Latest Newsletter Term 4 | Week 4

Key Information

Term 4 Important Dates

• Swimming Sessions will continue this week 
  
• Tuesday 24th October, 3-4pm  - FACE Meeting 
• Friday 27th October, 8.30am - Assembly - MMS 
• Friday 27th October - Grandparents Day & Day for Daniel
  
• Week 5, 30th October-3rd November - Year 5 Camp
• Monday 30th October, 3pm  - Reconciliation Meeting 
• Thursday 2nd November - Indigenous Art Workshop for UMY Students 
• Friday 3rd November, 2pm - Founders Day Fun Run - School Oval
  
• Thursday 9th November, 8:30am - Assembly  
• Friday 10th November - Swimming Carnival 
• Monday 13th November, 4pm  - First Reconciliation Liturgy
• Tuesday 14th November, 8:30-10:30am  - Prep Transition Day 
• Tuesday 14th November, 3-4pm  - FACE Meeting 
• Friday 17th November, 8:30-10:30am - Move Up Morning 
• Wednesday 22nd November - Awards Evening & Christmas Concert 
• Thursday 23rd November - Year 9 Graduation Dinner 
• Friday 24th November, 8.30am - End of Year Mass
• Friday 24th November - Last Day for Secondary Students 
• Friday 1st December - Last Day of School for Primary Students

Tuckshop News

Please email Jamie-Lea at jmcconachy@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au or call the office to let us know if you're available to volunteer!

Our special for Week 3 is:
Cheese burger and Ice-cream Sundae (treat is to be collected at 2nd lunch only) 

Please have your orders in by WEDNESDAY 8:30 am.

To order: https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Uniform Shop

Our Uniform Shop is now located in the new office space (old library). We are open to orders being placed via the app, https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Please give us 24 hours to organise collection for your order, we generally contact you when your order is ready to collect.

As this is a new system for us, please be kind and considerate while we find our feet in the new office space.

Miss Heather

End of Term Date Claimers

Awards Night & Christmas Concert Invitation

End of Year Mass Invitation

Founders Day Colour Run - Save the Date

Principal's News

Welcome to Week 4, 

FACE Meeting - TODAY - 24th October - 2023
Please join us this afternoon for our FACE Meeting. This will be held at 3pm in The MacKillop Room, this is the classroom above the office. Once you go up the UMY stairs turn right, once you enter through the doors it is the classroom on your right hand side. This is where we teach most of our English and Religion lessons for secondary students. 

This FACE Meeting will be unpacking the pastoral and student wellbeing side of the school. Mrs Toni Schneekloth our Pastoral Leader will take you through some of the strategies that we use and share some resources that are accessible for parents to use as well. 

Partnership between parents/carers and the school is vital for student success, utilising the same strategies or using common language is a great way to show your child that we work in partnership. 

Day for Daniel
This coming Friday the 27th of October is Day for Daniel day, which is Australia’s largest day of action to raise awareness for child safety, child protection and harm prevention. Day for Daniel is held annually on the last Friday of October to honour the memory of Daniel Morcombe. 

It is important that we stop and give this day the awareness that it needs. 

Parents, carers, and educators are encouraged to start a conversation with children and young people about personal safety. We regularly engage in conversations with students about child safety and provide many educational activities to ensure that children feel safe and know how to communicate if they don’t. 

Students are encouraged to wear red this coming Friday the 27th of October to show our support for this important cause. 

World Teachers Day
This Friday we will also be celebrating world teachers day. World Teachers Day is is a day for us to stop and appreciate those that make such a big difference in the lives of our students. It is also a day for teachers to celebrate and be proud of of their achievements as an educator. 

It is also important that we take the time to celebrate St Mary MacKillop whose teachings pathed the way for the schooling that we get to learn and develop in today. 

As a school we celebrated together this year on Staff Appreciation Day, however, we will acknowledge World Teachers Day with a beverage of choice (a nice way to start the day!). 

