Term 2 | Week 8 Newsletter
Key Information
- Wednesday 9th June - School Officer Day, State of Origin dress up day
- Friday 11th June - Cloncurry Show Holiday
- Friday 18th June - Dress Like Your Teacher Day
- Friday 25th June - Last Day of Term 2
- Monday 12th July - Beginning of Term 3 (no Pupil Free Day)
- Friday 27th August - St Colman's Parish & St Joseph's Fete
Principal News
Welcome to Week 8,
School Officer Day
St Josephs will be celebrating School Officer Day on Wednesday, 9 June 2021. We are so very lucky to have such dedicated and enthusiastic school officers that enrich the lives of our students every day. Wednesday is an opportunity for us to celebrate the vital role that support staff play not only in our school but in education. Please take the time on Wednesday to thank our school officers for the amazing job that they do.
Validation - A process of reflection and forward planning
St Joseph’s Catholic School is currently reflecting on the past 5 years of our journey and setting new goals to strive towards over the next 5 years. Schools in the Townsville Diocese prepare School Renewal Plans every 3 to 5 years which provide a ‘big picture’ goal for the Schooling Community to work towards. St Joseph’s are ending one cycle at the end of 2021 and beginning a new one at the beginning of 2022. This is a very valuable process for not only myself as Principal but also to our teachers and schooling community to reflect on our achievements and challenges over the past 5 years, as well as taking the time to realign our vision for the years to come. We are excited to share our vision with you over the next term.
In this reflection I have spent a considerable amount of time examining our mission statement which is at the core of all decision making processes. Our mission at ‘St Joseph's Catholic School, Cloncurry’ is to ‘work in partnership with students, parents, parish and the local community to provide a welcoming and inclusive learning and teaching environment’. We rely on each of you to work alongside us as we cater for the different needs of each individual student at our School. We would love for you to join us in all aspects of our schooling life, please contact your child’s classroom teacher to join in curriculum activities like reading groups or Funtastic Friday!
Did you know there is a ‘faith and mission’ tab on our school’s website that you can access to read about our charism, values and beliefs? I have inserted the link below for you to check it out!
St Joseph’s are recruiting - spread the word!
You may have noticed that we have been advertising for a Secondary Teacher to join our College. Due to our growing Secondary School we are needing to employ an additional Secondary Teacher for this space. We would love you to help us spread the word, please see the link to the application below:
P&F President
I would like to congratulate Rene Winner-Harrison who has been appointed as our P&F President. Rene has played a vital role in our school for several years, often dedicating her time to assist in school and community events. We are very excited for you to flourish in this role.
Welcome Kylie Cook
Mrs Wall is busy preparing for our show this weekend and is on leave for the remainder of the week. Mrs. Kylie Cook is joining us for the week from Julia Creek. Please join me in welcoming Kylie to our school if you see her throughout the week. We are very lucky to have supply teachers willing to travel so we can provide the very best education for our students.
Assembly
Please note that there won’t be an assembly this week due to the Show Holiday on Friday. We will conclude Thursday with a whole school liturgy in The St Colman's Parish.
Prep Enrolments 2022
We have had an increase in enrolments this term for Prep in 2022, with many families chasing quality Catholic education for their children. I urge families to complete application forms as soon as possible for 2022 as interviews will be conducted in Term 3.
Virtual Tour - Date Change
The marketing team from TCEO will be coming to our school next Thursday the 17th of June. We are very excited to be able to share the end product with you all.
I hope you all have a happy and safe long weekend, enjoy the show!
