarathne  and Tapia families.  WELCOME!!

Families Moving On - School Notification

At this time of year, some families look to relocate to other cities for work or other parts of Canberra as they buy a new house.  If for whatever reason you will not be at SJV next year and you have not yet let us know, please contact Jet in the Front Office to inform us of the new school that your child will be attending in 2025. 

Peter Rodda

Principal