Week 8 Term 2 2023

A big thank you to families for ensuring children are not arriving before supervision begins at 8:25am each morning. If you require care before 8:25am, please contact Mirella and she can assist you in booking your child into our OSHC.

I remind families that there is no parking in front of the church, it is to be used as a drop off and pick up zone. You are to remain with your car and keep the flow of traffic moving, which may mean moving on if your child is not waiting to be collected. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Staffing

Sarah Graham and Nikki Hall will be working with our Mid-Year Receptions from the beginning of Term 3. Sarah and Nikki look forward to working in partnership with families to ensure the transition into school life is stress free and enjoyable for the children and parents. Our Semester 2 Little Boscos will begin their visits on Friday 4th August at 8:45am. If your child is due to start school in 2024, it is time to enrol now and join our Semester 2 Little Boscos Transition Program.

Auskick

Last week I went out to our school oval to check out the Auskick children in action! The children were having such fun while being introduced to a game we all love, Aussie Rules Football!

Mr Van Weenen, Mr Camm and Mr Scott seemed to be enjoying themselves just as much as the children. A big thank you to all the footballers to take time away from handballing, kicking, dodging and of course kicking goals to pose for a photo.

The children, teachers and parents are all looking forward to playing football at the upcoming Port Power v Gold Coast game on 8th July at Adelaide Oval at the half time break.

School Reports

St John Bosco will be producing Semester 1, 2023 School Reports utilising the Learning Management System SEQTA, the same as all CESA Diocesan Schools. At this stage, SEQTA in Diocesan Primary School does not have the capability to email reports home to families. Your child will bring home a hard copy of their Semester 1 School Report in the first few days of Week 10. If you have not received your child’s report by Thursday 6th July, please contact your child’s classroom teacher.

Below you will find some new information from the updated CESA 2023 Guidelines for Student Reporting which is to keep you informed about the work educators undertake in providing student academic reports. They are reflective of your child’s progress, growth, and accomplishments during the semester while meeting our legal reporting requirements.

All teachers have taken considerable time, care, and effort over the last two terms to teach, assess and collate information before writing each child’s academic report. I am extremely thankful for the work, dedication, and enthusiasm each of them demonstrates daily to ensure excellent learning opportunities are provided.

2023 Guidelines for Student Reporting

It is a legal requirement according to the 2013 Australian Education Act and Regulations, that all schools in Australia and system authorities (CESA), fully implement a curriculum by teaching, assessing, and reporting on student achievement using the Content Descriptors and Achievement Standards in the relevant curriculum, and provide student reports to parents or carers, twice a year.

Student written reports provide one part of the information to children, young people and families regarding the progress and achievements of the learner. Reports also provide a further opportunity for all stakeholders to engage in authentic learning conversations and partnerships. Progress and achievements of the child/student in relation to curriculum are based on valid and reliable summative assessment data which may include:

Evaluations made at the conclusion of a unit of work
Assessment activities to assess student skills, knowledge, and understandings at a particular point in time

The implementation of the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 in Catholic schools in South Australia, provides opportunities to ensure that assessment and reporting practices are explicitly centred on the improvement of learning. The Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards describe what students are expected to understand and be able to do having been taught the curriculum content. They are the reference point for assessment and reporting against each learning area at each year level. A to E Performance Standards aligned to the Australian Curriculum v9.0 Achievement Standards have been developed, in collaboration with CESA schools, across all learning areas and all year levels. Student learning is assessed using the performance standard rubrics, which describe the level of student learning required to achieve each grade (A to E).

There is no requirement for schools to assign A - E grades or word equivalents in reporting on student achievement in the Reception (Foundation) year. Reception reports are provided twice a year. Reception teachers are required to use the Foundation (F) Year Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards for reporting student progress. A three-point descriptive wording scale will be used to report student progress against the Achievement Standards of the Foundation (F) Year in the Australian Curriculum.

Working Beyond
Working At
Working Towards

For students with diverse needs, a school can assess and report on student achievement using the following reporting options:

Year Level Achievement Standards with Adjustments to the curriculum
Accelerated Year Level (AYL)
Alternative Achievement Standard (AAS)
Highly Personalised Curriculum (HPC)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s classroom teacher.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Kate Turner

The Sacrament of First Reconciliation

On Tuesday 13th June, seven children from St John Bosco celebrated their First Reconciliation in the St John Bosco Church. This sacrament marks a significant milestone in the children’s spiritual journey. It is about asking God for forgiveness and receiving God's Grace to do better. During this sacrament, children reflect on their actions and acknowledge any wrongdoing. Through Reconciliation, children deepen their understanding of morality and compassion, and experience the healing power of God’s forgiveness. We congratulate the following children on receiving their First Reconciliation: Dean, Bernice, James, Rio, Chloe, Terry and Vinny (absent). As a school community, we will continue to guide them on their spiritual journey:

I learnt that it is always good to say a lot to the priest because they need to know reasons why you’re sorry. I felt very happy to learn in the Church. - Terry

I felt good learning about Jesus. - James 

Now I have advice about being good and being very helpful and generous. - Chloe 

Crossing Monitors at St John Bosco

Last term the Year 5/6 children came up with the initiative to implement Crossing Monitors at St John Bosco. This initiative will complement the ‘Serve the Lord with Joy’ Leadership Program, where children earn points towards leadership badges.

