Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers

What a wonderful beginning to Spring we have had.  Isaiah 35:1 tells us ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose.’  It is great to see our students enjoying the change of season.  I hope that you spend this weekend celebrating the first week of September with your family.

Parent Satisfaction Survey

The school has just received the Annual School Satisfaction Survey that was sent out to the whole community last term.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey. Your considered opinions are important in our school’s strategic planning. I especially appreciate the courteous, polite manner in which all opinions were expressed; it speaks volumes about the quality of our school community.

Feedback is given to schools in an easy traffic light system, red signifies an area that needs immediate attention, amber for areas that need to be developed and green for areas that are doing well. The school constantly monitors feedback from parents and even areas in the green, can be areas that are prioritised by the school.  Forty-eight percent of the community responded to the survey, which is deemed a very-high response rate.

The school scored in the green area for all but one question (hovering between the yellow and green domain) which discussed the reporting process and its connection to understanding a student’s progress.  Interestingly, staff are currently reviewing this area.

Students would overwhelmingly recommend their school to other children and acknowledge that their teachers care for them and help them set learning goals. They are concerned about homework. 

The staff at SJV overwhelmingly feel that there is a high level of job satisfaction working here, that we celebrate student achievements and manage behaviour well.  They believe that we could communicate our improvement agenda to the whole community in a more productive manner. 

Once again thank you for your support with this tool that helps us with our future direction.

Acting AP and Mrs DeRosa's last day
Yesterday I emailed the community to inform you of who will be moving into the Acting AP role at SJV for 2020/21. 

I would like to announce that Catholic Education has appointed Mrs Judy Egan, Assistant Principal of St Thomas the Apostle, Kambah into the acting Assistant Principal role for Term 4 at St John Vianney’s Waramanga. 

In 2021, for terms one through to the end of term three, Mrs Jo Reed has been appointed as the acting Assistant Principal. 

We of course wish Nina all the best for the near arrival of her baby boy.  I am sure that you will keep her and her husband Claude in your thoughts and prayers over the next three to four weeks.  Nina thanks everyone for all the kind wishes that have come in from our community already.

Contact details

Could you please make sure that you are receiving emails and newsletters from the school.  Some email addresses have bounced back to the Front Office, indicating that your contact details have changed.  If this is the case, can you please contact the school with your current information so we can ensure a good line of communication.   

Afternoon Pick-Up

I would like to thank people for social distancing at afternoon pick-up.  However, your adherence to good practice has had an inadvertent side effect.  With most people standing outside the fence line, children come out to parents and are too close to moving cars.  When parents are picking their children up, could you please take them by the hands to walk them to your cars.  It would also help if more parents spaced themselves out, over near the artificial turf area.  This may also help alleviate the problem.

Could I also ask that parents accompany their children across the marked crossing points if these areas are being used.  Sometimes drivers find children difficult to see and a taller adult accompanying students usually solves this problem.

Children who are being picked up in the drop off/pick up zone will be asked to wait at the far end of the steps.  They will be instructed to look for their parents and when they see their car coming, they can move off to the specified zone to be picked up. 

Year 6 Confirmation

I would like to congratulate the children on their beautiful Confirmation that was celebrated yesterday afternoon by Fr Michael.  Whilst this was not a usual celebration, with a full church, a 90-minute ceremony and a Bishop in attendance, it was very prayerful and targeted specifically to our community.  I would like to thank all the 5/6 teachers involved for preparing the children in a very short time frame.  I would especially like to single out Mrs Thomas, our REC, who has organised 3 sacraments in 8 weeks.  All the Sacarments have been beautiful occasions, which point to the preparation and thought that went into these services.  

Father’s Day – Friday 4^th September

Just a reminder that teachers will be celebrating our Father’s tomorrow for all they do for their families.  Breakfasts will be served in a drive-through manner, in the same way as they were for Mother’s Day.  If you are not picking your order up in the morning, it will be ready for you in the afternoon.  Happy Father’s day dads!

Stay safe and God bless.

Peter Rodda

Principal

With Sharee Thomas 

In the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus moves from Galilee to teach in Judea where he is sought out by great crowds and tested by the Pharisees. Jesus spends time teaching one of his main mesages, the first will be last and the last will be first through the parable of the workers in the vineyard

The parable reminds us that although God owes us nothing, he offers abundantly and equally. We are occasionally tempted to think that our own actions deserve more reward, more of God's abundant mercy, than the actions of others. But God's generosity cannot be quantified or partitioned into different amounts for different people.

When reflecting on the weekends Gospel, it struck me that the workers in this parable sound very much like me sometimes, squabbling children, comparing what they have each been given and making complaints about it being unfair. Sometimes with our children there is a tendency to equate love with gifts and material things. This tendency can devolve into a spirit of entitlement, which runs counter to the spirit of gratitude. Any effort we make to overcome this tendency, to keep love from being entwined with gifts and possessions, will enable our children to accept completely the love that God gives freely and generously.

This week as a family take notice of these complaints and have a conversation about whether or not they are helpful. Remind your children that love cannot and ought not to be measured, but felt.

