St John the Baptist Ferntree Gully Newsletter

After many weeks and months of planning, preparation and rehearsals on Friday evening the SJB community were treated to a wonderful performance by our students. We are incredibly proud of all our students for the courage and joy they demonstrated in the SJB Production - Pirates of the Curry Bean. A school production is an opportunity to try something new and perform in front of hundreds of people.  We cannot underestimate how much courage it takes for young primary school students to step out onto stage and perform.  

Congratulations to all of our amazing students on presenting such a wonderful school production.  You were all truly magnificent.

We thank our SJB community for making the night such a great success and for your support of our wonderful students.

CLICK HERE

At St John the Baptist we strongly value our partnerships with our families and the importance of open communication.  To continue our strong partnerships we have introduced an Optional Parent Teacher Interview in Term 3 on Wednesday September 18th. The Optional Parent Teacher Interviews may be booked by families or requested by your child’s class teacher, should they feel that it is important to meet with you.

Interviews will be able to be booked through our new booking system - School Interviews site. A link will be included in the newsletter next Tuesday when the bookings will open.

Families are reminded that should you have a PSG for your child that this takes the place of the Parent/Teacher Interview.

We are seeking to employ a part-time cleaner here at St John the Baptist. The successful applicant must be well motivated to work for the Church and ideally possess a strong commitment to its practices and values.

 Tasks and Responsibility

·         Perform routine cleaning tasks: Clean Parish Church, office and Parish Community Centre by performing duties such as dusting and vacuuming, cleaning toilet facilities.

·         Work within the Australian hygiene standards and Guidelines

·         Maintain professional & respectful working relationship with Parish Priest and Staff

·         Communicate well with Parish Priest and Staff

·         Working with Children Check – Mandatory, Police Check (new Check required) Valid Driver License

Please send your expression of interest to the attention of  Fr Thomas - 

office@stjohnthebaptist.net.au

Exciting times ahead as our Year 3-6 students prepare to participate in the District Athletics Carnival at AC Robertson Athletics Track, Ringwood on Wednesday 4th September. Families are requested to respond to the Operoo form to assist with confirmation of numbers on the day.

A number of additional practice sessions have been scheduled by Mr Mitchell.  Students wishing to attend these are most welcome. We ask that you confirm your attendance through Operoo.

We look forward to a fun day of athletics competition. We know that our students will represent themselves and SJB school in an exemplary manner.  Good luck everyone!!

Over the coming weeks and into Term 4 we have a number of SJB staff taking Long Service Leave.  Long Service Leave is an opportunity for staff to relax, reflect and rejuvenate after significant periods of service to education. We wish our staff wonderful times as they take their periods of LSL.  Additionally we are extremely fortunate to have a group of strong CRTs supporting SJB with filling the positions of LSL during staff periods of leave.

Over the coming weeks the following staff will be taking LSL. We wish them great times ahead.

Mrs Susan Smith - 29th August - 20th September. Returning to SJB 9th October

Mrs Renee Armstrong - 18th September - 18th October. Returning to SJB 21st October

A significant and formal way in which we engage and gather data is through MACSSIS, the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools – School Improvement Surveys.

MACSSIS is a set of surveys that have been built specifically for Catholic schools in Melbourne by the Learning Services team at MACS, in partnership with researchers at Learning First and in wide consultation with principals in our schools.

MACSSIS surveys will be emailed home this week to 70 randomly selected families.  We ask that you look out for an email from ORIMA research which will contain the link to access the survey.  Your login details will be sent in a separate email from our school.

Our community’s opinions are critical to understanding how our school is performing – MACSSIS is a key data source so please take the time to complete the survey so that the thoughts and opinions of our whole school community can be used in guiding the ongoing work to improve our school.

If you would like more information, please contact the school.

To celebrate the end of another terrific term of learning and work we have scheduled Friday 20th September as Footy Day. The children will be able to wear their footy colours to school as part of the day of celebration, as long as they wear Yellow and Black!!  The students can come in their footy colours for the day and we look forward to a fun day of activities, as well as a special Footy Day lunch.  Further information will be shared in the near future.

This October our Year 3/4 students will attend an overnight camp at Phillip Island. The camp will be held early in Term 4 with the students departing on Thursday 24th October and returning on Friday 25th October. 

This is an exciting time for our students as they prepare for camp.

Families will soon receive an Operoo form to complete in preparation for camp.

We have made inquiries with Gilwell Park in regard to booking this year’s SJB Dads and Kids camping weekend.  At this stage we are proposing the weekend after the Melbourne Cup weekend - Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th November. We would love to have a few dads who would be happy to collaborate to co-ordinate the event for this year. It would be great to have some existing SJB Dads along with new SJB Dads to co-ordinate the event.

If you would be interested in assisting in the co-ordination of this year’s SJB Dad’s & Kids camping weekend please email either Ursula DeCorrado or myself at udecorrado@sjferntreegully.catholic.edu.au or kjohnston@sjferntreegully.catholic.edu.au 

Do any of these containers belong to you?  If so, please collect from the school office.

Wishing everyone a fabulous week ahead. All the best to the AFL finalist teams

Kelli Johnston

August

29th - Sacrament of Confirmation

30th - Father's Day Breakfast at 7.30am

September

1st - Father’s Day

2nd - MACSSIS Surveys Open

2nd - Prep visit to Ferntree Gully Library

4th-  District Athletics

4th - School Advisory Council

5th - Level Mass - Year 1/2

6th - Assembly 3/4HM

12th - R U OK Day?

13th - Division Athletics

13th - Assembly 1/2D

20th - Footy Day

20th - Term 3 Concludes @ 2pm

Canteen orders can be placed via http://www.flexischools.com.au

Orders must be placed no later than 7.30am on the Wednesday or Friday.

Rocketeers Link - www.campaustralia.com.au/rocketeers

Register via this link - Register