Term 1 | Week 6 Newsletter

Key Information

• Ash Wednesday Liturgy - Wednesday 2nd March
• Lockdown Drill - Thursday 3rd March
• Clean up Australia Day - Friday 4th March
  
• School Photo Day - Friday 4th March 
  
• P&F AGM Meeting - Monday 7th March at 3pm in library
• Year 7 Immunisations - Tuesday 8th March at 1.30 - 2.50pm
• QMEA Year 7 - Wednesday 9th March
• Parent Morning Tea - Wednesday 9th March at 8.30am in the library
• Cross Country - Friday 11th March 
• Catholic Identity Committee Meeting - Monday 14th March at 3pm (please note date change)
• Indigenous Education Advisory Meeting - Thurday 17th March at 3pm (please note date change)
  
• Opening Mass & St Joseph's Feast Day - Friday 18th March at 8.30am

Tuckshop Menu:

Thank you to all volunteers who help each week! If you wish to volunteer or contribute to Tuckshop in any way, please contact the office or see Miss Jamie-Lea. All volunteers must complete a volunteer induction package. 

NO MILK POPPERS THIS WEEK! Sorry for the inconvenience.

Uniform Shop

As advertised, all uniform items with the old logo are being sold at 50% off normal price. There are limited sizes as shown. If ordering online your discount will be applied when you collect your order from the Uniform Shop or office.

Uniform Shop Days:

• Monday 2.30-3pm
• Thursday: 8:10am-8:30am

Any requests for uniforms outside these days MUST be done via the link below. 

Principal News

Welcome to Week 6, 

We have a busy week this week as we come together for Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday and School Photos. This weekend we will be hosting the Virtual Board Formation Session in our school library. All parents are welcome to attend from 8.30 am - 1:00 pm. I will then be traveling to Townsville on Sunday for 3 days of professional development with other Principals in The Townsville Diocese. I find these days incredibly helpful in forming my development as a Principal. Therese Curley will be at school in my absence as the Acting Principal. I am however contactable via email at skelley2@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au in this time. 

Mid West 2022 - Rugby League, Touch, and Netball - Trials
I would like to congratulate the following students who will be traveling to compete in the MidWest trials for Rugby League, Touch, and/or netball:

• Zaine Morris
• Tom Schneekloth
• Blake Finlayson
• Toby King
• Mac Schneekloth
• Kate Mcnamara
• Faith Douglas
• Catie Hansen

We are so proud of your achievement and look forward to hearing how you go when you return. 

School Photos:
Our school photos will be this Friday 4th March. Students must wear their formal uniform on Friday, no house shirts. Formal shirt, navy shorts, navy or white socks, black shoes, tidy hair and a smile.

Envelopes are due back tomorrow at the latest. If you can return these today that will be very helpful. 

Sibling photos will be taken in the Library from 7.45 am - 8.15 am. Previous communication stated that these photos begin at 7.30 am. Please note that this has since changed and they won't start until 7.45 am. 

There are separate envelopes for sibling photos which are available for collection from the office. 

Assembly:
Thank you to the families that joined us at our assembly last week. Please note that there won't be an assembly this Friday due to school photos. 

School Board Formation 
We are excited to be hosting our first School Board Formation Day on Saturday 5th March in the library. If you are yet to express your interest in being on our board and would like to come along to the board formation day please let me know as soon as possible as we would love for you to join us! 

2022 School Improvement Plan 
As the newsletter was so full last week I decided to leave our last dimension of school improvement until this week. As mentioned in previous newsletters we are committed to the ongoing improvement of our wonderful school. In previous newsletters, we have showcased our improvement plans for Mission and Purpose and Climate Conducive to Learning. This week I have outlined the improvement plans to ensure there is an ‘ Emphasis on Learning’ at St Joseph's as we develop effective pedagogy and teaching practices by fostering and improving:

• Professional Teaching and Learning Communities (PLCs),
• A culture of feedback for staff and students, 
• Utilising data to align a school-wide curriculum plan,
• Attendance, engagement and learning outcomes for all students. 

Staffing Update:
Mr. Scott Murray will be remaining at St Joseph’s for 2022. Mr. Murray and his fiance Emma will be looking to relocate at the end of the year, so Mr Murray will finish the 2022 school year at St Joseph’s before relocating. We are very excited to have him as a part of our team for a little bit longer! 

God Bless you, 

Mrs Samantha Kelley 
Principal 

APRE News

Welcome to week 6! Pancake breakfast was a huge hit this morning! A big thank you to Miss Pete for making fresh homemade pancakes - they were delicious! 

