Week 4, Term 1 2021

It was great to see so many of our families at our Welcome Night. The teachers enjoyed reacquainting with many families while also welcoming new families to our community. This week the teachers are engaging in Learning Conversations with students and families. Learning Conversations early in the school year provide an opportunity to form a solid partnership between teachers and parents. The teachers will chat about what they have already discovered about your child, and for families to share a deeper insight into their child. It is not too late to book an appointment with your child’s teacher, please follow the link.  More detailed information can be found in the email sent to families last Wednesday.

Yesterday we gathered as a community for traditional pancakes for Shrove Tuesday. A big thank you to the staff for organising the event and arriving at school early to ensure the pancakes were ready for our children and families. Today we began our Lenten Journey with Ash Wednesday Mass celebrated with Fr Peter. It was a lovely celebration with Fr Peter reminding us to aspire to Be More, the theme for 2021 Project Compassion.

We are excited to announce that children will have the opportunity to order Subway rolls and wraps at St John Bosco on Tuesday’s and Friday’s beginning in week 6, Tuesday 2nd March. Families can place orders on QKR that will go directly to Subway. More information will follow in the coming week.

Our School Annual General Meeting will be on Wednesday 24th February at 7:00pm in our school library. We welcome all members of our community to the evening, the 2020 reports will be tabled. We do have vacancies for parent representatives on our School Board for 2021 if you are interested please complete a nomination form and return to the front office by 3:00pm on Friday 19th February.

Each school has a Master Plan that plans out the future of the school in the context of history, culture and values. It establishes the guidelines by which to create a campus of learning that will sustain for decades to come. It is time to upgrade St John Bosco’s Master Plan. We value and respect all community members’ voice and want everyone to be part of the consultation process. As a staff we will work closely as a group and with all the children to ensure everyone has an opportunity to present their hopes and dreams for St John Bosco School’s future. We invite all parents, school board members and parishioners to a consultation meeting on the 17th March at 6:00pm in our library. Consultants from Edge Architects will lead the consultation process. We look forward to your support in this process.

Have a lovely week, God Bless
Kate Turner

In many ways Shrove Tuesday is about beginning a time to ‘unclutter’ our lives. We know it as a great day to eat pancakes but it also has special religious significance, and provides a valuable message for all people.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, which begins the church season of Lent. Lent has always been a time of reflection, of thinking about others and considering carefully how we can ‘unclutter’ our lives to make room for the things that really matter like our relationship with God, self, others, our world.

To ‘unclutter’ will mean different things for each of us – it might mean reducing our busyness or being less of a ‘consumer’ or reviewing expectations of self or others, etc.

Traditionally, during Lent, people would limit their intake of ‘luxury’ foods like meat, fats, eggs. To ensure these were not wasted families would use them up before Lent started – hence, the cooking of pancakes!

Today we began our Lenten Journey with Ash Wednesday Mass celebrated with Fr Peter. It was a lovely celebration with Fr Peter reminding us to aspire to Be More, the theme for 2021 Project Compassion.

The season of Lent is a time to ‘renew’ – we pray, reflect and act in ways that help strengthen our relationship with God, ourselves, one another and our world. On Ash Wednesday we receive a small cross of ashes on our forehead (this year due to COVID restrictions the ashes will be sprinkled on our heads) to remind us of God’s love, help and dream for us. This cross (or sprinkling) is also a reminder that sometimes we have to consider or change ways we might act in order to grow into the person God knows us to be.

Wishing you a lovely week
Sara Hart

Congratulations to our senior students who have been nominated as 2021 House Captains.

ST MARIA MAZZARELLO BLUE TEAM

Freedom & Jordan

ST DOMINIC SAVIO GOLD TEAM

Aysha & Domenic

ST FRANCIS De SALES GREEN TEAM

Maria & Andrew

For many years children have been participating the School Banking Program here at St John Bosco School which is run by Parent Volunteers.

Good savings takes practice. So to help your child develop good savings skills, you can choose for them to be part of CommBank's School Banking Program.

School Banking day is Tuesday at St John Bosco School.   Children can deposit their savings weekly by placing their book in the banking bag found in their class office box.  All books will be returned at the end of the day to be sent home.  Once they have collected 10 tokens they can redeem a reward.  

School Banking is also a great fundraiser for our school. Our school receives a Regular Savers Contribution of $5 for every 10 deposits processed per student as well as an Annual Contribution.  

Our School Banking is made possible because of Volunteers.  Unfortunately, to enable our program to continue we are in desperate need of Parent Volunteers.  If you are interested in helping and can spare an hour of your time on a Tuesday morning we would love to hear from you!   If Tuesday is not the best day for you let us know as we can always change our School Banking Day.

For more information about the program or to apply online click the this link here.  

Last week the children noticed some zucchini, tomatoes and spring onions growing in our vegetable garden.  Ms Hart, Aysha and Amelia (5/6 ZG) made some delicious quiche using the fresh ingredients.  This was a part of the Pastoral Care program in development at St John Bosco aiming to support the wellbeing of our students and families.