Dear Parents/Carers,

This week is NAIDOC Week which gives us the opportunity to acknowledge the first people's of our country. The theme of this year's celebration is 'Always Was, Always Will Be.' The very long story of our country is recognised around the world, with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people engraving the world's first maps, making the earliest paintings of ceremony and inventing unique technologies (naidoc.org.au). 

At St John's we acknowledge and pay tribute to the Aboriginal people as the custodians of the land on which we gather each day. We work hard to help the students learn about our nation's 60,000+ year history. On Monday they had the opportunity to participate in a workshop that highlighted for them many of the cultural traditions of the first peoples. 

Year 6 Camp

From all reports, Year 6 has enjoyed a very successful camp over the last two days. I am so pleased that they were able to have this experience as their excursion to Canberra earlier in the year had to be cancelled, and I am disappointed that I was unable to join them at Teen Ranch. While their final year in Primary school hasn't been what they expected, I hope the camp provides them with some wonderful memories.

COVID restrictions

Following on from the letter that was distributed via Compass last Friday, there has been some easing of restrictions for schools. They mainly affect assemblies, Masses and end-of-year gatherings for students. For any whole-school events we are unable to have parents attend (in fact, any such event can only have 30 people attend), children can only sit together with their Stage group and we are still unable to sing. Therefore, we will be unable to hold a Christmas Concert (or similar event) at the end of the year. However, we have begun plans on creating something special for families - watch this space!

Due to the size of our church, we are still not able to have large groups of students inside that space for Mass. We are planning to have an end-of-year liturgy with the children outside. 

Our Year 6 students will be able to have a Graduation Ceremony on 8 December. We will inform their parents about the details of this event once planning has been finalised.

Our school Swimming Carnival will be able to take place on 9 December, however it will only be for competitive swimmers (i.e. they must be able to competently swim 50m). This is because we do not have exclusive use of the indoor pool, a requirement of the COVID directives. More information will be distributed about the carnival in coming days.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to work with the ever-changing directives.

Wishing you a safe and enjoyable week,

Paul Moroney
Principal