School Newsletter – 13th May 2020

In our Prayers this week: Hampton Family - Dane Yr 3, Fraser Prep Hansen Family - Jaymin Yr 8, Tanner Yr 6 Hansen Family - Hunter Yr 2, Scarlett Yr 1 Hansen Family - Olivia Yr 2 Harrison Family - Dane Yr 3, Blake Prep Harris Family - Renae Yr 6 Hatchett Family - Noah Yr 8 Head Family - Kaeden Yr 7 Healey Family - Elizabeth Yr 2

St John’s Lutheran School Ph: 07 4162 3988 Fax: 07 4162 4255 PO Box 506 84-94 Ivy Street Kingaroy Qld 4610 E-mail: office@sjls.qld.edu.au

Choose Kindness Do you consider yourself to be patient? Our daily lives require us

to exercise patience, whether the issues we face are small or big.

Receiving a bad grade, dealing with a difficult co-worker,

HOMESCHOOLING OUR CHILDREN, experiencing conflict with a

friend, or getting sick, are all situations that require us to be

patient, and it is often easier said than done.

One thing that has become very clear over recent weeks is that we

cannot control every aspect of our lives. The way others treat us

and the situations we find ourselves in are sometimes simply

beyond our control, and we have to find ways to cope with them.

So, how can we be patient in difficult circumstances?

Romans 12:12 says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be

constant in prayer.” In life we will face trials; however, when we put

our trust in God, we can have faith that He is in control of our lives.

In fact, when we call upon God, He can give us the strength to be

patient. While we may not understand the situation we are in, we

can trust in the fact that God works all things together for the good

of those who love Him. He also wants to help us – if you are

struggling to have patience today, ask Him to help you!

School Update It was so exciting to see our Preppies and Year 1 students return to school on Monday. There were a lot of

smiling faces (from children and adults!). This continues to be an interesting time as we transition to the next

stage with two Year levels learning face-to-face and the rest of the school continuing with supervised on-line

learning. Once again, I thank you for your patience as we navigate what the changes mean for us.

We continue to follow advice provided by the Queensland Chief Health Officer and the government. These

directives include:

All adults must maintain social distancing of 1.5 metres

Social distancing also relates to the car park. Drop and Go could be a good alternative.

Continuing to use hygiene products.

Promote regular hand washing.

Increased cleaning during the school day in key areas (toilets etc.)

Unwell students and staff members must remain or return home.

Classrooms will have open windows to promote air flow.

Please make sure your child is dressed warmly.

Communication with teachers is best done by email at this stage as face-to-face meetings/interviews are

not encouraged.

Students are to spread out inside the hall on arrival before school. Staff will meet them here and walk

them to the classrooms.

Classrooms are for students and staff only

Thank you, parents, for understanding that these procedures are in place to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Staff will continue to support students in Years 2 to 9 who are learning at home until the 22nd of May.

We await further updates from the Premier regarding education guidelines, around the 15th of May.

Thank you for your continued support and feedback as we move to the next phase of lifting restrictions.

Student Drop off and Pick up We ask that parents limit their attendance on the school site in line with social distancing rules. We do

understand that our Prep and Yr 1parents may wish to usher them to the classroom but we need to adhere to

the wider rules provided to ensure our staff are also not at risk.

Recommended ways to drop off/ pick up children:

1. Use Drop and Go 2. If using the hall please limit your movement in this area and as soon as your child is inside the

supervised hall area please leave the school site. 3. If you need to come to the office, please observe social distancing by noting the floor marks and only 6

parents at a time to be in the entry area. Please wait outside if there are already 6 adults in the admin area.

4. If parents are on site you will be kindly asked to leave immediately. We thank you for understanding that we need to follow these health directives.

Unwell Students Our current heath directive from the Qld Chief Health Officer, Dr Jeannette Young, states that unwell students

are not to attend the school site and that students who come to school who are showing any symptoms of

sickness (including a cold) must be sent home immediately. Therefore, if your child is showing ANY symptoms

of sickness, please keep them at home.

Pyjama Day Students had an easy time getting ready for school today - rolling out to school in

their PJs. We hope that our Home Learning students have also enjoyed not having

to change out of their pyjamas this morning. Don’t forget our next theme day is

‘Bling Your Accessories Day’ on the 27th of May. This is tied in with National

Simultaneous Reading Day and our book this year is ‘Whitney and Britney Chicken

Divas’. Keep your eye open on our Facebook page to see Mrs T sharing this book

on story time on the 27th of May.

Mother’s Day Gifts Thank You A big thank you to Krista Holznagel who worked tirelessly to sell some of our Mother’s

Day Gifts online after the Mother’s Day Stall had to be cancelled this year. All money

raised will go towards our Year 6 students Canberra Trip. This took a great deal of

time and effort – thank you so much, Krista. We hope all of our students spoilt their

Mums and that all of our mothers had a lovely Mother’s Day last Sunday.

