Heritage Skills Event Fifteen of our students attended a workshop session in Perth City Centre aimed at promoting careers using traditional building skills. The event, organised by Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust, gave the pupils an experience of using traditional skills of carpentry, stone masonry, slating and painting. Our students thoroughly enjoyed the event, and some of them highly impressed the organisers! The event was even attended by Depute First Minister, John Swinney MSP, who took time out of his busy schedule to chat to our students and congratulate them for taking part. Primary Language Ambassadors Welcome to our new group of P5-7 Language Ambassadors for this year! They are enthusiastic about celebrating all the languages spoken in St John's Academy and are looking forward to supporting language learning throughout the school. This year's Language Ambassadors are already bursting with ideas, including competitions, lunch clubs and quizzes. Their first task has been to celebrate 'European Day of Languages' on Thursday, 26th September. European Day of Languages On Thursday, 26th September, we celebrated the European Day of Languages. Many classes took part in numerous activities for the promotion of languages. We had fun dressing up in costumes from around the world, completed quizzes about Europe, translated Follow us on Twitter music titles and increased our vocabulary for @sja_languages greeting people in a language other than their mother tongue as well as discussing the benefits of having knowledge of more than one language. Our pupils approached the many activities with great gusto! In addition, on a recent visit to the school, Bishop Stephen Robson was more than happy to help fly the language flag by joining the Senior Leadership Team for a photograph to celebrate this special day. Developing the young workforce Since the last newsletter, a lot has happened in the DYW world. Our S6 Career Ready students - Courtney Williamson, Brodie Smith and Kuba Karwacki - successfully completed their 4-week internships, going way out of their comfort zone and learning what working full time is like. They all impressed their employers and certainly earned their summer break by the time they were finished! We also recently recruited our new S5 Career Ready students. Morgan Montgomery, Beth Allen, Cairn McKinlay, Kacper Majewski, Niamh Hoolachan and Charlotte Russell met their mentors at the launch event at the Salutation Hotel. There were plenty of activities to break the ice and everyone was chatting away like old pals by the end of the day. Maryam Aziz took part in EY Foundation's Smart Futures programme in Edinburgh. As Smart Futures part of this, participating students were divided into teams to compete in a Dragon's Den event. Maryam displayed her strong teamwork and leadership skills to steer her team to victory! Well done Maryam! Taster visits This year, for the first time we have been able to offer selected S3 pupils the opportunity to go on "taster" visits at Perth College. Pupils have been able to select either STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) or HWC (Health, Wellbeing and Care) subjects, and will attend up to six visits to separate departments of the college to get an idea of what it is like to be a student in those areas. This will help students to decide what they want to do when they leave school, and will also help make their transition from school easier when the time comes. The visits so far have gone very well, with pupils gaining experience in the Music Production, Automotive and Creative Arts departments. Next term is looking to be just as busy, with many of our S4 students carrying out a week's work experience in November. Pastoral Visit of Bishop Robson This term we were very pleased to welcome Bishop Stephen Robson, Bishop of Dunkeld to our school for his annual pastoral visit. This came a few days after a very thought provoking and insightful S6 Conference and there was a general feeling of anticipation and excitement ahead of his arrival. While here he met with a whole variety of groups from the Pupil Council who were able to talk with him about our FairTrade initiatives and EcoSchools group as well as numerous examples of pupil voice. He heard about all of the work that had gone into securing our Rights Respecting School Award level 2. There was the opportunity to sit down to lunch with members of our Pupil Senior Leadership Team in our bustling dining hall before an afternoon meeting more pupils to discuss our Romania Charity Volunteering project and the multitude of projects our Pope Benedict XVI Caritas Award pupils will be undertaking through to February next year in school and in the parishes. After dining with Canon Mulholland and other priests from our deanery at St John’s, Bishop Stephen returned to con-celebrate Mass in the Assembly hall. The theme of our Family Mass this year was “God welcomes all our family” and Bishop Stephen shared with us some insights into his own journey of faith in his own family. Afterwards refreshments were provided by the HE department and the FairTrade group. Lendrick Muir This term Primary 7 had a fantastic week at Lendrick Muir with pupils from St Dominic’s, St Stephen’s and Our Lady’s. We took on new challenges, such as high ropes, archery and bouldering. We also developed our team work skills and made new friends. S C H O O L U N I F O R M In St John’s RC Academy we ‘Seek the P R I M A R Y U N I F O R M Good’ in ourselves, in others and in every aspect of our lives. Black dress trousers or skirt White school shirt We are proud to be part of our community and we have agreed a Grey jumper/cardigan (with or without the school badge) which allows the school tie to be seen uniform which we are proud to wear. Plain grey only—no brands School tie We recognise that through wearing our Ties are available at the school office uniform we are demonstrating that we Black shoes/trainers with black laces are ready to work and ready to learn. Plain black only We also believe that our uniform helps Purple and white summer dress during the summer months (optional) everyone to belong—it is an important symbol that we are a community and Black/purple outdoor jacket that each of us contributes to making T-shirt/polo shirt (white or house colours), black shorts and our community great. trainers for PE Indoor black shoes can be used S E C O N D A R Y U N I F O R M Black dress trousers or skirt White school shirt S1-3: Black jumper/cardigan/hoodie (with or without the school badge) which allows the school tie to be seen Plain black only—no brands School tie Ties are available at the school office (Senior tie for S4-6) Black shoes/trainers with black laces Plain black only Updated May 2017 School blazer with purple braiding S1-3: Optional, S4-6: Essential W H A T T O A V O I D Black outdoor jacket Plain black only For clarity, the following are NOT part of the school uniform: Denim/leather/PVC clothing, black jeans, leggings, shorts, White T-shirt/polo shirt, black shorts/joggers and trainers for PE combats/cargo trousers, tracksuit bottoms (except for PE), lace jumpers/tops/tights, football tops, any clothing or bags with football logos, tops with logos, low-cut tops, brightly coloured or white trainers (except for PE), baseball/basketball boots, brightly coloured shoes, designer names, prominent branding, offensive slogans, large hoop earrings, large necklaces, facial piercing (including nose or lip piercing), scarves (other than blank). Hairbands or bobbles should be discreet and functional and not worn as a fashion accessory. SUPPLIER Our current uniform supplier is Logoxpres Schoolwear: tel (01786) 447454 or visit www.logoexpres-schoolwear.co.uk Design, Engineering and Technology This term has spun past faster than Mrs Packer’s wheel of fortune. We’ve seen great work produced in all areas of our courses; to help us share and celebrate the success of our learners we have Follow@sja_det us on Twitter launched a new Twitter feed. Follow the link in the bird and keep up to date with all the exciting happenings in the Design, Engineering and Technology department. And finally… Study Support for all our subjects is available for further details click here. Poet visit This term our S2s had a wonderful visit from performance poet Ash Dickinson. After reading out some of his own poetry he challenged the pupils to write their own Shadorma (like a Haiku with 26 syllables) with some very interesting results. Although it was quite tricky to get the right number of syllables, Ash was very encouraging and came round all the groups to help. Even the teachers joined in! A big well done to all the young poets and a big thank you for Ash for coming to see us! Since the opening of the campus many within our community have commented on the lack of visible signage relating to the school. After eight years since the official opening and dedication of our school and campus, we finally have the name of our school emblazoned on the front of the building! This underlines the fact that our school is at the heart of the community campus..