School Newsletter - Issue 15 - Friday, 22nd September 2023

Assistant Principal's News

Movie Night 

What a fantastic event Friday night turned out to be! The perfect weather was met with over 250 people attending our first open air movie night. It was great to see our community come together under the stars to enjoy some laughs, some food, plenty of snow cones, and watch a movie. Thank you to Kate Benton for her once again meticulous organisation of the night, and as well as the helpers who ran the canteen and those who assisted in the set up and pack up of the event. 

Debating - by Mackenzie F

The SJF debate team went to St Cecilia's, Wyong, to compete in their 4th debate. The topic of the debate was that students should have phones in school. SJF was the negative side persuading that they should not have phones in school. In the end St Cecilias won, but both teams did extremely well, and it was a very hard choice for the adjudicators to decide. We can’t wait for our final debate next term. 

Year 4 Excursion to the Rocks – By Savannah T, Zahli D and Caleb N

On Tuesday the 19th of September Year 4 went on an excursion to the The Rocks. We started off the day by going on the bus at 8am. The bus ride was 1 hour and 30 minutes long. When we arrived  we walked under the Harbour Bridge and had recess.  

After recess we met our tour guide Harry, who told us all about the history of The Rocks.  It was where the First Fleet landed. We learned that the First Fleet didn’t land where we thought they landed. They actually landed in Botany Bay! 

Next, walked over to a shady spot where Harry assigned us with characters and costumes of people from the First Fleet. We got information ID’s about who we were and why we were set on the first fleet. Harry then talked about our characters and called us up by our characters names. Caleb was a surgeon, John White, who had to saw peoples legs off because they didn’t have medicine for infections. Zahli was Elizabeth Barber who was one of the four meanest convicts and stole money from a soldier and assaulted him. 

We went to our final destination on the tour. After we had our lunch we started heading back to the bus. The day was really fun we thought it was a 10/10 would love to go again! 

Year 3 Excursion to Networld 

It has been a huge couple of weeks in Year 3. Last week the students participated in the Year 3 excursion to Networld at Treetops. Despite the heat and perhaps a little apprehension by some of the students everyone rose to the occasion and had a great time playing up in the Nets.  

Many thanks to Ivy’s dad Steve, Miller’s mum Holly and Will’s mum Brooke who came along on the day to help us really enjoy the excursion.                            

Year 2 Excursion to Henry Kendall Cottage 

On Thursday, Year 2 went to Henry Kendall Cottage for our excursion. We learnt about history and how people lived in the past. We got to go inside an old cottage, see how tools were used, and look at worn-out dolls and other toys. We also learnt about transportation, machinery that was used, and what technology was like. We had the best time! 

Year 6 C.A.T.D.O.G. Projects (Creative Application of Talent and Development of Our Gifts) 

C.A.T.D.O.G. is a highly anticipated Year 6 project where students can choose their design and make tasks based on their passions, interests, or talents. Throughout the term, students and their loved ones create incredible models for presentation to their class and the school community. This year, we were astounded by the variety of creations, including crochet projects, an air cannon, mosaic designs, baked goods, model planes, artworks, sporting equipment and so much more.   

We are so proud of our Year 6 students and the work they and their families put into this task!

Year 5 Space Day 

On the 12th of September, Year 5 had their Space Day. There were a variety of different projects such as games, rockets, dioramas, posters, and much more. We chose a partner to sit next to during the day. After that, we set up ready for the day ahead of us. 

Soon after, classes came into the Year 5 classrooms to participate in Space Day. We made question cards based on our projects for students to answer. If they got a question right, they got a sticker. Some people also brought prizes. All of the projects were very unique. Overall, Space Day was a wonderful experience for all the students at St John Fisher. 

By Shiane, Emilia and Jade from 5 Yellow 

Year 3 Superhero Projects 

Year 3’s amazing work on our Superheroes theme culminated with Superhero Day on Wednesday. Wow - the students’ Superhero projects and class-based research activities were on full display in the Year 3 Classrooms, and it was wonderful to have all of the school visit the classrooms during the day to see all of this brilliant work! It was also fantastic to have the parents visit in the afternoon and share in some of our Superhero festivities. 

Lost Property 

We have just gone through the lost property rack. Anything with names on it has been sent back to your child’s class. Items without names will remain on the lost property rack which is located outside the school hall. 