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. St Colman's Parish will run an Ash Wednesday Mass in the church at 7:30 to 8:00 am. At this Mass the students' promises (which were burnt and turned to ash) will be blessed ready to be placed on the students' foreheads during their class Ash Wednesday Liturgy. Fr Emene will also stay for the day and visit our classes. 

I enjoyed hearing about the promises students were intending to take up. I managed to grab a few to share.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Lent and the Launch of Project Compassion. From our icy pole sales we have already raised just over $100. For as little as $25 a family can be given the resources to build their own vegetable garden, ensuring they have food all year round. Keep an eye on the wall next to the library. I'll be keeping a tally of how many vegetable gardens we can raise. Project Compassion boxes will also be available in every class for students to make further donations. 

As part of Project Compassion each week we will focus on a particular project that is being delivered to some of our most vulnerable communities around the world. 

At Mass on Sunday we watched a video showcasing previous years projects. It was titled “Where are they now”.  I rewatched this with my children. They were so surprised at how happy the children were in the video. It is truly beautiful to see the gratitude that these stories foster and to be able to share with our children the realisation that they are so very fortunate. This also sparks the conversion about being responsive to the needs of others. In the words of Mary Mackillop “Never see a need without doing something about it”. So I encourage our families to watch these videos each week and help spread compassion throughout our community. 

This week’s story is about Anatercia, a 12-year-old girl living in southern Mozambique. She was struggling to cope with adult responsibilities after her father passed away. With the support of Project Compassion, she participated in training and gained access to support. Now, her quality of life has improved and she can focus on doing well at school.  “Anatercia’s Story”

Notices:

• Children’s Liturgy: will be held during Mass this Sunday 8:30 am. All children are welcome!
• Alpha Program: will be on again this Sunday after mass. Thank you to all who participated last week.
• Sacramental Program: will commence on Monday 14th March 3pm - 4pm. Please register your child’s interest to myself tcurley@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

The Resilience Project – Part 3: Empathy & Kindness

This next presentation from The Resilience Project is all about Empathy and Kindness.  Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings from their perspective. 

Brain imaging data shows that being kind to others registers in the brain as more like eating chocolate than like fulfilling an obligation to do what’s right (e.g., eating brussel sprouts)! Research shows that practicing empathy, such as performing acts of kindness, taps into our brain’s ‘mirror neurons’, builds compassion and our behaviour becomes more social and community-based. 

View Part 3: Empathy of the series here: https://theresilienceproject.com.au/parent-and-carer-hub-hugh/

Here’s an activity to practice empathy and kindness:

1. Reflect on someone in your life who could benefit from an act of kindness today. It could be a friend who would love some affirmation about their work,
2. your pet who deserves an extra treat, or a family member who would love a phone call or text message. 
3. Make a plan for who you are going to gift an act of kindness to, and what you are going to do. 
4. If you want to add accountability to your plan, share it with someone else and encourage them to do the same thing.
5. Follow up with each other in a few days time, to ask how it went

For mental health resources and support information, visit The Resilience Project’s Support Page.

Sources: Psychology Today, UC Berkeley, Greater Good Science

For mental health resources and support information, visit The Resilience Project’s Support Page.

Mrs Toni Shneekloth
Pastoral Leader

Prep

Welcome to Week 6!

Thank you to those of you that are helping with literacy rotations. We have at least one helper for literacy rotations each day, however, once we get into more involved activities it would be great to have more help so that each group has an adult helper. Rotations are at about 9:10am to 9:30am Monday to Thursday and begin sometime between 9:15am and 9:30am on a Friday. The timeframe on Fridays can change depending on how long the assembly is. Let me know if you can help. Toddlers/babies are welcome and it is also fine if you cannot commit to a consistent day and time.  

This week we will be learning about Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) in religion. Pancakes were cooked and given out near the high school classrooms before school this morning.  There is also a short Mass in the church on Wednesday morning. It begins at 7:30am and it would be lovely for you to join us.

The Preps will continue to chart our weather on our daily calendar and will go outside and draw the clouds they can see in the sky as part of our exploration of cloudy weather. Let's hope we have some clouds this week! In HASS the class will be exploring how we know about the past and how things have changed since their family members were young. The interview sheets the students took home on Friday will help with this. In Math, the class is continuing to explore numerals and amounts. In English, we start to learn the alphabet this week. The letter we learn is "m." It would help your child if you could talk about words that have an "m" sound at home. Focus on the sound the letter makes, not the name of the letter. This sound could be anywhere in a word. For example at the front of a word for "mat" and at the end of a word for "Tom." Identifying where the sound is in a word is a skill your child needs prior to being able to "sound words out" for reading and writing.  

