Week 8 Term 1 2023

Our Year 6 students were thrilled to receive their senior tops today presented to them in front of the community. Our 2023 leaders proudly wore their tops displaying the fantastic graphics designed by Mia.

On Tuesday our House Captains; Victoria, Harriet, Giulia, Elijah, Mia and Ivy led our Harmony Day Prayerful Gathering. The leaders planned and led their first official event for the year in their new roles. It was a wonderful gathering with children proudly displaying their traditional cultural dress or wearing the colour of orange signifying Harmony.

Learning Conversations

Next week we are hosting Learning Conversations between teachers, families and your child. We strongly encourage each family to make a time to meet with your child’s teacher to discuss their learning journey.

Appointments through School Interviews close at 5:00pm on Friday 24th March. If you miss the cut off time pease contact your child’s classroom teacher directly through email to negotiate a convenient time to meet.

Parents and Friends

The Parents and Friends are extremely grateful for all the donations for the Easter Raffle. We are happy to continue receiving donations up until 3rd April. Raffle tickets have been sent home to each family, please endeavour to sell as many as you can.  More books are available from the front office if you would like more tickets. The raffle will be drawn on Thursday 6th April at 2:45pm in the courtyard please join us if you are available.

The Parents and Friends Pizza Special Lunch today was a huge hit with the children. A big thank you to all the Parents and Friends that have volunteered their time towards our Easter Raffle and our Pizza Special Lunch.

Chess

Chess Mate is at St John Bosco School every Tuesday afternoon, 3:15pm to 4:00pm in our library. It is not too late to enrol your child. Weekly classes of chess helps develop many skills including problem solving, creativity, concentration, teamwork, decision making and general aptitude for learning. Book now at https://chessmates.com.au/ to secure your child’s position. The cost for participating is $10.00 a session.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend

Kate Turner

Staff Reflection Day – Well Being through a Contemplative Lens

We hope everyone in our community enjoyed the long weekend.  Even longer for our children because our wonderful, dedicated educators and staff attended a Staff Reflection Day at Seacliff where we learnt about Christian Meditation.

The practice of Meditation is prevalent in so many cultures and religions that it makes sense that our staff community are growing their knowledge in this area.  With Christian Meditation we have a Christian lens and may use the time to contemplate scripture as well as incorporating mindfulness.  Our Staff are life-long learners and during the day were led by Spiritual Director Lillian van Brussel and representative of the World Community for Christian Meditation, Rosie Hamilton.

We moved on to the beautiful sands of Seacliff beach and practiced the art of Sand Mandala as a way of prayer and later in the day nourished ourselves with creating Vision Boards as a reminder of what is truly important to each of us.  It is so important for our staff to look after and monitor their own wellbeing so that they are able to give so generously of themselves to their own family and loved ones and of course to our St John Bosco Community.

Harmony Day – Tuesday March 21st

The House Captains planned and led our Harmony Day Prayerful Gathering this week to celebrate and be thankful for the diversity within our community.

A Prayer for Living in Harmony and In Peace

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two great commandments. (Matthew 22: 37-40)

Good and gracious God,
who loves and delights in all people,
we stand in awe before you,
knowing that the spark of life within each person
is the spark of your divine life.

Differences among cultures and races are
multi-coloured manifestations of your light.
May our hearts and minds be open to celebrate
similarities and differences among our sisters and brothers.

Please send your healing and reconciling Spirit in order to bind
the wounds created by racism and racial hatred,
and to promote understanding, justice, and love.

We place our hopes for racial harmony in our committed action
and in your living presence in our neighbour.

May all people live in peace,
Amen.

Lent – The ritual of the changing of the prayer cloth

This week I led Mrs Rose and the children of the 5 / 6 class in the ritual of changing their prayer cloth. The children read prayers and collectively participated in this little ritual where they placed symbols of Lent. We placed the purple cloth, 3 rocks; symbolic of Jesus’ time in the wilderness and a purple prayer candle to remind us, the light of Jesus shines brightly and is always with us.

APRIM Walk Arounds

You may not know this, but the APRIM office window opens to the courtyard at school.  This really gives me a window into the daily life, coming and goings of the school.  I also love having a wander through our learning spaces and quietly seeing what our wonderful children are up to each week.  The high-quality teaching and learning that occur daily here at St John Bosco makes my heart fill with JOY!