Year 5 Camp

Our Year 5 students are very excited to be embarking on Camp next week. The students will be off for a week full of adventures at Gumburu Environmental Center. The Gumburu Environmental Education Center is located in the World Heritage Listed Paluma rainforest. The students will be accompanied by Mr Michael Tarleton, Miss Leonie Ansell and Mr Graeme Brown. Mr Brown has been a casual teacher with us for several years now, Mr Brown will be collected in Townsville and will head up to the camp with the students to assist throughout the week. A big thank you to Mr T for organising the Year 5 camp and to Miss Ansell for going along to support. 

Grandparents Day

This Sunday the 28th of October is Grandparents’ Day in Australia. We will be celebrating this with coffee/tea/cake on Friday morning in the MMS from 8.00am, followed by a prayer at our assembly. 

I would like to wish all grandparents, near and far, with us or watching over us a wonderful day this weekend. 

Staffing Update (Departures)

Miss Chloe Ramsbotham will be sadly departing our School Officer team this week. Miss Chloe’s last day will be this coming Friday. We thank Chloe for the support she has provided to our Upper Middle Years space since joining St Joseph’s and wish her all the best on her next adventure, which is thankfully still in Cloncurry.

Staff Professional Development - Cross Curricular Priorities 

Last week our staff (both teachers and school officers) joined with Mrs Kim McKosker and Mrs Kate Sargent from Townsville Catholic Education Office to unpack the Cross Curricular Priorities in Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum. This was a twilight PD that ran from 3pm to 5.30pm last Wednesday. Mrs McKosker is an Indigenous Education Advisor from TCE and Mrs Sargent is a Curriculum Advisor from TCE. The PD focused on one of the three Cross Curricular Priorities being Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. 

Below is the new logo used to represent this Cross Curricular Priority in the curriculum. The powerful shift of placing identity in the middle of the continuing cycle is something that we discussed. We also unpacked how powerful it is that living communities are continuous, influencing country and place, culture and people from the past, today and into the future. 

This week our Prep to Year 2 teachers will take time out of their classes to work with Mr Dean Kelley, Head of Teaching and Learning to forward plan units for Maths and English for 2024. We are committed to the academic development of our students, as well as the quality of teaching and learning that they receive. We invest not only in the upskilling of our staff, but in providing time for them to reflect, deepen their knowledge and forward plan for best practice. Thank you to our teachers for their commitment to this process.

May God Bless you and your families for the week ahead,  

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal 

APRE News

Welcome to week 4! 

Catholic Mission Mass

Yesterday our school community joined with student representatives from the Mt Isa Schools (St Joseph's, St Keiran's, and Good Shepheard Catholic College) in a Mass to celebrate Catholic Mission Month. Following the Mass the students selected two representatives from each class to challenge Fr Ememe in a Socktober Shootout competition, which resulted in Fr Emene being defeated and needing to pay up on his bet to buy the whole school ice creams. It was a great morning - Thank you Fr Ememe for the ice creams! Students have been encouraged to bring in a gold coin this week to go towards Catholic Misson and icy poles will be on sale this Friday for $1. 

Reconciliation Program

Students in the Reconciliation program will meet for their second and final meeting this coming Monday 30th October at 3 pm in the Mary MacKillop room (UMY’s upstairs).  Following this meeting, the Reconciliation Liturgy will be held on Monday 13th November at 4 pm in St Colman's Church. 

Sacramental Dates for 2024

For those students who are considering making their Confirmation and First Holy Communion in 2024 the date of the Mass has been scheduled for the afternoon of Wednesday 17th April. More information will be sent out early Term 1 2024.

Day for Daniel 27th October
This week we are turning our student's attention to child safety, by recognising “Day for Daniel”. Students can wear a red shirt to school on Friday 27th October. Classes will be covering child safety awareness lessons during this day. Child safety is everyone's business!

Grandparents day
This Friday we are celebrating World Grandparents Day with our Assembly prayer presented by Year 4 . All grandparents are encouraged to come along!

