Dear St John's families,

Thank you all for a fabulous Term 2.

I was observing our Kindergarten students this week as they were learning in the classroom, walking around the school and playing outside. It is quite amazing how much they grow in the first half of the year and how confident they become.

I then observed our Year 6 students and how they toured visitors, undertook their duties in the playground and presented their learning to their classes. I remember them as little Kindergarten students and was reminded what an amazing experience it is to work in an environment where you have the privilege of helping and watching young children grow.

Thank you for the privilege of being part of your child's journey.

Archbishop's visit 

Today we welcomed Archbishop Christopher Prowse to the school as part of his visit to our parish. He was taken on a tour of the school by our very capable School Captains. He visited Kindergarten, who enthusiastically sang to him. He also spoke with the the Year 3 and 6 classes, having participated in Sacraments this year.

Over the course of the weekend he will have a lunch with parishioners and will also say mass for everyone. Archbishop Christopher makes a great effort to stay connected to each parish and we really appreciate his visit to our school and parish community this week.

Changes to Catholic Education

Earlier this year, Archbishop Christopher announced changes to the governance arrangements for Catholic Education within the Archdiocese from 2025. This will result in a change to the proprietor of each Catholic School in the ACT but will not otherwise materially impact school operations. If you would like further information about this change, or you would like to provide feedback about the change in proprietor, please contact governance@cg.catholic.edu.au by 19 July 2024.

What does respect mean at school?

As I wrote last week, there are five components to our Positive Behaviour for Learning Policy. They include:

• Developing a culture of positive behaviour
• Acknowledging positive behaviours
• Creating a positive environment
• Discouraging and responding to problem behaviours
• Responding to and supporting students with highly complex behaviours

One of the ways we support students to display positive learning behaviour at school is to be very clear and concise about what positive learning looks like and sounds like at St John the Apostle.

When I first began as Principal I asked students what the school rules were. Their response would always be "Hands Off, Feet Off". That's it. There were no other rules that they could remember for me.

I realised that students didn't know how to describe what positive relationship and learning behaviour was. As young children, they needed the opportunity to learn it. 

I also knew that we had some expectations called 'Respect Others, Respect Self and Respect the Environment' though students weren't really sure what this meant. So I spent time with students and staff and asked them what these would look like in various situations or places in the school. 

From here we developed the posters that you often see around the school:

These posters define what Respect Others, Respect Self and Respect the Environment looks and sounds like at our school in very specific scenarios. They form the baseline of expectations for positive behaviour across the school from Kindergarten to Year 6. 

To help students learn and understand these we:

• have a full set of posters in every classrooms
• place relevant posters in specific places
• teach the behaviours from the posters at the beginning of every year and refresh ourselves during the year
• pick one statement each fortnight as our focus for practise
• use these behaviours as the focus for acknowledgement through our brag tag system
• review and update them each year in line with any new routines in the school

The outcome of all of this work?

Students can tell you that 'Respect Others, Respect Self and Respect the Environment' are our school expectations/rules. They can remember specific descriptions such as 'Safe hands, safe words, safe feet'. They understand more clearly what is expected at school to be successful. Teachers have a clear set of expectations and can be consistent with all students. We have a shared way of being. Classrooms and playground are much more settled and predictable learning environments.

NAIDOC Week Stories

As part of our NAIDOC Week celebrations some of our teachers recorded themselves reading aloud a story by a First Nations author or about First Nations culture and values. Each day classes were asked to watch one of the stories and discuss it.

Thank you to Mrs Alcock, Ms Brown, Mrs Love, Mrs Fraser, Ms Macdonald, Mrs Stewart and Ms Etzrodt for taking time to record their stories.

I would love to share with you Ms Etzrodt's story. We think she'd make a great Playschool presenter!

I hope everyone has a healthy and warm break and feels very refreshed on the return to school next term.

We look forward to seeing our students on Tuesday 23 July follwing our pupil free professional learning day.

Kind regards,

Matthew Garton

Principal