Dear Families,

This week we conclude the end of term 1.  It feels like only yesterday I started at St John’s, and as I end the term I am excited and honoured to be appointed the substantive principal.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know our beautiful community and I look forward to exploring new initiatives with our staff to enhance the already rich learning programs in place at St John’s.  

We have definitely had a busy term to start the year at St John the Apostle Parish School.

On Tuesday 9 February, we celebrated our Whole School Welcome Mass in the St Dominic Centre with Fr Dev.

Ash Wednesday Mass was celebrated here at school, the following Wednesday, 17 February.

Class Masses commenced in the school chapel on Tuesday 23 February and have been celebrated weekly with Fr Dev.

Our Staff Commissioning Mass was celebrated at St Luke’s Parish on Sunday 28 February. This was the first time that our Principal, Leanne Johansen was introduced to the Parish community.

Unfortunately, due to covid restrictions, we are still unable to invite families to school Masses. Once these restrictions have been lifted, families will be warmly invited back into the school to celebrate Mass with their children.

Family Masses will be returning in 2021 and will be celebrated at St Luke’s Parish at 9am on the dates listed below:

• Sunday 23 May - Year 2/3WM, Year 2/3MB and 2/3KL (end of Week 4, Term 2)
• Sunday 22 August - Year 1AE and Year 1OB (end of Week 5, Term 3)
• Sunday November 21 – Reception SM and Reception CB (end of Week 6, Term 4)

Project Compassion – Coin Charlie

After our Ash Wednesday Mass, Project Compassion boxes were handed out to all of our students.

On Wednesday 31 March, St John the Apostle will be took part in our first ever Coin Charlie.

Each student came to school with their Project Compassion box and on the netball courts, each class had place all of their coins in a line.

Classes were competing for two Coin Charlie Cups:

1. The longest line
2. The most money raised

Both Cups were won by 5/6MS.

After all the money was counted, we raised an amazing total of $1507.75 for Project Compassion.

Thank you everyone for your contribution.

Holy Week

To celebrate Holy Week and Easter, on Wednesday 31 March, the 2020 / 2021 Sacramental Program children led the school in a Palm Sunday Liturgy on the oval.

Students lined up around the oval area on the oval chanting, “Jesus is coming!” whilst waving palms.

Jesus and the 12 Disciples (Sacramental Children) did a lap of the oval whilst “Bless our King” by Andrew Chinn was played over the loud speaker.

On Thursday 1 April, Lisa Martin, Tricia Clark and the Year 4 students, led a Stations of the Cross Liturgy.

When we returned from the Easter break, we celebrated a whole school Easter Joy Mass with Fr Dev on Wednesday, 7 April. With great joy, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus.

In the Year One unit this term we have been focusing on building relationships and discovering more about each other. The Year Ones joined up with our 5/6 buddy classes and produced some wonderful mandalas on the hard court in week six. 

Wow! What a busy term we have had so far in the 2/3 community.  We have spent lots of time getting to know our new classmates and teachers, we did lots of team building activities to help us get to know each other and worked across the whole three classes together, we had lots of fun doing this. 

It has been a great start to the year in the 5/6 unit. After spending the first few weeks getting to know each other and building new friendships with students and staff, the 5/6’s are now well into every aspect of their learning. We have been reading a new book as part of our novel study, ‘The boy at the back of the class’. Students are enjoying predicting outcomes and learning about the new characters. The book is based on a student refugee who had to flee their home country of Syria.