Have a blessed week!

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

Day for Daniel

The Day for Daniel is Australia’s largest child safety education and awareness day. To help us all remember Daniel, this Friday all students are asked to wear a red shirt, the colour that represents child safety and the Daniel Morcombe Foundation. In our classrooms, students will participate in child safety education activities about personal safety.  Please continue the conversation about child safety at home - one of the activities is to nominate five people in a child’s safety network; they must be adults and should include someone who lives at home, males and females, as well as people who live outside the home.  

Gratitude 

Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we don’t have or what we want. When we practice being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for  positives – this  only takes 21 days! Practising gratitude everyday increases our levels of energy, helps us to feel happier and more focused, determined and optimistic. It even helps us have a better sleep, lowers levels of anxiety and depression and we are less likely to get sick. So many benefits – let’s all try to be grateful for the things and people in our lives everyday! 

Whole Family Activity: Gratitude Scavenger Hunt

As a family create a scavenger hunt list of things that make you happy or you are grateful for, you can make your own list or use the examples below:

• Something that makes you happy
• Something you love to smell
• Something you enjoy looking at
• Something that is your favourite colour
• Something you like nature
• Something that's useful for you

Each member of the family uses the list, and has to find as many things as they can.  You can hunt for things inside or outside, or both. You can hunt for real things, or you can also do this using magazines or pictures from the internet.

After a set amount of time hunting, come back together, have a look at what each person collected and let them explain why they are grateful for each item.

FamilyHabitBuilder

Every night at dinner, have each person talk about their favourite thing about that day.

Mrs Toni Schneekloth
Pastoral Leader

Prep

Yesterday we celebrated a school  Mission Mass in the Mary Mackillop shed. The Prep class sang the opening song and participated beautifully in the mass. We have also begun practicing for our Going On A Bear Hunt performance which will be on Friday the 17th of November at assembly. This is part of our drama unit.

Our book focus this week is the Gruffalo and we have created a new literacy area with this theme. During testing it came to my attention that some students are having difficulty recalling Tricky Words and digraphs. My planning will include more activities to revise these concepts. Please remember to practice Tricky Words and the digraphs, sh, th ,wh, ch, ee, ay, ck, ng as well as the other letters of the alphabet at home. Our new words are come, some and down will be added later this week.

We have decided to let our potato grow for a bit longer before we see how many potatoes are in the pot and cook mashed potatoes. In Math this week the class will be consolidating number concepts. During Religion, we are revisiting some of the celebrations and rituals that occur in our school year and moving on to looking at the nativity story. It may seem early, but as there are only 5 weeks left of school (one of which I will be away for) we will begin to make Christmas presents and maybe even some Christmas themed crafts. I have a medical appointment on Friday so the class will have another teacher. Friday is also Day for Daniel. Students are to dress in red. Friday in Week 5 is our Founders Day Fun Run and the children will participate in a colour run for this. They will need a sun safe white t-shirt to wear during the colour run. The colour run paint will stain this shirt so make sure it is old or bought for this purpose. 

Reminder:

Tuesday - Swimming

Wednesday - order tuckshop

Thursday - tuckshop. Return homework and home readers. Library

Friday - wear red for Day for Daniel

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs McLauchlan, Miss Tamara, Miss Brie

Year 1

Welcome to week 4,

English: This week we will begin drafting our independent writing of Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley. Students will use their writing goals to assist in editing their writing to make it the best of their ability. 

Math: Year 1 will start to use their knowledge of language of direction to move from place to place using BeeBots.

Religion: Students are beginning to recognise the significance of prayer in Jesus’ life and in the lives of believers. We are learning to identify different types of prayer and how to participate with respect in communal prayer experiences.