School Fees

School Fees accounts have been posted home to all families. Term 2 school fees are due for payment by

Friday, the 5th of June. If you need to discuss financial options at this time, we encourage you to email our

Business Manager, Mrs Teresa Lucas, to make an appointment - tluc@sjls.qld.edu.au

Virtual Strava Inter-House Challenge Results Thank you to everyone who has participated in our Strava Inter-House Challenge. With some students returning

to school, last week was our final week of competition. Lots of big totals again this week with a combined effort

of over 1500kms! Well done, everyone! This week the rules changed, with the winner being awarded to the

highest average kilometres per athlete. So here we go, in third place is Boondooma with an average of 5.4kms

per participant. In second place is Somerset with an average of 8.4kms per participant and in first place is

Wivenhoe with an average of 11.4kms per participant.

Well done, everyone who participated over the past four weeks! 👏👏👏

Physical exercise is so important to our physical and mental health – we encourage everyone who has started

good habits during this challenge to keep walking.

Premier’s Reading Challenge It’s that time of the year again when we register for the

Premier’s Reading Challenge. Reading plays an important

part in students’ lives during their school years and beyond.

It allows children to actively engage their imagination and

opens up a world of educational opportunities. The reading

period for the 2020 Premier's Reading Challenge

commenced on Monday, the 11th of May and closes on

Friday, the 28th of August. This year the Premier has invited

all students to take on the challenge:

Prep to Year 2 should read or experience at least 20 books,

Years 3 and 4 should read at least 20 books, and

Years 5 to 9 should read at least 15 books.

Experiencing books can include shared reading, listening to stories, or reading picture books. The aim for the 2020

challenge is to engage more students reading more books than ever before.

Students wishing to take part in this year’s challenge can use the form attached to this newsletter to keep track

of the books read. These books can be library books, home readers, bedtime stories, reading group books or

any books read during this time. Forms are also available for collection from the library or the office.

Every student who completes the challenge will receive a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Premier.

If you need any more information, please don’t hesitate to contact Mrs T in the library – ttun@sjls.qld.edu.au

You can play a big part in your children’s future by encouraging them to be part of this positive initiative.

I look forward to seeing as many of our students as possible take part in the 2020 Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Tuckshop Family Meals – Don’t forget Mrs Litzow is providing family meals for ONE more week!

Available options for next Wednesday, the 20th of May include:

Main Meal – Apricot Chicken, Beef and Pasta Bake

Dessert – Sticky Date Pudding

Primary Snippets Welcome back to all of our wonderful Prep and Year 1 students this week. Our classrooms are vibrant and full again – we have missed having you here. Students have enjoyed being back and participating in lots of wonderful activities. During Whole School Devotion on Monday, we were taught about the word ‘perseverance’. With that knowledge, we attempted building marshmallow towers with spaghetti and those delightful little pink and white fluffy squishy decadents. Perseverance? Yes. Not to want to eat them! Not to want to wish that our spaghetti was thicker and tougher! Not to want to throw a tantrum when the tower collapsed and not to want to lick the powdery sticky sweet loveliness that was blanketing our fingers! Teamwork galore. Perseverance galore. Fun galore. Budding scientists galore.

Technology Corner - TikTok is a video-sharing social media app that gives users the opportunity to share 60

second videos with other users. We are sharing this for parents’ information to make you aware because there

are some concerns with children under 13 using this APP. TikTok requires that users be at least 13 years old to

use the app! Here are three things parents should know about TikTok:

Strangers can send private messages

TikTok includes a lot of suggestive content

TikTok collects users’ data

We realise that students are using far more technology at the moment, and we are providing this information for

your awareness. We strongly recommend parents monitor the apps that students are using.

Secondary Snippets Thank you and a pat on the back to the St John’s Community, but we’re not quite there yet!

It has been a long four weeks for many and for others it may have seemed like a very short breeze. Everyone,

including parents and students, is either loving, loathing, or resigned to, the online learning format. Regardless of

where you or your children sit, we must be resilient to work through this phase until it is considered safe for all to

return to normal life. This may take time in all facets of everyday life, but in our Junior Secondary School we are

working on-line until the end of Week 5. We are hopeful that the directives passed down will enable us to regain

a normality at St John’s and particularly in the Junior Secondary precinct.

I would like to congratulate everyone for their part in this journey. Parents, thank you for working with us in

facilitating your child’s learning. Students, especially those that have not set foot in the school since late last

term, thank you for being open to and adaptable in using new skills and strategies, using your initiative, and

developing an independence for your learning that you have never had to tap into before. Teachers, thank you

for providing the best online platform to allow students to continue flourishing and developing through this time.

Finally, but not least, thank you to the St John’s Administration for guiding us through this new and developing

phase.