This week I noticed:

-A special visit from RJJ to the office to show Miss Mary their learning on the letter and sound ‘S’

-The amazing self portraits from Mr Angus’ 3 / 4 Learning Community.

-A Mathematics lesson in Mrs Werner’s 1 /2 Learning Community that looked like so much fun!

-and finally, I poked my head in to see all the creative happenings with our Little Bosco group with Ms Graham and Mr van Weenen.

Have you ever been to a Parish Mass? Everyone is WELCOME!

St John Bosco Church and St Aloysius Church at Richmond are a part of the same Parish and Mass is celebrated weekly.

Current Mass schedule (*subject to change)

Sunday Mass:

9:00am St John Bosco

11:00am St Aloysius

Weekday Mass:

Tuesday – 7:30am, St John Bosco Church

Wednesday – 7:30am, St John Bosco Church

Thursday – 9:00am, St John Bosco Church

Friday – 9:00am, St Aloysius Church

Saturday – 9:00am, St John Bosco Church

This year, St John Bosco School is involved in an exciting initiative called The PIP Project. PIP is an acronym for ‘Partners in Practice’ because this project has been designed to support four schools that will work collaboratively to enhance wellbeing. The four schools involved are St John Bosco, St Francis in Lockleys, Tenison Woods in Richmond and Dominican in Semaphore. This is a CESA (Catholic Education South Australia) and government funded project. The foundation for this work is the CESA LearnWell document. LearnWell is designed as a guide that draws so many connections between wellbeing and our relationship with God. It was co-designed by a variety of teachers, leaders, children, and consultants. LearnWell accompanies the CESA Living, Learning, Leading Framework. Living, Learning and Leading are described as the three core dimensions of LearnWell. Also included are four enablers; Catholic Identity and Culture, Quality Learning and Teaching, Relationships and Partnerships and Learner Agency and Vitality.

With this strong, evidence-formed foundation, we have been mapping out our wellbeing journey at St John Bosco School. In the PIP Project, we are utilising the Three Tiers of Intervention model. Tier 1 intervention refers to whole class and whole school practices, Tier 2 intervention refers to work with small groups on a variety of different focus areas, and Tier 3 Intervention refers to more targeted, one on one support. In the PIP Project, Tier 3 intervention is provided by Karlee Cave, an experienced Developmental Educator. You may see Karlee around our school on a Monday or Tuesday. In Term 2, we will be excited to share our Tier 1 work, which will be a whole school approach to wellbeing and social and emotional learning. I look forward to updating you throughout the year about the wonderful work we are doing to support our children. As described in LearnWell, “Quality learning and teaching occurs only in the presence of wellbeing”.

Jess Rushby

Wellbeing Coordinator

Harmony Day is the special day where we all celebrate our differences- Delphine

Harmony Day is about cultures and about fun to welcome people- Luca

Harmony Day is about making people belong and it is about making them join in and it is a traditional day for us as Australians- Ilia

Harmony Day is all about sharing and caring for all people all around the world and Australia- Zina

Harmony Day is when we show peace to everyone and wear orange- Elkin

Orange- Harry

Harmony Day is where we welcome people and we bring peace to people who are poor- Jessie

Harmony Day is about belonging as a family with other people and saving other people from danger- Paolos

Harmony Day is about bringing cultures together and making friends- Anastasia

Friends playing- Jenifer

Harmony Day is all about celebrating and it is special because we welcome everyone- Athul

Harmony Day is about celebrating people’s countries- Leonida

Harmony Day is about showing loving kindness to other people- Freya

Harmony Day is about wearing orange T-shirts to show loving kindness and play with them- Levi

Harmony Day is about respecting other cultures and people that want to come to Australia and Kaurna people- Basit

We wear orange on Harmony Day because it makes someone feel welcome. We welcome people that come to Australia from far away- Minka-Lee

On Harmony Day you can also wear your culture clothes because it is about your country- Ganeev

Harmony Day is about loving kindness and we help people when they are sad and if they have no one to play with you play with them- Sofia

Harmony Day is a special day to celebrate everyone- Aaliyah