Reminders:

• Due to it becoming quite hot during the day, Year 1 has already started/ will continue to eat first  lunch in the classroom and second lunch down at the shed in the shade. If students do not finish eating during the eating time, they then move to eat under the Mary McKillop shed. 
• Swimming is tomorrow afternoon. Please remember to pack togs for your child!
• Homework is expected back on Thursday to be handed out again on Friday.
• Just a reminder that we do have children in class with allergies/anaphylaxis to Kiwi Fruit and Watermelon. If your child does bring these fruits for brain break can you please just let us know so we can keep an eye where the children are sitting.

Wednesday: Swimming with Mrs Ellis

Thursday: Technology with Miss humes

Friday: Resilience Project/Library

Have a wonderful first week!

Miss Brock, Miss Haley and the always fun Year 1’s!

Year 2

Hi all,

This week we are writing our Persuasive texts. I’ve been seeing some really great reasons to back up the student’s opinions and I’ve been really impressed with this! We are working on Location this week in Maths. In Science, we are looking into forces, particularly Push and Pull. We will also be looking at healing relationships with God and others during Religion.

As the term is beginning to heat up, we have come up with a plan of attack for morning tea and lunch moving forward. In Year 2, I will monitor the heat each day to see what location is most suitable for students to eat at brain break, morning tea and lunch. If it is too hot for students to eat at the tables outside our classroom, students will eat in the Mary MacKillop Shed.

Reminders:

• Sport (Swimming) - Tuesday
• Library - Wednesday
• Homework due Wednesday

Kind regards,

Leonie

Year 3

Welcome to Week 4!

Here’s what we are learning this week:

English: Students will be writing poems with AABB rhyming schemes, and using language features like onomatopoeia, similes, and imagery to enhance their writing!

Spelling: Students will be focusing on the sound ‘ou’ as in ‘loud’, which is represented by the graphemes ou and ow.

Maths: This week we will be learning about symmetry in the real world!

Religion: Students will be comparing life at the time of Jesus to life now.

HASS: Students will be practising their research skills to answer the research inquiry question they posed last week about the life of John Flynn!

Science: Students will be practising their skills to pose questions and make predictions before recording their observations to show how particles in solids change when heat is added.  

Other Reminders:

• Homework - Homework will be taken home Monday and is due on Friday.
• Chaplaincy Breakfast - Tuesday & Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Swimming - Tuesday in PE
• Library - Wednesday 
• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Day for Daniel: Free Dress in Red - Friday 
• Grandparents Day - Friday Assembly 8:40am

Thank you. Have a great week!

Laura Cook

Year 4

Hi all,

Writing: We are continuing with the same sentence focus as last week: The Explore the Subject Sentence. The Explore the Subject Sentence makes your writing believable. It's the smartest way ever invented to show how much you know about a subject, and then take your reader somewhere else.  And it does all this in a single sentence. That’s why professional writers use this Sentence Style. Here are some Explore the Subject Sentences:

• Napoleon, who was not very tall, led an army of 350,000 troops.

Spelling: Our spelling sound this week is the ‘ow’ sound in cloud. It can be represented by two graphemes: ou and ow.

• The ‘ow’ in cloud is most commonly represented by the graphemes ou and ow (e.g. loud, brown).
• The grapheme ough is an unusual way to represent cloud (e.g. drought, plough).

Reminders:

• Tuckshop - Please make sure Tuckshop orders are placed by Wednesday morning.

• Library - Students visited the library last week.

• PE - Students have PE on Wednesday. Please pack sunscreen in your childs swimming bag if you would like this to be applied before they walk to the pool.

Have a great week,

Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Dear Families,

SWIMMING: Swimming lessons continue on Wednesday 25th October. Please arrive at school promptly for our 8:20 roll so that we can head straight to the pool. Wear bathers/togs (or whatever you want to call them) under school uniform so that it can be a quick change at the side of the pool. Please remember towel, goggles and underwear - school shoes must be worn on walks to and from the pool.

PALUMA CAMP: Please be advised that there will be no newsletter next week due to our Gumburu Camp experience in Paluma. If you are with us for camp, make sure you set an early alarm because we depart soon after 5:30am. Supervising adults will be at school from 5:15am - make sure your bags are packed and you're ready to go!

