School Newsletter - Issue 10 - Friday, 30th June 2023

Principal's News

Dear Parents and Carers, 

Welcome to Week 10…we got there after another huge term! We've celebrated Mother’s Day, attended Year 6 camp to Canberra, an athletics carnival, 2024 enrolment interviews and parent/teacher interviews just to name a few events. It has been wonderful engaging with our community over the last six months and we are very much looking forward to the next six months. 

 Athletics Carnival 

What a big day we had last Friday! To see so many parents and grandparents enjoying the sunshine, each other's company and enjoying watching the children participate was outstanding. The children all participated in good faith and enthusiastically cheered each other all day. A special thanks to Mr Pobjie for all the organisation that went into the day, to all of the staff for their endless enthusiasm and to every parent who volunteered during the day. 

Staffing Updates for Term 3 

Mrs Hinwood  
Mrs Hinwood will be on maternity leave from Wednesday 3 August (week 3) We will celebrate Mrs Hinwood before she takes leave to enjoy a beautiful addition to their family. 

Year 2 Yellow (from Week 3) 
Mrs Tomassian will add a third day (Mon-Wed)  
We welcome back Mrs Rachel Harding-Davis (Thurs & Fri) to SJF after the birth of her beautiful daughter 

Year 5 Yellow 
Mrs Powell will be taking Long Service Leave for the entire term 3 for a well-earnt break to spend quality family time travelling! 
Mr Ryan Small, who knows the children extremely well, will teach 5 Yellow 5 days a week for term 3. 

Additional Leadership Release from Class

Miss Wilkinson (High Performance/Gifted Education) will be released every Thursday by Mrs Julie Newcombe 

Mrs French (Curriculum, Assessment and Student Data) will be released every Friday by Mrs Julie Newcombe 

I hope you have a safe and happy holiday. 

Kind regards,

Marcel Arendse
Principal

Assistant Principal's News

NAPLAN 

Early next term, NAPLAN results will be sent to schools. Once they have been received your child will bring home an envelope with their individual results and as well as information on how to understand the report. 

Reading the NAPLAN report 
The NAPLAN report shows a proficiency scale for each assessment area (numeracy, reading, writing, spelling and grammar and punctuation) with a student’s result shown as a black dot on the scale. 

The report continues to show each child’s achievement against the national average for their year and the range of achievement for the middle 60% of students in their year level. 

Can I compare my child’s performance to previous NAPLAN reports? 
Results from 2023 onwards cannot be directly compared with results from 2008 to 2022. This is because a new measurement scale that is more suited to the online tests has been introduced with the new standards. Also, in 2023, the tests moved to Term 1 from Term 2. 

What impact will the results have on my child’s learning?
The results complement other assessments your child does at school, providing you and your child’s teachers with an understanding of your child’s achievements at the time of the tests. The information can be used to support your child to reach their full potential. 

How does NAPLAN help my child’s school? 
NAPLAN is the only national assessment that all Australian children undertake. It helps:  

• teachers to better identify students who need greater challenges or extra support
• schools to identify strengths and areas of need in teaching programs
• schools to set goals in literacy and numeracy
• school systems to review programs and support offered to schools.

Results can also help parents, carers and students to discuss individual student progress with teachers. 

Uniform for Term 3 

We will start Term 3 with the children continuing to wear their full winter uniform. As the term goes on, and the weather begins to warm up, we will start a transition period between winter and summer uniform. We will notify families of when that transition period will begin. We thank all families for their support in ensuring their children come to school wearing the correct uniform. 

Sports Awards 

At this week’s assembly, we revealed the winning house colour and age champions from this term’s school athletics carnival. Congratulations to Red House and to the boys and girls who achieved age champion, runner up or third place. Fantastic effort!

Stephen Lynch
Assistant Principal

Class Merit Awards

Growing in Faith and Knowledge Awards

Religious Education Co-ordinator News

Sacrament of Confirmation 

Students from SJF have been busy preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation.  The ceremony will take place at St Peter’s Catholic College at 10 am on Saturday 15th July.  It is a beautiful ceremony where students from several schools join and celebrate this special even with Bishop Anthony.

St John Fisher Day 

Thank you to everyone who came and joined us to celebrate St John Fisher Day last Wednesday, it was wonderful celebration of the awesome community that we have here. 

Mary Mac’s Place 

A HUGE thank you to the St John Fisher community for the very generous donations for Mary Mac’s Place.  We hoped to put together a few hampers and make a monetary donation but have ended up with lots and lots of hampers and an outstanding donation of $522. 65!  

Luisa Lawicki
Religious Education Co-ordinator

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC Week Celebrations

On Tuesday the 25^th of July (Week 2, Term 3) we will be holding our NAIDOC celebrations at school as NAIDOC Week falls in the first week of the school holidays.

This year the theme for NAIDOC Week is
"For Our Elders".

For our celebrations, we will be running 4 rotations of cultural experiences that each grade will attend including dance, traditional games, storytelling and artifacts, and a session with a local Elder. 

The activities will start at 9.15am and conclude just before lunch.

