St John the Baptist Ferntree Gully Newsletter

We hope that all our families enjoyed a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday. Whether it was a sleep in, breakfast in bed, time with family, a break from duties, reading a book or enjoying an outing we hope that your day was spent with those you hold dear to your heart.

Lord, 

We pray in gratitude and with affection for all our mothers. We give thanks for their loving care, attention and support. 

We ask that You bless them and sustain them in this very special vocation. We pray too, that all mothers who have gone  before us in faith, will find eternal rest  in Your love and Your peace.

We ask this through Christ our Lord. 

 Amen.

This year we were incredibly blessed to have many families share their wonderful talents to create an array of beautiful gifts for our SJB Mother’s Day Stall. The wide range of homemade gifts offered through families sharing their creative talents was truly special. Our Mums, Nans, and Special people will have received something special. Our sincere thanks to all who so generously contributed to making this year’s Mother’s Day truly special.  

A big thank you to our Dads - Lionel, Andrew, Geoff, James, Stuart, Tim and Wade for setting up and leading our stall.  We are incredibly grateful to have such terrific support assisting to keep Mother’s Day a surprise. 

It was wonderful to see our Mums, Nans and special people come together on Friday for afternoon tea to celebrate Mother’s Day at SJB. The SJB hall was buzzing with all our special ladies gathering to celebrate motherhood with one another.

Our Preps presented a special treat singing Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink before everyone moved to the classrooms for a family activity.  

We hope that all our Mums enjoyed a lovely Mother’s Day and we thank you for all that you bring to our SJB community.  We are truly blessed to have you.

We are most fortunate to partner with Marty and Carley McGauran from Inform and Empower to provide families with an online session focusing on ‘Raising Kids in a Digital World’. Marty and Carley provide valuable insights into the digital world that children are navigating. They provide families with an understanding of the current digital climate, along with how to educate, support and raise conversations and awareness with children.

With a wealth of knowledge and experience as an eLearning educator and psychologist leading the evening, this is a session that is most beneficial to all families. Navigating the digital world in partnership at home and school, provides our students with education and support they need to become digitally responsible citizens.

We highly encourage attendance as this session will provide valuable insights from two presenters who are experts in their fields of Cyber Education (Marty) and Child Psychology (Carley). Please see the attached flyer for more information on what to expect from the evening. 

Details

The webinar takes place online next Thursday 14th May at 7:30pm - your registration link is: https://event.webinarjam.com/z3w5x/register/053gxbx9

 We recommend parents and carers register for the webinar even if they are unable to attend. Their registration will ensure they are emailed a link to the replay.

We are very excited to announce that Tuckshop will be open this Friday 15th May. It has been wonderful to have many members of our community reach out to offer to assist in the tuckshop to assist with the possibility of the tuckshop reopening.  Tuckshop will be open this Friday with the view to reopening on Fridays. We will keep the community informed as to the permanent reopening of the tuckshop on Fridays in next week’s newsletter.

A big thank you to Tracey Walker, Jess Carmichael and to all who have offered to assist with the reopening of the tuckshop. We are most fortunate to have such wonderful community support.

This Friday our Year 4 students will again venture offsite to enjoy a Taster Day at either Mater Christ or St Joseph’s College.  We wish our students a wonderful morning gaining an insight into our feeder secondary colleges.

Exciting times as we prepare for the SJB 2026 Athletics Day. This year we look forward to unveiling our house team names. In 2025 the Year 6 leaders researched significant people in the history of St John the Baptist Parish and School to select names for each house. We look forward to sharing the house names selected by our students.

When: Thursday May 14th 

Where: Knox Athletics Track

             Bunjil Way, Knoxfield

Time: Year 3-6 students 9:15am - 2:30pm

           Prep - Year 2 students 10:30am - 1:00pm

• Announcement of house places will take place on return to SJB.

Students are encouraged to join in the excitement of the day.  Students may dress in the colour of their house, wear ribbons, nails, coloured zinc or hair (this is to be done prior to arriving at school). We ask families to prepare for the day prior to arriving at school.  (The school toilets are not an area for coloured zinc or hairspray). House posters may be created & brought along for team spirit and cheering.  These are the responsibility of students.  (Coloured streamers are not to brought as these create a significant & time consuming mess to clean up at the end of the day.)

Our Term 2 working bee will be on Saturday 13th June from 1:30pm - 4:00pm

Our focus for this day will be weather dependent. If you are available to assist on this day we would greatly appreciate your help.

Below is a list of jobs that we hope to complete on the day.

Kiss & Go - Families may access Kiss & Go from either the Forest Road or Selman Avenue car parks. We ask that families remain in their car ready to move along Kiss & Go in both areas.

Families may choose the loop Kiss and Go car park on Forest Road. Alternatively, the two car parks closest to the maintenance shed on Selman Ave are also Kiss and Go car parks. We ask that families wishing to leave vehicles to collect children use the car parking in the centre of both the Forest Road and Selman Avenue car parks. When leaving carparks we ask that families complete a full loop of the car park rather than a drive through car parks and turn left to ensure safety for all, along with a smooth flow of traffic on both sides.

We ask that students all move to the winter uniform with the change of weather. A friendly reminder that students are to only wear their sports uniform on PE or sport days.  All other days students are required to wear their regular uniform.

Families are able to purchase second hand windcheaters from the second hand uniform shop for $5 if required. Students are not to wear casual clothes to school.

The Second Hand Uniform Shop is open on Tuesday afternoons from 2:45pm.  Families may purchase second hand items for $5 per item. 

Inquiries in regards to second hand items may be sent to uniform@sjferntreegully.catholic.edu.au

A recent stock list is attached for the 2nd Hand Uniform Shop. Donations of clean, official SJB uniform are always welcome and can be left at the office when convenient for you.

Janice

After another successful Family Camping Weekend this year our terrific P & F team have made an early bird booking for next year’s weekend away. Please see details below and book now for 2027.

Wishing everyone a fabulous week ahead.

Kelli Johnston

May

13th - Prep Level Mass @ 9:15am - families welcome

14th - St John the Baptist Athletics Day - Knox Athletics Track

14th - Inform and Empower Raising Kids in a Digital World parent session

15th - Assembly @ 2:45pm Year 3/4RA prsenting

15th - Year 4 Mater Christi & St Joseph's College Taster Day

18th - Yr 6 Confirmation Reflection Day

18th - Inform and Empower Prep session

22nd - District Cross Country for Yrs 3-6 

25th - St Joseph’s Lighthouse Program

26th - National Sorry Day Prayer Service

29th - Assembly @ 2:45pm - 1/2B presenting

29th - Sacrament of Confirmation @ 6:00pm

31st - The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

June

1st - Parents and Friends meeting @ 7pm

2nd - Open Day - Tours 9am, 10am, 4pm & 5pm

2nd - Division Cross Country - Yarra Valley Racecourse

5th - School Closure Day

8th - King’s Birthday School Closure

10th - Year 5/6 Level Mass - 9:15am

11th - Regional Cross Country - Yarra Valley Racecourse

13th - Term 2 Working Bee

15th - PSGs

17th - PSGs

19th - PSGs

19th - SJB School Disco

19th - School Assembly @ 2:45pm

19th - Semester 1 Reports shared

23rd - Parent/Teacher interviews - 2:30pm - 6pm

24th - Parent/Teacher interviews - 3:30pm - 5:30pm

24th - Feast of St John the Baptist

26th - Feast of St John the Baptist Celebration - Mass @ 11am

26th -  Term 2 concludes @ 2pm

Friday May 15th

Belinda Davies

Katrina Horne

Jess Carmichael