St John the Baptist Ferntree Gully Newsletter

We kindly request that all enrolments for 2024 be completed over the next 2 weeks. 

Enrolment acceptance letters will be sent home in the first week of June with interviews in early July.

Over the next 3-4 weeks small groups of Year 5/6 students will be visiting our neighbouring kinders, Little Charlies and Bena Angliss.  Visiting our local kinders is a great way to build school and community partnerships.  Our students have been a huge hit with the kinder children.  It is terrific to see our senior students engaging and interacting with the children.

Parent/teacher/student interviews will be held on Tuesday 20th June and Wednesday 21st June.  We encourage all students to attend interviews with their families. The focus of interviews is to celebrate the hard work students have undertaken throughout the semester, as well as the growth they have made as a result of their hard work. Families will be able to book their interview times through SOBS in the coming weeks.

Interviews will be held between: 

     Tuesday 20th June 3:30-6:00pm

     Wednesday 21st June 2:00-7:00pm

Families will notice that this semester there has been a slight change to interview time frames. This change is required to assist with meeting Time in Lieu requirements that will come in with the new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement. Interview time slots will change from 20 minute blocks to 15 minute blocks.

School photos have arrived and were sent home this afternoon. If you elected to have your photos held at the office, they are available for collection now.

Thank you to all families who volunteered for Saturday’s Working Bee.  We made the decision to postpone the Working Bee due to inclement weather.  Hopefully the weather will be kind to us for our Term 3 Working Bee.

We warmly welcome Laura Adcock who will join the St John the Baptist School in a tutoring and intervention role in a fixed term position.  Laura will be working with small groups of students in both Literacy and Numeracy to assist them in their learning development.  Laura will be working on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.

School drop off and pick up points and car parks present challenges for all school communities. 

At St John the Baptist we are most fortunate to have significant spaces for dropping off and picking up students. At the forefront of school drop off and pick up spaces is always child safety.  We ask families to familiarise themselves with the following expectations when dropping off and picking up students.

• Families can either park or access kiss and drop zones from either Forest Road or Selman Ave

• Families walking to school can access the grounds through the gate on Selman Ave or through the walkway between the Parish House and the Church.

• Families riding to school can access the grounds through the gate on Selman Ave or through the walkway between the Parish House and the Church. All bike riders are required to dismount their bikes once on the school grounds and walk their bikes to the bike area.

• There is strictly no parking in the staff car park or walking students through the staff car park.

• The driveway of the church is not a kiss and drop zone

We ask all families to respect the outlined drop off and pick up requirements as a matter of safety to all.

Term 2

Wishing  everyone a fabulous week ahead.

Kelli Johnston

Last Friday we held our inaugural St John the Baptist PS Cross Country event. Under threatening skies we were able to complete our event in near perfect running conditions with no rain! Congratulations to all students that were able to compete and stepped up to the challenge of running the 3km or 2km course around Kings Park. 

Thankyou to the parents that volunteered to supervise the course. Thanks also  to Mrs Renee ‘Cathy Watt’ Armstrong who rode around the course to guide the runners. We had a special starter in Mrs Jo Stoica who on her last day had the honour of starting each race. 

It was great to see nearly all students being able to complete the course and many students surprising themselves with being able to complete the course without stopping. ‘’You never know what you can do until you have a go!’’

A total of forty-three students have been invited to attend the District Cross Country event to be held at Cardinia Reservoir this Friday 26th May. We wish them every success. 

Medallion winners were

 12/13 Boys 1st - Ben F  2nd - Ashan A 3rd - Josh B

12/13 Girls 1st - Lorelei C 2nd - Maryann S 3rd - Alxys L

11 Boys- 1st - Coops K 2nd - Austin T 3rd -  Beau S

11 Girls- 1st - Millie B 2nd - Ellie H  3rd - Isla S 

9/10 Girls  1st - Poppy B 2nd - Nishala A 3rd - Amelia R

9/10 Boys  1st- Max F 2nd - Joshua A 3rd - Teague D

House Scores were First Blue - 8.76 average place score Second- Yellow 9.66 Third - Red 15.62 Fourth Green- 16.93

John Mitchell

PE & Sport Coordinator

Our Performing Arts Club are excited to be attending their first performance at Ferntree Gully Library's Biggest Morning Tea this Thursday May 25th.

If anyone would like to attend to support the students, you are most welcome to join us and support the Cancer Council.

Sue Cahill

Performing Arts Teacher

May

24th     National Simultaneous Storytime

26th     District Cross Country

28th     Pentecost Sunday

29th     Lighthouse Program - St Joseph's College & Year 6 boys

June

2nd     First Friday Mass - Year 5/6

5th     First Eucharist Reflection Day

6th     Division Cross Country

8th     St Joseph's Lighthouse Program Presentation Evening

12th     King's Birthday Holiday - School Closed

13th     Regional Cross Country

16th     Reports emailed to families

17th     First Eucharist - 3.00pm Mass

19th     P&F Meeting

20th     Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews

21st    Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews

23rd    Feast of St John the Baptist Celebration Day

23rd    School Playground Blessing

23rd    Term 2 concludes

Canteen orders can be placed via www.flexischools.com.au

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