20 October 2023

Principal’s Message – Kate Ferguson

We're absolutely delighted to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Miss Zoe Dean, happening this weekend! As Zoe and Tom take this momentous step toward a lifetime of love and happiness, we share in their excitement and joy. We wish them both a wedding that is as beautiful and unique as the love that they share. May God bless them with a lifetime of happiness and adventure!

New Staff – Enhancement Teachers

This term we welcome the following staff for the remainder of 2023 to St John the Baptist in the role of Enhancement Teacher, Annika Rooke, Courtney Peters, Julie Nepia and Cath Pilley. These four staff members are working across all grades with teachers to enhance the learning of all students, looking at small group intervention as well as individual learning growth. If you have any questions about the role of these teachers within your students classroom, please do not hesitate to contact your class teacher.

Afternoon Pick Up

Thank you for your assistance as we continue to look for ways to support the departure of students in the afternoon.

I appreciate that during COVID, some previous practices were not resumed including parents waiting inside school grounds for their children after school. In moving forward, I would like to trial the following for the next 7 weeks:

• All parents and family members are invited to wait for their children outside the office area and within the tunnel from 2:50pm, coming into the school grounds using the front entrance gate at Victoria Street outside the office.
• We ask that all parents and families do not go further than the canteen area. No parents or family members are to wait outside classrooms or interrupt the learning occurring in classrooms, shared concrete area or on the oval.
• All teaching staff are required for duty after school and are not able to informally meet with parents during this time.
• Parents exiting from school grounds are to use the Victoria St exit (between the library and year 1 classrooms) so as to not interfere with traffic or students in bus lines.

I appreciate the consultation between school staff and the P & F as we continue to look for ways to welcome all at SJB. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please do not hesitate to contact me through the front office or your classroom teacher.

Playground Painting

The school playground has been transformed into a colourful and vibrant space, thanks to the generous donation of the P & F. The P & F  assisted with the funding of the playground paintings which was completed this week. It is wonderful to see students playing hopscotch and creating games on the number lines. Thank you to all who support P & F events so that this donation was possible.

Kindergarten Orientation

This week we welcomed our Kindergarten 2024 students to St John the Baptist! Our 2024 Kindergarten students met their Year 5 buddies and were able to start developing friendships with each other. Over the next 5 weeks we will welcome these students back as they become familiar with the school, students and staff.

Assistant Principal’s Message – Stacey Whiting

Debating 

Debating is part of our Stage 3 curriculum. It is a powerful teaching tool as it covers a range of skills, including: 

• Learning to find evidence to support an argument or position  
• Learning to distinguish credible sources of information  
• Finding and interpreting data  
• Reading and summarising information  
• Considering different perspectives on a topic  
• Collaboration and teamwork skills  
• Public speaking skills  
• Developing confidence in working with others and communicating ideas  
• Learning how to speak or write persuasively  

On Wednesday 11 October I had the privilege of taking our two Year 6 debating teams to St Patrick’s Primary School at Cessnock to take part in the Lower Hunter Debating Competition. Each team took part in 2 debates. 

Members of Team 1 included Xavier, Ava, Sabina and Carter. The first team they debated against was Rosary Park, Branxton. The topic was “It is better to academic than athletic.” They were the affirmative team. Their second debate was against St Paul’s at Rutherford, and this time they were the negative team. The topic was “Sporting heroes make great role models.”  

Members of Team 2 included Darcy, Annika, Nicholas and Griffin. Their first debate was against St Paul’s at Rutherford and they were the affirmative team for “Cats make better pets than dogs.” This was challenging as the adjudicator admit he preferred dogs over cats! Nonetheless, they came up with great arguments as to why cats make better pets. The second team they debated against was St Aloysius at Chisholm, and their topic was “School uniforms should be abolished.”  

While neither of our teams won the competition, both teams debated and argued their points incredibly well. I was very proud of how well they participated and represented our school! A special thanks to Mr Tobin, Mrs Murdoch and Mrs Murphy for preparing the students. 

Religious Education – Chris Sheridan

Prayer is . . .

