Welcome to 2022. Although the school year has commenced in an unusual way, our children, families and staff are making the very best of a difficult situation. Our Reception to Year 2 children have settled beautifully into their new learning environments, beginning to establish relationships with new friends and their teacher. We are very proud of the way our Year 3-6 children are embarking on their remote learning, our teachers are blown away at the maturity of our children and how they are coping with being away from school and their friends. All families received a letter today via email announcing that all children will be back at school on Monday 14th February 2022 for face to face learning. We are thrilled!
I am pleased to introduce our new staff members to the St John Bosco community. We are thrilled to welcome Angela Rawson as our Japanese Teacher, Angela is an experienced language teacher who has a lot to offer our community. Marianne Pope will be working with our Year 5-6 children making an awesome team working with Dino. Marianne is a familiar face at St John Bosco, In Term 4 she was our Performing Arts teacher. Leah Bellifemini is our new Year 5-6 teacher, Leah comes with a wealth of experience working with middle year’s students. Helena Burns is a welcomed addition to our staff as a Year 3-4 teacher, she has already established a fruitful relationship with Emma. Finally we have two new Early Years teachers Jessica Rushby working with our brand new Receptions and Nicole Puopolo a Year 1-2 teacher. Both ladies are highly experienced Early Years teachers and they are already enriching our Early Years team.
We welcomed many new children into our community last week with 11 new Receptions beginning their learning journey at St John Bosco. Our Receptions entered brave, joyful and full of anticipation. We strongly believe that our solid transition program, Little Boscos contributes heavily to our new Receptions beginning their schooling journey as confident learners. I am sure the following Receptions will thrive in our community; Allison, Eyob, Levi, Mika-Lee, Liana, Waris, Sophia G, Freya, Luca, Isha and Sophia H.
We also welcome the new children in Years 1-6 to the St John Bosco community; Aurora, Summer, Evie, Olivia, Liam, Bentley, Miguel and Guransh. We look forward to having all our new children in our community undertaking face to face learning next week.
Over the holiday break Fr Peter Zwaans was appointed as Parish Priest at Mount Gambier. Fr Peter will be greatly missed, it was unfortunate that the children, staff and families were not able to farewell and celebrate his time within our community. We do welcome Fr Long Hai Nguyen as our new Parish Priest. We look forward to continuing the strong partnership between the school and parish with Fr Long Hai.
I would like to remind families that all children are required to be wearing the new school uniform in 2022. The two year phase in period is now over, you can purchase items online through Devon Clothing or make an appointment to visit Devon Clothing. Please ensure your child has their school hat with them every day so that they can take full advantage of the opportunities of outside play at recess and lunch. The school policy is ‘no hat; play in the shade’ under the school veranda.
Can I please remind families to obey the parking signs surrounding our school in particular Lipsett Terrace. We have many frustrated parents and staff members who continually observe the same cars not obeying parking signs. By parking your car directly in front of the school, even for a quick drop off you are blocking oncoming traffic, inconveniencing everyone else in our community. The local council has visited our site indicating they will be fining people not observing parking signs.
As a staff we are excited to have all our children back at school on Monday 14th February 2022. I thank staff, children and families for your patience and cooperation over the first two weeks of school.
Take care
Kate Turner
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