St John's Newsletter - 23rd June 2022

Dear Parents and Friends of St John's,

Last week, many of our students received the Sacrament of Confirmation at All Saints Church. The Sacrament of Confirmation is a ‘coming of age’ in the Catholic Church and is designed to strengthen people in their Christian faith and elicit from them a promise to live a life that witnesses Christ’s presence. Congratulations to all the St John’s students on receiving this most important sacrament. I thank Toni Densley, Carmel Treasure, Melissa Irwin, Sophie Twidale and Rhianna Tierney for the preparation of the students and music at the ceremony.

Last Wednesday, our School Leaders for 2022/2023 were announced. Each of the successful candidates set the highest standards in their applications, speeches and interviews whilst also enjoying significant support from students and staff through a voting process. It gives me immense pleasure to announce the following positions:

Female School Captain – Kissea Cruz

Male School Captain – Max Henningsen

Theresian House Prefects – Brayden Crawford and Jeffrey Lunney

Marian House Prefects – Mia Otto and Thomas Hayward

Xaverian House Prefects – Lalitha Cooper and Beau Cramer

I also acknowledge the wonderful work of our outgoing School Leaders 2021/2022

Female School Captain – Briony Burns

Male School Captain – Thomas McCoy

Theresian House Prefects – Logan Walsh and Zofia Abulencia

Marian House Prefects – Heath Waugh and Hannah Coffey

Xaverian House Prefects – Ruby Taylor and Tully Stone

During the last two weeks, we have farewelled, three of our staff members, Angela Millard (Career Development Officer), Jason Francis (Information Technology Support Officer) and Majella Galway (Religious Education/Humanities). Angela and Majella have worked at St John’s for the last three years and have contributed to all aspects of the school. Jason joined St John’s just over six months ago and has made an impression in his short time with both students and staff. We wish all three staff members and their families well with their future plans.

We welcome David Thompson (Senior Information Technology Support Officer) and Ms Yuki Fernando (Information Technology Support Officer) to the non-teaching staff team. David has worked for eight years at St John’s as an Information Technology Support Officer, whilst Yuki joins us from Melbourne. Mrs Leisha McNulty will assume the position of Career Development Officer having worked as a School Officer at St John’s for the last eleven years. Grace Gibbs joins the school as a replacement for Majella Galway and will teach Junior Religious Education and Humanities. Grace graduates from the Australian Catholic University mid-year and recently completed her final eight-week teaching practicum with us.

During Week Nine, the annual School Athletics Carnival was conducted over two days. Students in Prep to Year 3 participated on Friday 17th June in a variety of track and modified field events, whilst the remainder of the school participated in competitive events at the Bungil Street Athletics Club on Thursday 16th June. Participation from students over the two days was exceptional and was lovely to see so many parents in attendance. Thank you to the organising staff led by Sports Coordinators, Sam Valentine and Meg Lyons who facilitated the days. I also acknowledge Kylie Sabine and her P&F team who ran the canteen at the Thursday carnival. Congratulations to Theresian House who won the carnival and to the respective Age Champions.

Parent and Teacher Interviews will be conducted on Wednesday 20th July (P-6) and Thursday 21st July (7-12). These days provide an opportunity for parents to discuss their child/ children’s progress with respective teachers. The interviews provide a more detailed and personalised report of Semester One report cards which will be posted to the Parent Portal today. I encourage all parents to take the opportunity to meet with staff, especially if staff have requested an interview. Additionally, I encourage parents to bring their children to the interviews.

Finally, I wish our Open Years Confraternity (Rugby League) and QISSN (Netball) teams the absolute best in their respective carnivals which will be held in Mackay during the first week of the holidays. Many staff, parents and businesses have contributed to facilitating this wonderful opportunity which has a rich tradition within the St John’s Community. I thank all for your efforts and look forward to witnessing the students in action next week.

On behalf of all staff, I take this opportunity to wish all families an enjoyable time with your children over the mid-year break and look forward to seeing you for the commencement of school on Tuesday 12th July.

God Bless

Jim Brennan

This term in Science, students investigated different materials that don’t mix well, and others that are difficult to separate. Through hands-on experiments, students explored how changing the quantities of materials in a mixture can alter its properties and uses. Students even explored the high school Science labs, with Mrs Free kindly offering to demonstrate two experiments.

This term, Year Four students have read and explored the story ‘Thalia the Failure’ by Robin Klein. We learnt about inferencing, making connections and procedural texts.

In the story, Thalia is a wizard and is attending Madame Aquila’s Academy of Magic. She is not a good magician and continues to fail all her classes. The students learnt about procedures, text structure and language features to then be able to write a procedure to create a potion to allow Thalia to pass her cauldron subject.

When learning about the structure of a procedure, students experimented with following instructions to create their own paper plane. They measured the success of the procedure structure based on how effectively it flew.

The students used their imagination and creativity as well as their understanding of procedural texts to write their own recipe for a potion. They then created a recipe card for their potion on Power Point.

As part of the Year Fives homework this term, students were asked to write about what they have learnt this term. This has been written by Tristan Nel in Year Five Maroon.

Being in Grade Five and in Mr Wilkie’s class has been out of this world! Speaking of out of this world, one of the subjects we have been learning about is the solar system and all its wonders.

In Health, we are learning how to take care of our bodies by eating healthily.

In Religion, we are learning about Mary MacKillop, the Australian Church, the Beatitudes and most importantly the Ten Commandments.

