From The Learning Hub
Hi everyone,
Our first order of business is to acknowledge and thank our wonderful St James School Parents and Friends Association once again for their incredibly generous funding of new books for our Library Collection. As the Parents and Friends Association will now change models we would like to voice our thanks for their long term ongoing support of the School Library and in particular, our ever expanding Library collection.
On Wednesday the 21st of May at Midday our school took part in National Simultaneous Storytime.
The book selected for National Simultaneous Storytime 2025 was "The Truck Cat" by Deborah Frenkel and illustrated by Danny Snell. The story is about a cat named Tinka who travels the road with his human, Yacoub, and explores themes of belonging, immigration, and finding home in unexpected places.
Library Operations Update
A great number of our books have been put into storage during construction. They will be available to us on a rotational basis as our capacity to display all of our collection is now limited by available space in each individual classroom. Periodically, the books in storage will be taken out of storage and stored in classrooms for students to access and borrow. The books currently in classrooms will be then stored. This solution provides a variety of reading resources for our students.
Students can also access E-Books through the SORA App.
Please see the details below to help you access SORA.
Library Borrowing Days
A reminder that our borrowing days for Stage Two and Three [Years 3 to 6] is every Monday with Mrs Churches. Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 [Years Kinder to Year 2] is every Thursday.
Premiers Reading Challenge Report
In a new initiative to assist our Kindergarten and Year 1 students, I have undertaken to read 20 Premiers Reading Challenge listed books to the students within library lessons. This is all of the Premiers Reading Challenge books required to satisfy the challenge requirements. If parents can read 10 other books to their student [these 10 books do not have to be Premiers Reading Challenge listed books] then that will satisfy both categories and your student will receive a Premiers Reading Challenge Certificate at the end of the year.
I will email a list of the Premiers Reading Challenge listed books that I have read to the students of Kindergarten and Year 1. This will help students complete their individual logs prior to the cut-off on August 21st.
Last year we were very proud to present over one hundred Premiers Reading Challenge certificates to our students as well as Five Gold certificates to students who have earned and received four consecutive annual certificates. This is up over 30% over previous years. We are again, very keen to eclipse this amazing achievement in 2025.
Also, please note that this year’s kindergarten students have been issued with their log-in details at the start of this term via email.
From The Learning Hub Team
Mr Coleman, Mrs Churches and Mrs Farley