God Bless,
Samantha Kelley
APRE News
This week is the anniversary of me working at our lovely school for 3 years. I came out initially with the intention to only stay for the 6 months contract I signed up for as a Junior Mathematics Teacher, however, the sense of community within the school and the amazing staff and students I am fortunate enough to work with made the decision to stay this long easy. I found out that this trend is not unique to my experience. Most teachers I speak to say when they came out initially they only planned to stay for the length of their fixed term contract but ended up staying for much longer. I remember Kath Groom telling me that she intended to stay for 1 year and ended up staying in Cloncurry for 7 years. This again speaks volumes for the welcoming sense of community that our school has thanks to the wonderful people who contribute to the life of our school. This is again evidence of how we as a school welcome people as and where they are. It would be amiss of me not to mention that when we end up staying for longer than intended it also speaks to the strong sense of community, welcome and diversity within the town of Cloncurry.
Last week I attended the APRE Conference in Townsville where we discussed, among other topics, using the ECSI (Enhancing Catholic School Identity) Report to strengthen Catholic Identity within a school. One of our school’s recommendations was to form a Catholic Identity Advisory Committee, at the start of this term I sent emails out to staff and parents asking for self-nominations. Our Catholic Identity Advisory Committee members are, Fr Mick Lowcock (Priest, Ex-Officio Member), Fr Emene Kelemete (Priest, Ex-Officio Member), Samantha Kelley (Principal, Ex-Officio Member), Shadley Davids (APRE, Ex-Officio Member), James Delaney (Primary Teacher), Suzannah Coombs (Primary Teacher), Toni Schneekloth (Secondary Teacher), Rachel Lovett (Secondary Teacher), Louise Martin (Teacher), Therese Curley (Teacher), Hamish Griffin (Parent). The committee will have their first meeting later this term.
TCE Cyber Safety Parent session
TikTok, Discord, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook…we are inundated with social media sites, and our children often know more about them than we do! How do you know who your child is “talking” to online? Cybersafety is something that all parents should be concerned about, but many feel overwhelmed, uninformed, or just plain confused about how to protect their children online.
Most social media sites have an age restriction of 13, yet many younger students have their own accounts and can be exposed to inappropriate language, images and discussions, and cyberbullying. On Tuesday the 15th of June we will be hosting a Cyber Safety Information session for parents at 5:30 pm in the Middle School Building. This is open to all parents to attend. The presenter is Katherine Olsen, Townsville Catholic Education’s Student Protection Coordinator. She will also be running sessions with our Middle School Students during the day.
Gospel Reading
Jesus shares his Last Supper with his disciples.
In the beginning of today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs his disciples to make preparations for the Passover meal. Like most meals, the Passover meal required planning and preparation. Our celebration of the Sunday Eucharist also requires planning and preparation. Certainly the ministers at the Eucharist prepare for their roles: the person presiding prays and prepares the homily; the prayers of petition are written; the music ministers prayerfully select music and practice it before Mass; Eucharistic ministers, lectors and altar servers prepare carefully for their roles. As the worshiping assembly, we can also prepare for the Mass through our prayer during the week, by reading the Scripture before Mass, and by making ourselves present to the Eucharistic celebration.
As you gather as a family, talk about some of the things that are required to prepare for your family meals. Plan together a special Sunday meal by choosing the menu, preparing the shopping list, and assigning duties for cooking, setting the table, preparing decorations, leading the prayers, and cleaning. Read together today’s Gospel, Mark 14:12-16,22-26. Notice how Jesus instructed his disciples to prepare for their Passover meal. All meals require some kind of planning and preparation; so, too, our Sunday Eucharist requires planning. What might we do as a family to better prepare for our celebration of the Eucharist? Choose one or more ideas to begin to implement together as a family. Pray together that God will help your family make your celebration of the Eucharist the highlight of your week. Pray together the Lord’s Prayer.
I am in Townsville Monday and Tuesday this week for meetings, however I am still contactable via email: sdavids@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au
May God bless you and your family this week,
Shadley Davids
Assistant Principal
Pastoral Care
Uniform
St Joseph’s school family takes pride in its school uniform. It is a highly visible symbol of who we are and students are required to wear the full school uniform neatly and with pride.
In the next few weeks, our pastoral focus will be on ensuring the correct school uniform. Below are the requirements for uniform.