Parents, grandparents & carers are more than welcome to join us for the celebration.

We look forward to celebrating with you all.

Drawing Us Together Competition – Vote for our SJF finalists!

For the last four years, Charter Hall Shopping Centres (Bateau Bay Square) have partnered with an Indigenous author for NAIDOC Week to develop a children's storybook. The story is sent out to a group of schools who's Indigenous students are invited to illustrate a page in the book. Each school is allocated one to two pages that the students create illustrations for, submitting 6 finalists to be displayed at the shopping centre from Sunday 25^th of June to Sunday the 16^th of July.

Congratulations to our SJF finalists Zahli D (Year 4), Conner M (Year 5), Kael D (Year 6), Aubree WB (Year 3), Ana B (Year 5), and Charlotte B (Year 5). 

 The community is asked to vote for their favourite illustration for each page. The design with the most votes will then be printed into the book and published.

Winners are announced on the 21^st of July with a presentation being held at the centre on the 7^th of August. The winners are presented with their original artworks in a frame and a copy of the book.

 If you are at Bateau Bay Square, please stop by and vote for our students! The exhibition is located near Franky & Co – simply just scan the QR code and then fill out the registration form which lets you select which school and piece of artwork you’d like to see featured in the story book. Here are the submissions of our 6 finalists so can find them easily!
                                                 

Jodie Bourke
Aboriginal and Learning Support Assistant

Library News

Creative Arts Leadership Team

GOOD VIBES MURAL

Our SJF Counsellor asked our Creative Arts Leadership Team to create a mural that promotes positive mental health and wellbeing, and this is what the team came up with! The 'Good Vibes' mural is displayed near the Counsellor’s room. Well done to our Creative Arts Team!

Parent Engagement Co-ordinator (PEC)

Parish Giving Program

You may not be aware that our diocese, Broken Bay, has an app with lots of fantastic resources, including information on mass services, catholic care and our parish giving program.

An important way of contributing to our parish and being part of the community is our “Planned Giving Program”. It is a simple way to help build our St John Fisher Church of Wyong Parish. By donating, even as little $1 on a weekly basis makes a huge difference to our Parish, which is fully funded by our parishioners. If this is something you’re interested in doing have a look at the app below for more information.

Frogs in a Pond

Thank you to the fantastic group of parents who came into school on Wednesday to help make Jelly cup for the canteen. Your time and frog donations were very much appreciated.

Year 5 Glengara Resident Pen Pal Program

Over the past 2 terms some of our year 5 students have been writing and receiving letters from our neighbours at Glengara Aged Care. On Wednesday our students along with Mrs Dixon, Mr Arendse and myself headed down to deliver their latest letters in person and have morning tea with their pen pals. It was a wonderful morning filled with laughs and yummy treats. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Glengara and hope to visit again soon.

Little Fisher’s Playgroup Term 3 Dates

For term 3 we have 2 dates planned to run our “Little Fisher’s” Playgroup. Please join on the following dates if you can, Friday 11^th August and Tuesday 5^th September from 9:15am to 10:15am in the main school hall. Siblings, families and friends all welcome.

Kate Benton
Parent Engagement Co-ordinator (PEC)

Canteen News

Catholic Schools Broken Bay 2023 Religious Creative Arts Competition

Wyong Catholic Parish News

The Wyong Catholic Parish is seeking to recruit a permanent part-time Parish Secretary, working 3 days per week. There is a preference for Wednesdays and Fridays to be two of the working days with flexibility on remaining days in relation to hours worked.

This role plays an important part in the Parish team, providing support for Parish communications, administration, financial processes, Parish property, compliance and Diocesan support.

The ideal candidate will have a comprehensive knowledge of office administration processes and procedures and a sound understanding of Microsoft Office Suite, MYOB, bookkeeping or accounting practices.

As you will often be the first point of contact for our parish, well-developed communication and interpersonal skills are crucial.

If you have high developed administration skills coupled with well-developed relational and rapport building skills and this role interests you, please email a brief cover letter and CV to wyongparish@bbcatholic.org.au

Applications close Wednesday, 12 July 2023

The Diocese of Broken Bay is committed to and promotes a culture of safety and care for all people, especially for children and others in the community who are vulnerable. Our Diocese has no tolerance to Child Abuse and is committed to ensuring our staff and volunteers understand the joint responsibility to safeguard all those within our community.

The successful applicant must have the right to work in Australia and will be required to undertake pre-screening which may include a National Police History Check and/or Working With Children Check.

If you have any questions please feel free to reach out.

Regards

Kathryn Pike

Upcoming Events

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
TERM 3 Week 1	17th July	18th July	19th July	20th July	21st July
Week 2	24th July	25th July NAIDOC  CELEBRATIONS	26th July	27th July	28th July
Week 3	31st July	1st August	2nd August	3rd August	4th August CCC Athletics Carnival
Week 4	7th August	8th August	9th August	10th August	11th August Public Speaking Finals in LARC
Week 5	14th August	15th August Assumption of Mary 9:15 am	16th August	17th August	18th August