Holidays 

Have a happy and safe holiday everyone. Term 3 has been a fun and extremely busy term, so I am sure your children are looking forward to a well earned rest. We hope they have a great time filled with fun adventures and we look forward to seeing them back at school for an exciting Term 4.

Stephen Lynch
Assistant Principal

Class Merit Awards

Growing in Faith and Knowledge Awards

Religious Education Co-ordinator News

First Holy Communion 

Congratulations to all the boys and girls who made their First Holy Communion last week.  It was wonderful to gather in the mass centre and celebrate those who are walking with Jesus as they receive communion.  A special thank you to Mrs French and Mrs Thurlow for preparing them so beautifully in class. 

Fr Raul and Fr Alex 

Last week we quietly acknowledged the wonderful work of Fr Raul and Fr Alex as they celebrated 25 years of Priesthood.  We are so blessed to have them as part of the St John Fisher family and so we acknowledged this by writing some messages and presenting it to them in a book.  Some students also did portraits which we framed and gave them.  It was a small gesture, but we were delighted to be able to mark this special occasion and give thanks to them for all the work that they do to support us.  They will have a few weeks off, and fly home to the Philippines to visit family and we look forward to them coming back to us refreshed.   

Behavioural Expectations 

Trying your best in everything you do is how we succeed and a measure of success is how often you get knocked down and then get up again.  We can’t be good at everything the first time we try it.  This fortnight in school we have been looking at: 

To learn and help others learn you have to have a growth mindset, be positive, keep trying and don’t give up.  You also need to allow others to have a go, this means that as parents we need to let our kids do something, even though we know that they might not get it right the first time. So this holiday, the challenge is to encourage your child to start to do something that you would normally do for them, it could be making their own bed, making their own breakfast or even mowing a lawn.  By empowering our children to be self-sufficient we are creating active, engaged members of society.  It is often easier and quicker for us to do everything, but not as empowering for our children.     

Peer Pals 

We have been loving the Peer Pals sessions led by our talented Year 6 & 5 leaders.  They have learnt about Bucket Filling, which is all about how being kind and caring to others not only makes others happy, it also makes us happy.  We then looked at relationships and how to create positive relationships with others.  This week we learnt about having a positive mindset or positive outlook on life.  We can’t control what happens around us, but we can control how we look at it and how we let it impact us. 

“Everything might not be perfect, but", 
“I CHOOSE TO SEE THE POSITIVE”. 

Congratulations and thank you to all of the Year 6 & 5 leaders who really stepped up and took this responsibility on so maturely and responsibly.   

The Peer Pals workbooks for this term will be coming home at the end of the week and we encourage you to have a look through and talk with your child about the topics covered. 

Luisa Lawicki
Religious Education Co-ordinator

Parent Engagement Co-ordinator (PEC)

Outdoor Movie Night

What an awesome night we had last Friday watching "The Lego Movie" on the side oval on a GIANT screen! We munched on Sno cones, popcorn and so many candy treats. Thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed this wonderful community event. We can’t wait to do it again next year!

Parent Helpers

With a very busy term 4 only weeks away we have lots of wonderful events coming up in the first few weeks. I have created a form with lots of different jobs that require parent helpers. If you are able to click the link below to have a look and volunteer for even just one thing it would be so greatly appreciated. The events aren’t all in school time and some jobs can be done from home after hours. If you have any questions you are more than welcome to contact me at kate.benton@dbb.catholic.edu.au

 https://forms.office.com/r/3805cEYtx4

Little Fisher’s Playgroup

With our Kindy Start program kicking off in week 2 we will only be able to have one playgroup session on Friday 24^th of November next term. We will have a Christmas Party themed group and we would love to see all of our Little Fisher’s friends who have joined us throughout the year. We welcome children of all ages, siblings, family, friends and members of our community.

Lost Property

If you are missing a jumper, please check the lost property rack in the COLA. It is currently overflowing! At the end of week 1 next term these jumpers will all be rehomed. And a reminder for all uniform items to be labelled please. We have 2 wonderful parents who collect all of the lost property from around the school each week and put pictures of those items with names on the SJF Community Facebook Page.

Kate Benton
Parent Engagement Co-ordinator (PEC)

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