FORMAL UNIFORM
Primary: Checked School Shirt or School Dress (every day except Sports Day)
Upper Middle Years: Boys - Blue School Shirt, Girls - Blue School Shirt with Tie
Navy blue skort or shorts with SJCS logo
School hat with SJCS emblem
Navy blue or white socks (crew sock not anklet sock - need to be above the ankle bone)
Black shoes (Lace Up or Velcro, no slip ons) with no coloured markings, Eg. Lynx cross trainers, ASICS or Mary Janes
SPORTS UNIFORM:
Blue School Polo Shirt (Sports Day)
Navy blue shorts With SJCS logo
Navy Blue or White socks (above the ankle bone)
Sports Shoes of choice (not casual shoes such as Converse etc)
WINTER UNIFORM:
School Tracksuits with SJCS logo or Plain Navy Blue Jumper and Track Pants
OTHER REQUIREMENTS:
- Neat and tidy hair is a requirement of this school and as such we value parent support to ensure students abide by this requirement.
- Extreme fashionable styles ie shaved pattern in hair or rats tails and hair dyes, will not be acceptable. Students with longer than collar length hair must have their hair tied up at all times. Boys' hair must be cut above the collar. All students’ hair must be out of the eyes and not impede school work.
- Hair accessories (ties, clips or ribbons) are to be navy in colour.
- No makeup should be worn to school.
- Jewellery – sleepers or studs (1 in each ear) in plain gold, silver or with a single gem stone, watches and necklace with a cross are acceptable. No other necklaces/chains or rings are acceptable. Cosmetics and nail polish are not part of the school uniform.
- Parents must inform the school in writing or via phone call if their child is going to be out of uniform. If a child is continually out of uniform without an explanation, a reminder note will be sent with the child for parents.
Toni Schneekloth
Pastoral Care
Prep
Week 8 in Prep,
Welcome to Show Week! There will be no school on Friday due to the Cloncurry Show Holiday. The Preps have entered a painting in the school work section. Please come and have a look at these at the Pavillion. I am the School Work Show coordinator so I won’t be in class on Thursday as I will be setting up at the Pavillion. Miss V will be the teacher for the day.
We will be exploring the storybook "The Potato People" this week and I would like the students to make their own Potato People (which you could enter in the show in the vegetable section!). Can you please bring two washed potatoes to school for your child to use for a head and body before Wednesday. There will be information on the Show Website about how to enter these creations in the vegetable section if you would like to. I have show tags available here or they can be downloaded from the website as well. It would be great to see some of these at the show!
This week our new sound is “u” and we will have learnt all the tricky words up to the end of Set 4. Please practice these at home each day and let me know if you have lost the list and need another.
We will celebrate our 100 days of Prep in week 1 of next Term. The holidays are a good time to organise an “old person” costume for your child to wear on the day.
Yours in fun and learning,
Mrs McLauchlan
Year 1
Welcome to Week 8!
This week in Year 1 we are focussing specifically on our class/school rule of Being Respectful.
As we are coming to the end of our assessment period this term, Year 1 have had the opportunity to develop their typing skills further. We’ve worked to complete our descriptive writing good copies and have even been able to type them up!
Reminders:
Sport: Tuesday
Library: Thursday
As this week is a short week, Homework is to be back by Monday.
Have a lovely week everyone!
Miss Brock and the always fun Year 1’s.
Year 2
Welcome to Week 8! We are nearly there.
This week we are learning:
Tricky words: already, their, they
English: Wombat Stew
Maths: Measurement
HASS: Connections to different places; Ernest Henry
Health: Identity
Science: Water
Religion: Teachings of Jesus
Have a great week,
Miss Ansell
Year 3
Hi everyone!
As we have now completed (almost) two terms of the school year, some students have started to run out of stationery items. Parents are asked to please check with their children if they require more items such as glue sticks, erasers, whiteboard markers or pencils. Thank you!