Please ensure all medication has a pharmacist sticker with dosage requirements clearly labelled - HAND THESE TO MISS ANSELL so she can check them off our list. Quells and other travel sickness tablets should be administered before arriving at school. 

ENGLISH: This term, we continue our focus on persuasive writing and our Daily Challenges. In spelling, we will focus on the letters (graphemes) used to make the sounds (phonemes) [ch tch and sh ch ti ci] and also investigate words with the suffix -ion.

In our reading comprehension, our focus will be on word meaning in context and facts/opinions used within texts we read. There are a range of excellent texts which will be used throughout the term - mostly focussed on the connection to Biology and plants/animals adaptations. We will discuss the roles within a Socratic Debate - Director, Question Maker, Word Detective, Clarifiers, Creators and Connectors. The purpose of this 'reading circle' is to discuss texts that we read, contribute to debate about vocabulary meaning and how we can connect reading with our own life.

SCIENCE: Our science focus is mainly preparation for our visit to Paluma Rainforest. We have been investigating plants and animals and how they have adapted to their environment. These adaptations can be structural (physical features), behavioural (e.g. migration) or physiological (internal changes e.g. creating venom). Learners have been tasked with creating visually appealing informative texts to share with younger learners.

RELIGION: We are discussing the Gospels of Matthew and Luke to consider the similarities and differences between the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke. We will create Freeze Frames of the Nativity scene and will use a Y Chart to focus discussions on Feels like, Sounds like and Looks like. 

MATHEMATICS: We will begin to further investigate and revise our work on fractions, decimals and percentages. We will continue to investigate place value with decimals. We will be returning to equivalent fractions this week - further developing their understanding that 1/2 is equal to 4/8 and 5/10 etc.

Think Mentals continues to focus on revision of different strategies to solve problems involving all four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This week's maths looks at revision of division strategies like working out smaller chunks that are divisible and removing zero place holders to simplify calculations.

Hope your child is excited about their camp experience - it will be amazing and will create positive memories for life!

Wishing you a great Week 4, see you all bright and early before the sun rises on Monday!

Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Another huge week in Year 6!

The class has been identifying and drawing different angles with the use of their protractor. We have spent time looking at different angles within the classroom, trying to identify what type of angle it is. This is our last maths concept for the year before we start revising for our final maths assessment!

In English we have started planning for our persuasive writing assessment pieces. The class have read ‘The Lorax’ by Dr Seuss and have begun analysing the different language, visual and structural features that make it such an effective piece of literacy. 

In Religion we have been diving into The Our Father as well as the Meditative Prayer Form ‘The Examen’. Students have had a turn at writing their own prayers and reflecting on what they mean to them. 

It has been a super busy week, and it only gets busier from here!

Next Friday 3rd of November is our Founders Day Colour Run. If your child could please wear white to school that would be amazing!

 5 weeks of Primary school to go for our year 6 Students! 

Dominic Purcell

Year 6 Teacher and Sports & Extra Curricular

Subject Spotlight

Year 7 RE with Mrs Delaney-Lovett:

The students have started their final topic for year 7 Religion - Common Beginnings. This topic focuses on the common beginnings of faith shared by the monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) through the stories of patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. Students will explore ways in which communities of believers, past and present, express their understanding of God and God's relationship with human persons. This week we have developed our understanding of what a Church community (specifically, Catholic Church community) looks like in Australia and into the Oceania region. Students have identified the leaders of these communities and have separated the roles and responsibilities of these leaders based on the hierarchical structure within the Catholic Church. This topic will bring us neatly to the end of the teaching and learning stage of the Semester and set students up for year 8 RE topics that further extend upon this. 

Year 7 Science with Mr Timms:

This term the year 7’s have been learning about classification and ecosystems as a part of their biology unit. Students have looked at the different food chains and food webs that make up our different biomes. They are now beginning to create their own food chains and webs where they are looking at producers vs consumers in the local biomes of Cloncurry. Students have learnt to classify different organisms based on their observable characteristics and have learnt about taxonomy and what a taxonomist does. Students will begin the content for their next assessment in the next couple of weeks as they approach their final science exam for the year. 