In my favourite subject, Maths, we are learning about measurement, transformations, 3D Shapes decimal fractions, 2-digit multiplication and equivalent number sentences. I find it very interesting.

In English, I am becoming quite the storyteller with all the narratives we have been writing. It has been quite out of the box stuff!

In HASS, we have researched interesting facts about floods, North America and Europe. Did you know there is something called a dry flood? This is where water levels just rise from rain coming into the water catchments further up the creeks and rivers.

In Music, we have been learning about Vivaldi and his piece of music, 'Spring'.

In Sports, we have been learning about soccer and the techniques to 'bend it like Beckham'.

In Art, we have been learning about the different elements of art and combining them to create an art piece.

We are looking forward to Term Three which involves our Charleville Trip!

Tristan Nel. 5M

Thank you to all of our Teachers, Students and helpers for their efforts at the recent Athletics Carnivals. Thank you to all of our helpers across both days. Whether you were a student running the paperwork into the recording tent, on the BBQ and serving food or helping set up/pack up just to name a few aspects. Thank you.

Age Champions for the 10 - 19 Year Interhouse Track and Field Carnival.

10 years Boys

Runner Up: Huxley Lucas          Age Champion: Dallas Marshall

10 years Girls

Runner Up: Georgia Warner     Age Champion: Kaitlyn Webb

11 years Boys

Runner Up: Sam Anderson        Age Champion: Flynn White

11 years Girls

Runner Up: Michaela Maslen    Age Champion: Ivy Nolan

12 years Boys

Runner Up: Harry Hudson       Age Champion: Carter Brown

12 years Girls

Runner Up: Eliza Schafer       Age Champion: Diana Humphreys

13 years Boys

Runner Up: William Webb   Age Champion: Darius Ireland

13 years Girls

Runner Up: Harriet Regan    Age Champion: Tahlya Marshall

14 years Boys

Runner Up: Nate Freeman   Age Champion: Daniel McCoy

14 years Girls

Runner Up: Jorja Ferguson  Age Champion: Sophie Pollock

15 years Boys

Runner Up: Lachlan Lunney  Age Champion: Lincoln Ogilvie

15 years Girls

Runner Up: Allie Ey             Age Champion: Maddison Murphy

16 years Boys

Runner Up: Leo Ey             Age Champion: Mitchell Boland

16 years Girls

Runner Up: Tayla Doig       Age Champion: Amy Lorenz

17 years Boys

Runner Up:  Daniel Cox      Age Champion: Liam Sabine

17 years Girls

Runner Up: Maya Jackson   Age Champion: Tully Stone

Open Boys

Runner Up: Logan Walsh      Age Champion: Thomas McCoy

Open Girls

Runner Up: Zofia Abulencia   Age Champion: Sarah Moran

Overall House results for both the 5 – 9 years and 10 -19 years Interhouse Track and Field Carnivals.

3^rd - Xaverian- 2274

2^nd - Marian -2581

1^st - Theresian- 2727

Congratulations to Theresian!

Last Thursday night, a group of students participated in the Sacrament of Confirmation where they received the gift of the Holy Spirit at the hands of Bishop Robert McGuckin at All Saints Church. The candidates, their families and special guests came together and celebrated this joyful occasion. We would like to thank Bishop McGuckin for coming all the way to Roma for this important event in the children’s spiritual journey. The next Sacrament for the candidates is First Communion.

The Sacramental Team would like to thank Father Tom for his on-going leadership while preparing the students for the Sacraments.

Congratulations to the following candidates:

Kianzie Cruz, Lucy Jenkins, Raffie Cawilan, Archie Densley, Hayden Marris, Bryce Mills, Kohan Wheatley, Eva Stevens, Kyle Howard, Oliver Howard, Hannah Murphy, Ethan Murphy, Lincoln Brown, Bentley Brider, Isabel Cook, William Stanford, Scarlett Challenor, Max Challenor, Caitlin Auld, Ivy Barden, Kelcee Harvey, Keynan Harvey, Faith Iseppi, May Iseppi, Delilah Broom, Georgie Watson and Venessa Abil.

The Sacramental Team – Toni Densley, Melissa Irwin, Sophie Twidale and Rhianna Tierney.

Parents

Tuckshop orders are received and paid for through Flexischools, which you can access online or by downloading the App.  You can find our school by typing in Roma, then finding St John’s.  Cut off time is 8am on the morning of Tuckshop (every Tuesday and Thursday).  It’s important to let your child know if you have only ordered for one break and which break you have ordered, as students will sometimes get confused about the day or the break. It is very easy to think you have ordered First Break but accidentally put Second Break, and also it is quite easy to order for the wrong day, so be careful to check this before sending through. Flexischools will send you an email to confirm your order, so it is a great idea to check this to make sure there are no errors.

At the Tuckshop, we proceed to get the orders together which, for Primary, are put in their class boxes and picked up by Year Six students and taken to the classrooms. The students will need to come back to the Tuckshop, with their bag, if they have ordered an iceblock. Secondary students will collect their orders from the Tuckshop individually.  If your child does not receive their order, please let them know to come to the Tuckshop or tell a teacher as we never let a child go hungry.  Sometimes, it is just ordered for the next break, a different day or maybe another child has accidentally picked it up out of the box.

If you have any questions regarding Tuckshop orders, or volunteering at tuckshop, please do not hesitate to contact Anita Crawford on 0418985276.