Pyjama Day - Secondary students at home and at school enjoyed pyjama day. Nothing like rolling out of bed to go to school. Follow the link to see the photos. Junior Secondary Pyjama Day

Maths - Year 7 & 8 Maths have been enjoying Fun Friday both at

home and at school. The students have been stacking biscuits to

collect data for a Frequency Distribution Table, the record went to

Grade 8 with 26 biscuits in their stack. They have also been

enjoying M&M’s as they sort and analyse the evenness of the

packets, again using the information to calculate Mean, Median

and Mode. They discovered there were more in some packages

then others; they were not impressed. This has been great

motivation to encourage students to have their work completed

ready for Friday’s activity. Last Friday was food free as we

enjoyed playing Kahoot where students at home and at school got

to compete against each other in the quiz.

English - Junior Secondary students have been honing their narrative writing skills this term. On Friday, we had

a bit of fun by attempting to capture the authentic voices of some well-known characters in the school.

Quiet air filled the room, with only keyboard noises to be heard. Some sluggishly typed with one finger and another felt like she was about to break the keys. Suddenly, a low, but loud enough murmur could be heard from the cold side of the room. The student bopped his head freely and lip synced as if he was performing in front of thousands, when really he was only entertaining the wall and was grabbing students’ attention. “Alex,” the low, rumbling sound warned, “What do you think you’re doing?” No response came from the student, his music blocking the surrounding noise. The room shook in fear as stomps echoed, the floor creaked with each stomp as the entire class shivered in fear. The man towered over the student, staring intensely at his screen. He slowly bent down, still inspecting the activity going on on his screen, his head reached behind the student’s ear. “What exactly are you watching?” The little boy jumped like popcorn. “Uh, I was doing work,” Alex suddenly changed his tabs to today’s lesson. “Well, I saw that the video you were watching was not school related,” Mr Eisenmenger stated, his voice stern. “Please play the video so the class is able to hear what you were ‘jamming’ to.” Alex’s finger shook its way over to his headphones, detaching them. He made his way over to the space button and… “Ooh Eeh Ooh Ah Ah, Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang!” Charisse Dizon Yr8

“Okay, year eight’s today we’re going to be coding basic shapes in Code.org using javascript code. Let’s start off with some vocabulary. There are ‘bugs’ which are bad, debugging which is fixing the bug and a ‘program’ which is basically an algorithm. The thing we’re going to be using today is a ‘fill’ which fills the shape a colour, ‘ellipse’ which is a circle or oval and ‘rect’ which is a rectangle.

Okay, let’s start by putting a rectangle in two different corners. Let’s start by dragging a rect block into the coding white space and put the coordinates for one of them as 0,0. And the other one at 350,350. Remember there is no such thing in coding as wrong it’s just trial and error.

Now let’s learn to put colour in our shape. We’ll start by dragging a colour block into the coding area above the circle or rectangle. And I'll choose the colour red for my rectangle but you can choose whatever you want for yours. Unfortunately this is where I'm going to end the tutorial you can go back and pause or if you are at school ask me the question. Bye!” Ian Gakuo Yr 8 “Alright guys this might be a bit off track but I will tell you a quick story. I was at Fick’s the other day and I was out on my kayak, I just pulled in my first bass and I grabbed my phone to take a picture and whack the bass, knocking the phone out my hand and into the water. So I looked over the side and then the bass jumped over the side with the lipper grippers so I... Oh gee, there’s the bell. Well, we will catch up on that Christian Studies next week so be gone.” Lachlan Guse Yr8

“What!? Come on where did it go!” Mr Sampson's mouth flung open and hit the desk. “It’s gone everything is gone!” By Bonita Shea Yr 8

Travel Assistance - Non-State School

If you have not signed a SPA agreement with St John’s and your family purchases tickets for the bus each week

for Nanango, Wondai and Murgon, from the 1st to 31st May you can apply for assistance for your ticket

expenses for Semester 1 (Jan - June). More information for you to claim back your ticket purchases is available

at www.schooltransport.com.au

If you signed a SPA agreement previously, no further forms are required to be filled out or claimed from the Non

State school bus Assistance, if you receive an email and you are a SPA family please forward it to Tracey

Williams twil@sjls.qld.edu.au.

Students with Disabilities Travel Assistance - Non-State School STUDENTS WHO ARE VERIFIED - Has your child been verified by the support teachers? These students can

also apply for student travel assistance. (Bus and Car Applicable). If you have any questions, please contact

Tracey Williams in the office. More information for you to claim back your travel is available at

www.schooltransport.com.au

South Burnett Lutheran Parish We would like to invite you to attend our online Church Services. The links can be accessed on the South Burnett Lutheran Parish Facebook Page or the website sbluthparish.com or look them up on YouTube. These pre-recorded services can be viewed anytime at a time that suits your family and usually include a kids’ talk too.

Supporting our Community We invite school families who run a small business in our local community to advertise in our upcoming

newsletters. Please let us know how we can support you. One way to keep our local economy buoyant is to

shop locally and what better time than now, as restrictions are starting to lift, to support our local businesses.

Please send us a business card, a blurb about what you supply or stock and any extra info for our families. It has

been exciting to see many businesses come up with creative solutions in the last few weeks, so now is the time

to tell us about it! There is no charge for this ‘advertising’ – it is simply our way of helping our families!