Have a great week!

Come out and see if you can hit one into the stands, or maybe test your arm strength, accuracy and speed against our speed gun ??

Do you have what it takes to become a big league player  ??

The Weston Creek Indians Baseball Club

will be holding their 2020/21 Baseball "COME TRY ME DAY" - Sunday 20th September at Stirling Oval, Teasdale Close Stirling

 11am - 1pm For more information check their website 

BOOK WEEK 2020

Each year SJV celebrates the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week in August.  Due to the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, CBCA Book Week 2020 will now be held 17^th October – 23^rd October 2020.

This means SJV will look at holding a Book Week parade during Week 2, Term 4 but is unable to confirm at the moment how this event will look due to changing COVID-19 restrictions.

This year Book Week’s theme is Curious Creatures, Wild Minds!  Details will be confirmed as we approach Term 4.

Scholastic Book Club Issue 6 – No Cash Payments accepted

Scholastic Book Club Issue 6 went home this week and orders are now open, closing on Wednesday 9^th September 2020 (week 8).

Scholastic Book Club Issue 6 – No Cash Payments accepted

Scholastic Book Club Issue 6 went home this week and orders are now open, closing on Wednesday 9^th September 2020 (week 8).

Issue 6 can also be viewed at:  

https://www.scholastic.com.au/media/5667/bc-620.pdf

Families are asked to order and pay for Book Club using the online LOOP platform. Due to Covid-19 concerns and restrictions, cash payments are no longer accepted.

Please use the link to register and start your order: www.scholastic.com.au/loop

LOOP is also available as an app, for both apple and Android devices. 

All Book Club orders earn Scholastic rewards for SJV which are redeemed for new resources for our students.  Thank you in advance for your ongoing support. 

Any queries, please contact: samantha.heath@cg.catholic.edu.au

Happy reading!

The Great Book Swap for Indigenous Literacy Day

Every year SJV is a proud fundraiser for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and holds the Great Book Swap for Indigenous Literacy Day.  This year we will be running the Book Swap a little differently and due to Covid-19 restrictions, we are not asking students to donate second-hand books.  Fortunately, through-out the year our generous SJV families often donate their old books to the library and we hence have enough books for students to all purchase one with a gold coin donation.

 

The Great Book Swap will be held during Library/ Health lessons in week 8 and it would be fantastic if all students could bring in a gold coin to swap for a book.  It is a great way to celebrate reading locally and raise much-needed funds for remote communities. You will be actively helping gift 35,000 new, carefully chosen books to children who need them the most.

 

Please send in a gold coin with your students’ library bag and books Tuesday 8^th – Thursday 10^th September, 2020 (week 8).  A donation tin will be available for the coins to limit contact with cash hence no change can be given.

 

ELC NEWS

On Monday evening we finished another step of our Assesment and Rating journey.  An assessor visited our preschool on Thursday, Friday and Monday. A report will be given to us within the next five weeks commmenting on evidence seen during the visit on each of the 7 quality areas.

National Quality Standard

The National Quality Standard (NQS) sets a high national benchmark for early childhood education and care and outside school hours care services in Australia.

The NQS includes 7 quality areas that are important outcomes for children.

Services are assessed and rated by their regulatory authority against the NQS, and given a rating for each of the 7 quality areas and an overall rating based on these results. For further information on the 7 quality areas and the process please head to: https://www.acecqa.gov.au/nqf/national-quality-standard

We look forward to sharing the end result with you at the end of the process (term 4).

 Entering the ELC via the gate

Families, it is important that you know where you child is when you are waiting to enter the gate.  For the saftey of all, please ensure you child is entering in a calm manner.  If your child is not calm, wait with you child until they are calm.

 Book Week

Next week we will celebrate Book Week. The theme this year is Curious Creatures, Wild Minds.  On Friday 11 September (Tuesday 8^th for the Stingrays) children are welcome to dress up as curious creatures or as their favourite book character and we will go for a parade around the primary school. Please ensure your child is able to feely move in their costume so that they can participate in active play and physical moevement activities.  Unfortunatly due to social distancing, parents are not invited to veiw the parade.  We will take photos for you to enjoy.

ELC Holiday Program - The ELC will be running a Holiday Program for ELC children in the upcoming school holidays.  The program will be available from the ELC next week.  Please email the ELC office elc.stjudes@cg.catholic.edu.au days you would like your child to attend.

 ELC Fees

The final account statement for Term 3 was sent out today.  We appreciate your efforts to ensure that Term 3 fees are finalised by next Friday 11 September.

SJV Tuckshop is open Wednesday & Friday.  Orders can be made online via Qkr!  A copy of the Menu and Qkr! instructions can be found on the Tuckshop Webpage.

Please remember to bring your WWVP card with you.

Tuckshop Volunteers Needed

If you can only spare a couple of hours, that would be fantastic.  If you have little ones, they are very welcome to come along.

Please contact the front office or fill in the tuckshop volunteer form to let us know you are able to help and when. 

 

Watch this space for more information on the SJV special day to Celebrate Carnivale         Tuesday 22nd Sept

Dates for the following weeks