Year 8 RE with Mr Delaney:

This term we have been investigating change and continuity in the Church through the actions, motives and writings of significant figures in its history. The students learned about major events in history such as The Great (East-West) Schism, a brief look at the Protestant Reformation, and the Council of Trent and the impact they had on the Church, particularly, through Catholic reformers who continued the mission of Jesus in the world. They will present their knowledge on these reformers—including Catherine of Siena, Thomas Aquinas, Clare of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola—in a multi-modal format. 

To end the term, students will evaluate ways in which the Church is active in the world today through participation of believers and by responding to emerging moral questions.

Library

Greetings from the fountain of imagination and fact! The Books in Homes orders for Term 4 were submitted on Friday of Week 3 and just a reminder that each student will receive three books from Glencore on Monday of Week 9, 27 November. 

Once again, happy reading to you all.

Gillian Gardiner

Teacher Librarian

Student Wellbeing

Because parenting doesn't come with instructions, SchoolTV is a wellbeing resource implemented at our school to help support you in the challenges of modern-day parenting relating to youth mental health and wellbeing. 

Parenting is a learning journey and SchoolTV supports families by providing credible information from trusted sources with practical strategies to help alleviate some of the challenges being faced by young people today.

Watch video interviews with leading wellbeing specialists and browse a library of resources. Each topic is accompanied by factsheets, podcasts, books, articles, apps and other videos.

This award-winning resource helps families build relationships, foster connections, enable understanding and break down barriers to navigate a pathway towards better mental health and wellbeing for young people. It will assist you in starting those conversations on topics that can sometimes be awkward or difficult to tackle.

Parents and caregivers are the greatest influence on a young person's life and SchoolTV focuses on empowering confident parenting.

Explore SchoolTV today!

Prep to Year 2 Excursion - Cloncurry Shire Hall Performance - Monday 30th October

On Monday 30th October all students in Prep to Year 2 will be attending a performance by Jally Entertainment at The Cloncurry Shire Hall at 10am. Each year Jally Entertainment travel to Cloncurry to perform for our students and community. The show this year is Aladdin and his Magic Smartwatch By A.J Bailey. This interactive performance goes for the duration of 50 minutes. 

Students will depart St Joseph's Catholic School at 9.45am. They will join members of the community and The Cloncurry State School for the performance. At the conclusion of the performance students will depart The Cloncurry Shire Hall at approximately 10.50am, and will arrive back at St Joseph's at approximately 11-11.10am. 

As always we would love the assistance of parents, carers or family members for the walk to and from The Cloncurry Shire Hall. If your available to assist please let your child's classroom teacher know. 

The students will eat their brain break (piece of fruit or something healthy) prior to departing for the show. Once students return to school they will eat their morning tea. The playground bells will be altered for students in prep to year 2 depending on their time of arrival back at school.

Students are to wear their normal school uniform for this event, they must have enclosed shoes, school hat and a water bottle. If you have concerns about your child attending this event please make contact with your child's classroom teacher and/or the front office as soon as possible.

No Smoking Law

FOR ACTION - New Smoke-Free Law 01.09.2023
From 01 September 2023, new Smoke-Free laws apply. Smoking is already prohibited at public and private school facilities and in a 5-meter buffer zone extending from the boundary of the school.  These new laws extend the smoke-free protection to include all carparks provided for school communities. This includes carparks located on council land that are intended for school community use.

Smoke-free requirements for schools apply at all times which means school carparks are also smoke-free areas outside of school hours, on weekends and in school holidays.  These laws apply to everyone using the school carparks (students, staff, parents, volunteers, visitors, contractors and clubs accessing school facilities).

Smoking products can include tobacco products, personal vaporisers (e-cigarettes/cigars, vape pens), e-liquids & e-cigarette parts, etc.

Community Information