Week 6 Term 4 2022

It has been a busy week with the children involved in swimming lessons and aquatics. The children have had an absolute ball while brushing up on their water skills and safety. A huge thank you to all the parents and friends who have volunteered throughout the week, without your assistance excursions are simply not possible.

Mary Gregory has joined our Administration team working in the front office on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If you have not met Mary yet pop in and introduce yourself.

The staff are busily working on class placements for 2023, if you have any information that you believe we should take into consideration on your child’s 2023 class placement please email me directly kate.turner@sjb.catholic.edu.au by Monday 28th November 2022. We are fine tuning our 2023 staffing, I look forward to announcing this to the community in our Week 8 Newsletter.

All South Australian schools received a brochure to send home to families. You will receive a copy of Children and young people’s sexual behaviour in education and care settings; A guide for parent and carers in the coming days.

Lost Property

We have a large amount of school uniform items in the front office, please come and speak to Franca, Elaine or Mary to find your missing items. Can I stress the importance of labelling your child’s uniform with their name, this will assist staff to return items directly back to their rightful owners.

Volunteers Morning Tea

I would like to warmly invite all members of our community that have assisted as a volunteer throughout the year to our Volunteers Morning Tea. Our thank you morning tea will be held in the school library on Wednesday December 7th at 9:00am. We are sincerely thankful to our volunteers who assist in our community from covering library books, listening to reading, to attending excursions or coaching a sporting team. Without our volunteers many activities and events would not be possible. Please join us so we can say a big thank you for your dedicated service to St John Bosco School.

Christmas Concert

Please place Friday December 2nd in your diaries as we have our School Christmas Concert. We will have our concert on our school oval with gates opening at 5:30pm and the concert beginning at 6:00pm. Families are encouraged to bring a picnic rug and dinner, find the perfect spot on our oval in front of the stage and sit back and enjoy each class perform. Our Parents and Friends have also organised some food vans, which will be selling food and drinks for the convenience of busy families and staff. We look forward to seeing all families at the Christmas Concert, it promises to be a fun filled night!

Christmas Hampers

Once again St John Bosco School is collecting items for Christmas Hampers that we will donate to The Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons. There is a brochure included in the newsletter that suggestes non-perishable food that would be great additions to the hampers. Please place all donations in boxes provided in your child's classroom.

School Uniform

I encourage families to book an appointment with Devon Clothing if you require new uniform items for the beginning of the 2023 school year. During the busy period over the holidays please book an appointment online, to avoid being turned away. Online orders are also welcomed with orders being delivered straight to your home.

Pupil Free Days/Vacation Care

I would like to remind families that Wednesday 14th December is the last school day for 2022, with Thursday 15th and Friday 16th December being Pupil Free Days. Please contact our OSHC Director Mirella if you require care for your child/ren on one or both days. A cost of $49.00 per day applies on Pupil Free Days.

St John Bosco Vacation Program has now been released. The Vacation Program is also available on our school website. Spaces are limited and are quickly disappearing, please secure your child’s place by booking via the QKR app. Queries can be directed to Mirella, mirella.tsimikilis@sjb.catholic.edu.au

Looking forward to seeing many of our families at our Sports Presentation evening in the courtyard tomorrow night with a 5:30pm start. It will be a great opportunity to celebrate our athletes and coaches. A big thank you to Dino Zandona for organising the evening and our after school hours sport throughout 2022.

Enjoy the sunshine

Kate Turner

Remembrance Day

On the 11th of November, the St John Bosco School community gathered to mark Remembrance Day.  The Senior Student Leaders led us in a ceremony where we were silent for 1 minute to show our respect for all those who gave their lives in war for the freedom we now enjoy.

Some of our community members have written the names of loved one that have passed away in our school Remembrance book located in our foyer.  We pray for them.

Advent

This coming Sunday marks the first Sunday of Advent.  Advent is a time of reflection and promise.  It opens a new cycle of the Liturgical Year and turns our minds to the preparation of the coming of Jesus Christ.  The Advent season is a four-week period before Christmas. The origin of "advent" is from the Latin word adventus which simply translates "coming" or "arrival". Not only is the Christian meaning for preparation and celebration of the coming of Jesus Christ, his birth at Christmas, but also to celebrate the new life. There are beautiful and rich traditions behind the celebration of Advent.

Each of the four Sundays of Advent each have a specific theme or focus. The purpose of each theme is to spend time reflecting on the true meaning of the season - the life of Jesus Christ. Each Sunday we light an Advent candle.  The candles have specific meanings:

First Sunday of Advent Week 1: Hope

Second Sunday of Advent Week 2: Love

Third Sunday of Advent Week 3: Joy

Fourth Sunday of Advent Week 4: Peace

Popular today are Advent Calendars, rooted in a tradition that spans centuries of church history, the modern version of the Advent calendar has been around since the nineteenth century. Advent calendars carry an underlying spiritual message of anticipation and hope. By helping us remember and reflect on the coming of Jesus Christ, more than just a countdown, marking the days off, Advent serves as a time of spiritual reflection and preparation. 

Luckily the rain held off for our Japanese Culture Day on November 2nd. All the students came in either red, white or pink clothes or in something Japanese. They worked in mixed groups and  took part in three different activities. One activity was decorating uchiwa (fans). Another was playing Japanese games such as torahakobi, tamaire and chopstick races.

The third activity was biscuit decorating with students writing in hiragana and kanji or writing their names in katakana. We were very lucky to have Miyazaki san (Odelinda’s mum) to provide language support with this activity.

After lunch we had a fun afternoon with a special visitor, Jarrod Hoare who performed traditional Japanese drama styles of rakugo, kyogen and kamishibai. Jarrod was very funny and even had the teachers up on stage doing some role plays!

Japanese Culture Day was really fun and we learned a lot of Japanese too!

Sayounara!

As we approach the end of the school year we ask families to return all library books as borrowing for 2022 is no longer available to allow for stocktake.

Children will continue nightly reading with their readers until Wednesday of Week 8 (7/12/2022). Could you please assist your child in looking for any excess readers as many of our new readers are missing.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.