The learning highlights for Year 3 this week are:
- In Maths students will draw a map of our school and use the language of location to plot a route from our classroom to the art room.
- In dance, we move onto our final decade in our ‘dancing through the decades’ unit. We will be exploring the dance moves of the 1970s and having a go at doing the ‘John Travolta arms’.
Reminders:
Library: Wednesday
PE: Thursday
Homework due: due to Friday being a public holiday, homework is due next Monday (Week 9)
Have a great week ahead,
Miss Coombs
Year 4
Hi Everyone,
As you probably all know by now our little chicks have hatched and we are happy to announce that we have seven healthy, noisy little chicks. I’m sure over the next few weeks we will give them lots of attention and they will become just as friendly as our chickens we hatched last year. They have all been named and already are bursting with personality.
Civics and Citizenship
Over the last two weeks we have been learning about local government and community groups. We have had a representative from CWA, Cloncurry Eagles, Scouts, Cloncurry Show and our own Maddison who is the founder of the Animal Appreciation Club at school. We have been asking about how the groups fill a need in the community, what personal gains people who are a member of a community group receive and how the local council helps the group with their goals.
This week the students are participating in a scenario where they are establishing a group that they feel is needed in Cloncurry and applying to the Cloncurry Council for a grant to start up their community group. Once the students have finalised their submission they will be presenting to some of our Upper Middle Years students who will take the role of ‘Councillors’ who will decide on which group should receive our fictional grant.
I will let you all know when the presentations will be held and we would love parents to join us.
Have a great week and see you at the Show!!
Lesley Wall
Year 5
Hello Week 8!
MATHS: Students are completing their assessment for converting between 12 and 24hr time this week.
ENGLISH: This week we will complete our English assessment for our Deltora Quest unit. I am looking forward to seeing what the students produce!
RELIGION: Students will be creating their own Psalm this week for their assessment.
SCIENCE: Through this week, students will be completing their science investigation involving shadow heights.
HEALTH: Students will be completing their assessment this week. This involves sharing important information about mental health through a format of their choice.
Have a fantastic week!
Miss Campbell
Year 6
Hi all,
Welcome to Week 8!
This week’s learning focuses:
Religion: We are beginning our research on a great Australian Catholic on whom we will be writing and recording a mini podcast.
English: This week, we will be shifting our persuasive focus to writing a Shark Tank style pitch for our pop up businesses.
Mathematics: Students will begin learning about ordered pairs of coordinates inside the Cartesian plane.
HaSS: Students will be focusing on the advertising aspects of starting their own business.
Science: This week, students will continue making circuits inside boxes to replicate the wiring of a room.
Japanese: Students will be learning the correct sentence structure and pronunciation of describing different foods based on their own likes and dislikes.
PE lessons are on MONDAY and Library is on THURSDAY.
UP THE MIGHTY MAROONS! QUEENSLANDER!!!
Regards,
Mr. Delaney and the Year 6 Legends!
Student Awards
Congratulations to all of our Award Recipients for Week 7.
Keep up the great work!
St Joseph's School Representative Apparel
Dear Parents, Carers & Community Members,
Since posting a week ago about our mission to create and revamp the St Joseph's Rugby League Jerseys and representative apparel, we have been flooded with support and feedback. We are truly blessed to have such a great community that gets behind our school, our students, and our sport and extra-curricular activities.
This project would not be possible without the support of the community and in particular, a number of local businesses that have pledged financial support to make this happen. We look forward to seeing your branding on our new representative clothing.
We will be looking to get this representative apparel underway and ordered by the end of this week, so hopefully in time for the remainder of our various representative sporting carnivals for 2021.
If you would like to be a part of this project, there is still time and we would like to hear from you. Please feel free to contact Scott Murray at smurray@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au or contact the school on 4742 1633.
Once again, thank you to everyone for their support and we would look forward to showing off these items once they are completed.
*designs may alter*
Community Notices
