St John the Baptist Ferntree Gully Newsletter

"Let us all commit ourselves to imploring peace, from our balconies and in our streets, may the leaders of nations hear people's plea for peace."

(Easter Sunday mass led by Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 17, 2022) 

School Photos will take place on Tuesday 3rd May.  All children are required to wear their full winter uniform for the photos.  

Sibling orders can also be placed online. They should be added when ordering individual student portraits. Please note that only siblings that place an order will be photographed. Cut off time for sibling orders is 8.00am on photography day.

Testing recommendations will remain the same, with all primary and secondary school students and staff, and early childhood education and care staff and children, encouraged to test at home twice a week.  If you did not get the opportunity to collect your next 2 boxes of RATs per child at the end of last term they are available to be collected from our office this week.

Face masks

Face masks, while recommended, are not required in any school setting. This means students in grades 3 to 6, staff and visitors in primary schools are no longer required to wear face masks. Any student or staff member who wishes to wear a mask may do so, including those who are medically at-risk.  For those of you who wish to continue to wear a mask we do have some boxes at the office that you are more than welcome to collect. 

Screening requirements

Students and staff who have tested positive for COVID-19, and have completed their 7-day isolation period, now do not need to undertake rapid antigen test (RAT) screening for 12 weeks after their release from isolation. This was previously 8 weeks.

Household contacts

Students and staff who are household contacts of a COVID-19 case are no longer required to quarantine. They can return to school as long as they undertake rapid antigen tests (RAT) 5 times within their 7-day period and wear face masks indoors if they are aged 8 and above unless they have a valid exemption.

If any student returns a positive RAT result during this period, they must isolate for 7 days and not attend school.

Vaccination requirements for visitors to schools

Parents, carers and other adult visitors (not performing work) are no longer required to show evidence of two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

The official changeover to our Winter School Uniform will be Monday 2nd May.  Over this week parents may choose whether the children are in Summer or Winter Uniform depending on the weather.  Please monitor the socks your child/ren are wearing with their uniform to ensure that they are the school colours.  Uniform Shop is open Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.

Winter Uniform Girls

Blue Winter tartan tunic or tartan skirt

Navy Trousers

Short or long sleeve sky blue polo top with school logo

Maroon tracksuit top with school logo

Navy tights, navy knee high socks

Black leather school shoes (runners are only to be worn on PE/class sport days)

Winter Uniform Boys

Grey school shorts or long pants

Short or long sleeved sky blue polo top with school logo

Maroon tracksuit top with school logo

Grey ankle or knee high socks

Black leather shoes (runners are only to be worn on PE/class sport days)

Due to the scheduled Election day on the 21st May our Term 2 Working Bee date will need to be changed.  The new date is the following Saturday 28th May.

NAPLAN testing for Years 3 and 5 will occur from 10th May - 20th May.

Thank you to everyone that purchased tickets in our Easter Raffle.  We raised $2,076 - what an amazing effort!

Congratulations to Carter R in 1/2BR who was the winner of the raffle.

Our next P&F meeting is being held on Monday May 9th.  All welcome.

We hope to run a sausage sizzle on Election Day.  Volunteers will be required.  A notice will be issued with more details shortly.

Click here to access our School Link