JPC Key Message Week 8, Term 2 2020

In and Around JPC

“Always Was, Always Will be”

NAIDOC Week celebrations this year have been postponed from July to 8-15 November due to Covid-19. Schools were tasked by the CE to decorate a message stick which represented their school, to decorate a cross for the Archdiocesan NAIDOC Mass.

The message stick is one of the many ways Aboriginal people communicated, and used for ceremonies, totems and tracking animals. When the message stick is handed to you from another person you then became the messenger.

Our Indigenous Captains Abbey Lamb and Kiara Allan designed the stick and Kiara’s design was voted most appropriate by our JPC Aboriginal group. Kiara, pictured here, painted the message stick with different colours to represent the boys and girls in their school houses with a community campfire in the centre. This message stick is our school’s story and we are passing our message on: Justice, Peace, Courage.                                              

Annie Daley
Contact Teacher for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students

Amazing Race

During ILT PE this week, the girls were asked to put their riddle solving and navigation skills to the test in an Amazing Race activity around the school. Girls were asked to work in groups to find specific items or objects around the school and then needed to take photos to demonstrate that they had completed the task. Here are some of the happy snaps our racers took throughout the session…

St Vincent de Paul Sleepout

Unfortunately, the JPC Sleepout has been cancelled this year due to safety concerns to do with the virus. However, the St Vincent de Paul CEO Sleepout will still be occurring online, and Mrs Catherine Rey will again be taking part this year. The Sleepout raises a lot of money each year to provide people facing homelessness and people at risk of homelessness with vital access to food and accommodation, education, counselling, employment and health services to help overcome poverty in the long term. We would love for everybody to contribute to her donation tally is solidarity of this great cause! Donations can be made via the Qkr! App under the ‘Donations and Fundraising’ section.

Thank you!

Social Justice Leaders – Wanin Tessema and Amadour Baptise

Literacy and Numeracy Tutorials

St John Paul II College is conducting Literacy and Numeracy tutorials during Independent Learning Time. These tutorials will target specific literacy and numeracy skills, with students identified through the data that is collected by the school. Initially, this data includes NAPLAN and ACER PAT data, which allows analysis of individual student achievement in specific skills in Reading, Writing, and Maths.

The tutorials will run in short bursts, with students attending for 4-5 weeks. Each cycle of tutorials focuses on strengthening skills in one particular area. Identified students are auto-allocated to the tutorial on their ILT planner, and will meet with the teacher for a few weeks.

For the remainder of the term, the focus areas for the tutorials are:

• Year 7/8 Numeracy – Mrs MacGregor – understanding and working with decimals
• Year 7/8 Literacy – Mr Ganley - construction of compound and complex sentences (with appropriate punctuation)
• Year 9/10 Numeracy – Mr Martyn - representing unknowns (algebraic expressions)
• Year 9/10 Literacy – Mrs O’Meara - retrieving directly stated information in more complex texts

If you have any questions about the tutorials, please contact our Literacy and Numeracy Coordinator, Kate MacGregor via email: katrina.macgregor@cg.catholic.edu.au

Arts Up Front

All Things Music

Tiny Tuesday Tunes
It has been so amazing being back at school with all my musical students. Even since returning to school, we have had multiple informal performances from students who have simply missed the atmosphere of performing for others and sharing their talent. This week we had Lachlan Stiller, Mikayla Brosnan, Aidan Bavinton, Yarick Malakov and Jackson Browne perform at our Tiny Tuesday Tunes. I am so incredibly proud of these students for their dedication and willingness to share what they have been rehearsing.

Music Teacher
Also, since returning to school, we have had an extra person in the music department. Steve Fitzgerald has been working alongside me in classes, bands, vocal groups and lunch time jams as he completes another one of his placements for his uni degree. It has been an absolute pleasure having Steve with us at JPC. The students have thoroughly enjoyed his classes and I have definitely enjoyed the extra assistance in Concert Band rehearsals.

Isolation Recordings
Aron Lyon has been working on a special project with his bands this term. During isolation, they were to rehearse their parts on the songs, and since returning to school, Aron has bought in his amazing recording gear to do a recording of all of his bands. Being a witness in the room during some of the recordings this week, I can certainly tell you the sound quality and the work he has done with his students, make these recordings sound incredibly professional and I cannot wait for the wider community to hear what our students have been working on. As always, it’s so great working with Aron and being back in our music space together doing what we love best! 

Year 10 Transition Week

The Transition Week Program has been emailed to all Year 10 families.

Make sure you complete the Transition Week Attendance form to nominate if your child will be doing the modules from home or at school by Thursday 25 June. Click here for Attendance form link

Subject Selection Interview emails have been sent to those families who are continuing at JPC for 2021. If you did not receive the email with the link, please contact the College office.

Careers

If you missed it, click here for the Careers newsletter for this week.

From the College office

The Amazing Canteen staff are looking very smart in their new uniforms!

This wonderful team produce the most delicious meals every day for the staff and students and always with a smile.

Thank you, team!

Parish News

Community News

Updated public transport timetables
from 18 July 2020

From Saturday 18 July 2020, Transport Canberra will be updating timetables for bus services.

As a new timetable is being introduced, there will be minor changes for all students travelling to and from school on public transport across Canberra from the first day of Term 3, 2020 (Monday 20 July 2020). In most cases, this will mean that students will catch the same service from the same stop, but the times that services arrive and leave may change.

In addition, Transport Canberra has made the following changes:
Adjustments to school buses for St John Paul II College

• From Term 3, there will be minor adjustments to school special services for St John Paul II College.
• School route 1001 has been more popular than expected, and there will an additional school route 1001 service each afternoon on school days to meet high demand. This means that there will be three school route 1001 services leaving the school between 3.52pm and 3.57pm each school day.
• Similarly, fewer students have been using school route 1002 than expected to travel between Gungahlin Place and the school, with many students choosing to catch route 26 services instead. For this reason, school route 1002 will be reduced to one service each morning and afternoon, instead of two services.
• All students currently catch school route 1002 will be able to continue to do so, or they will also be able to catch route 26 services instead.
• There will be no changes to services for St John Paul II College during Term 2, 2020.

All schools, parents and students can find out more about the specific changes by:

• clicking here for updated timetable 
• checking the information packs for each school, which are online at www.transport.act.gov.au
• checking timetables for each route (including school specials), which are online at www.transport.act.gov.au
• calling 13 17 10.