"Prayer is always alive in our lives, like embers, even when the mouth does not speak, but the heart speaks. Every thought, even apparently “profane” ones, can be permeated by prayer. There is even a prayerful aspect in human intelligence; it is, in fact, a window peering into the mystery: it illuminates the few steps in front of us and then opens up to the entire reality, this reality that precedes it and surpasses it."      Pope Francis

Today at St John’s we welcomed a new chapter of young lives into our school – eager, reserved, inquisitive, ready to commence the next phase of their young lives.

Each year, events such as this serve as a reminder that we too commenced this journey many years ago.

It may prompt a “Where has that time gone?”

Our lives are filled with thousands (millions?) of moments of learning – both small and momentos - that help to shape who we are – that make me the unique individual that I am.

Creator God, may each of us, daily,
be mindful that we are here for a purpose.
May we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us
in realising our purpose and grant us the grace,
the temperment, the resilience and the love
to be the face of God to others.
Amen.

Primary Co-ordinator – Sara Murdoch

Polding Athletics 

Congratulations to Eadie Gollan, Lincoln Greentree and Patrick O’Toole who represented St John’s at the Polding Athletics Championships at Sydney Olympic Park last Friday. Well done on achieving incredible results. We are so proud of you! 

Soccer 

Over the next 4 weeks, our infants classes will be taking part in a soccer skills program with Football Australia. We can’t wait to see these little legends show off their skills on the playground! 

2024 Swimming Carnival 

Our 2024 Swimming Carnival is fast approaching. As always, we run our 2024 carnival in December the previous year due to the availability of Maitland pool and the regional carnival being early on in Term 1. The date for our carnival is the 8^th December. More information will be forthcoming closer to the time. 

Class Merit Awards

Canteen

Maitland Men’s Shed

On behalf of the students and staff of St John the Baptist, thank you to Tom, Ted, Jim and Cec from The Maitland Community Men’s Shed who built, delivered and installed the following items for the students to play and learn with (and on!).  

• 2x water play mazes
• 2x small picnic tables
• 1x free standing water play

We are very grateful for your efforts expertise in completing these projects. The children now and into the future will benefit greatly.

If any family has small plastic or other watering cans, small plastic cups and small buckets with handles they no longer require the use of, we will happily accept these donations. Please leave them at the school office. Thank you!

Stage 1 Geography and Science Excursion

1 Blue, 1 White, 2 Blue and 2 White visited Newcastle late in Term 3.  

We participated in the following activities:

• Nobby’s Lighthouse viewing area- We saw first-hand what a coastal environment looks like.
• The Newcastle Museum- We tried different experiments in the Super Nova area and saw a BHP Steelworks show.
• Ferry to Stockton for lunch and a play. Here, some of our families met us for lunch. Thank you to those family members who were able to do this.

Thank you also to the following staff who organised, supervised and kept us on schedule the whole day - Mrs Summerville, Mrs Hodges, Mrs Wallace, Mrs Thorne, Mrs Hardy, Mrs Murphy, Mrs Wilson, Mrs Fairhall, Ms Wells, Mrs Collins and Mrs Baker. 

Here are a few of our thoughts about our Stage 1 day of learning and fun in Newcastle.

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 47

Next

P & F News

The 2023/2024 AGM is scheduled for Wednesday 8^th November 9:30am in the school hall. We encourage as many parents and carers to attend as possible. For those interested in joining the committee, nomination forms are available on Compass. There is no expectation to take a committee role by attending the meeting.

Please contact executive@pandf-maitlandsj.com if you would like any further information. 

Dates for the Diary – Term 4

Meeting & 2024 AGM - Wednesday 8 November @ 9:30 am (Week 7)
Christmas Family Night - Tuesday 5th December (Week 9)
Christmas Fun Day -Monday 11 December (Week 10)

Uniform Shop

Open Monday 8:30-9am in school hall.

We are asking for donations of approved uniform items in good, clean quality condition (no rips, stains etc).

Contacting the P & F Committee

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any assistance via executive@pandf-maitlandsj.com

We welcome any suggestions, feedback, offers to volunteer with events or general enquiries.