School crossing monitors play an important part in road safety, especially around school zones. To be a school crossing monitor, children must be aged 10 years or older. As a crossing monitor, the children are authorised in accordance with the Road Traffic Act to exhibit a stop sign and/or flags on a children’s crossing, for the purpose of requiring drivers to stop before driving over the children’s crossing; and to give reasonable directions to pedestrians at or on the crossing as are in his or her opinion necessary for the safe and efficient movement of traffic.

This week, Senior Constable Andrew Crowe trained the Senior children to be Crossing Monitors. From Monday of Week 9, you will see two Year 5/6 children at each crossing (Lipsett Terrace and Marshall Terrace). These children will be assisting the yard duty teacher, each morning and afternoon.  

At SJB we have Emu Crossings. Emu crossings have white road markings, red and white posts and operate only when the children’s crossing flags are displayed. They are placed within school zones and a speed limit of 25 km/h applies to drivers when children are present. Drivers must stop for pedestrians using or about to use the crossing.

Things to be aware of:

When you see the children holding the STOP signs out like the image above, you are required to stop your vehicle and wait for the children to cross the road.
When you hear the whistle blow and the STOP signs are down, you may continue your journey, at 25km/h.

Leah Bellifemini

The children in Year 5/6DM delight in their time with R/JJ and welcomed their buddies with ‘bucket-loads’ of enthusiasm, high fives and fist pumps. The children were then encouraged to work collaboratively, to design their own postcard depicting a particular character strength using words, drawings and symbols. As a springboard for our learning, we brainstormed some of our own thinking and definitions of what certain character strengths mean for us…

Leadership means you are a leader or role model for the younger children, always demonstrating the school values so they can follow in your footsteps.  - Angelo

Zest is when you try your hardest to do better. If someone is feeling down, you use your energy to make them feel better and inspired. - Tejas

Teamwork is to work with others and collaborate.  – Alexander

Bravery is when you have the courage to put yourself out there. - Luca

Humour is a way for me to cheer people up. I smile at them or tell them a joke. - Allegra

Curiosity is the thirst to know more - Giulia

Fairness is when you treat others equally or the same - Jaival

Appreciation of beauty and excellence means to acknowledge the beautiful things around you, like we should appreciate the rain because it waters our environment –  Sebastian

Humour is when we use our ‘dolphin thinking’ to enjoy the moments and make others smile -Dedeep

Forgiveness means accepting other’s apologies and moving on – Nicola B

Teamwork is when we collaborate and work hard together to achieve a common goal – Yuvraj

Please keep an eye out for these wonderful postcards as they begin to ‘pop up’ in our learning environments next term.

Has your child come home talking about the guard dog or the elephant in their brain? Or, have they been telling you about how they need to start thinking like a dolphin? Well, that’s because we started the ‘Grow Your Mind’ program at St John Bosco School! Grow Your Mind is based on four key pillars of research: Positive Psychology, Neuroscience, Public Health and Social & Emotional Learning. We are teaching children all about their brain, in addition to life-long strategies they can keep in their toolkit to support their mental health and wellbeing. This term, each class has learnt all about the brain. They have been taught the correct terminology alongside a Grow Your Mind character animal, to support quick recall and understanding. It would be great if you could support this learning at home.

The Grow Your Mind (GYM) Characters are:

• The Guard Dog (Amygdala) Our Guard Dog protects us – but it can’t always tell the difference between a REAL and IMAGINED threat. We are learning to notice our feelings and name them so we can tell our Guard Dog that we can take control.
• The Sifting Sooty (Reticular Activating System) Our Sifting Sooty supports our focus. To help our Sifting Sooty, we can notice the things around us and focus on what we can see, smell, hear and touch.
• The Wise Owl (Prefrontal Cortex) Our Wise Owl helps us with decision making, problem solving and higher order thinking. We can learn new or tricky things to ‘wake up’ our Wise Owl.
• The Sensitive Octopus (Insular Cortex) Our Sensitive Octopus supports us with being a good friend. We can show kindness to others if we want to ‘wake up’ our Insular Cortex.
• The Elephant (Hippocampus) Our Elephant oversees memory. Moving our bodies or meditating are just two ways to ‘wake up’ this part of our brain. Our elephant stores information and memories.

We also teach the children that their thoughts can hinder their ability to build resilience. Negative, self-limiting thoughts are referred to as ‘Shark Thoughts’ but ‘Dolphin Thoughts’ are realistically optimistic and helpful thoughts. The children are learning to flip those shark thoughts into dolphin thoughts.

If you’d like to learn more about this and gain some strategies you can use at home, join us at our Wellbeing Family Information Session on Tuesday 27 June 4-5pm in the Library.

Jess Rushby

Wellbeing Coordinator

I had entered our school into the Nova 919 competition to play handball against Jodie and Haysey. The school was notified that I was one of the winners and they would come out to visit us.  So on Tuesday 20th of June, Nova 919 came to our school for the handball competition. We gathered in the library and Haysey and Jodie spoke to the whole school. It was also Haysey’s 38th birthday, so we sang him a big happy birthday. We then went outside to the handball courts to play a game of handball. The entire school surrounded one court. Miss Bellifemini was on my team. We had a lot of fun and sadly lost by one point. After the game, the year 5/6s got free handballs and Jodie and Haysey signed them for us. The following day (Wednesday), Jodie and Haysey  spoke about us on the radio and said they would like to come back because of our beautiful manners when we were getting autographs. 

Faith and Lucy.