Reminders:

• Tuesday - Sports uniform
• Wednesday - Order tuckshop
• Thursday - Library and tuckshop day (remember students still need a brain break snack on tuckshop days and if they only have tuckshop for first lunch they need to bring second lunch) 
• Friday - SCHOOL PHOTO DAY so do NOT wear house colours. Students are to wear their FORMAL UNIFORM

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs McLauchlan and Miss Tamara

Year 1

Hello Year 1 Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome to Week 6!

Wow, what a busy week ahead! Here is a snapshot of what we are learning this week:

• Religion: We are learning to identify that God’s Plan for creation is for us to be Stewards of our environment.
• English: We are learning how to write sentences using the colourful semantics structure of who?, doing?, what?, where?
• Mathematics: We are learning to continue simple patterns involving numbers and objects.
• Science: We are learning to identify the sun as a source of light and manipulate objects and make observations of what happens.
• HASS: We are learning to share stories about the past and identify differences and similarities between students’ daily lives and life during their parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods.
• Health: We are finishing our unit of work on Independence, specifically identifying and describing significant relationships in our lives and how these have changed over time. 

Reminders:

• This week is Week B!
• Sport: Monday with Mr Murray.
• Library: Is on Thursday with Mrs Chaplain.
• Homework: Due on Wednesday so readers can be replaced.
• Tuckshop: Tuckshop orders are due on Wednesday! 
• School Photos are on Friday. Please wear your Formal Uniform.

Have lovely week, 

Miss Mae-Louise Brock

Year 2

Hi all,

This week we are learning:

• English: Character comparisons. Our tricky words are woman, home, where.
• Maths: Count to 1000, representation of numbers
• Religion: God’s nature, Lent
• Science: Mixtures
• HASS: Then and Now
• Health: Keeping ourselves healthy and safe

Reminders:

Week A

• Monday: Sport
• Thursday: Library
• Homework due Friday

Week B

• Tuesday: Sport
• Wednesday: Library
• Homework due Friday

Have a great week!

Miss Leonie Ansell

Year 3

Hi everyone,

The learning highlights for Year 3 this week are:

• English: in our reading and writing lessons we are exploring another book by Julia Donaldson, called ‘The Snail and the Whale.’ We will be expanding simple sentences using adjectives and locations. We will also practice writing our own topic sentences from given information. In spelling we are looking at the sound c, ck, ch, q, x, k (as in kite) and the suffixes -es and -s
• Math: we will continue our unit on addition and subtraction by using number lines and the ‘jump strategy’
• Science: we will look at making preditions about scientific investigations
• HASS: we will look at why it's important to have rules in communities
• Religion: Ash Wednesday Liturgy 

Have a great week ahead!

Miss Suzannah Coombs

Year 4

Hi Everyone,

It is a busy week in the church calendar with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of Lent. Students wrote their Lenten promises last week and some chose to share them with me. There were some tough decisions made so it will be interesting to see how they go with keeping their promises for 40 days!

Science- Next week we will be completing our assessment for Science, then the students will be applying what they have learnt about forces in an inquiry project where they have to construct 2 marble runs, one where the marble moves quickly and one where it moves slowly. We will need some supplies for this including cardboard tubes from kitchen wrap and small offcuts of wood- even old dominos that aren’t being used anymore. If you have any equipment that you may think will be handy, please start sending them in.

WE NEED-

Have a lovely week,

Mrs Lesley Wall

Year 5

Already week 6!

This week we will begin to see students bring in their ‘Gold Rush’ Homework task which I have been extremely impressed with so far. 

• Literacy: We have been lucky enough to commence using the online version of Soundwaves to assist students in their spelling development. This online tool is fantastic to increase students' capacity to break down individual sounds we hear in words, segment words and identify graphemes.
• Math: Our Focus this week is volume where we will explore the formula and the differences and similarities between volume, area and perimeter.
• Health: Healthy habits is again the focus for the week where we will look at good nutrition to promote well-being as well as delving into aspects of preventative health.
• Religion: This week students will engage with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday activities with support from Father Emene. 

Quick reminder that our class sports day this week (b) is on Thursday and next week (a) is on Monday. 

Have a fantastic week!

Mr Alastair Fraser 

Year 6

Welcome to Week 6!

We cannot believe we are this far through the term already! Assessment is going to become our focus very shortly!

Our learning focuses for this week: 

• Religion: We are continuing our learning about different images and titles of Jesus, and hoping to make connections between his relationship with God and humanity.
• English: Students are going to start planning their ideas for their creative diary entries from the perspective of a character from Holes.
• Mathematics: We are trying our absolute best to master division before tackling some more difficult content in preparation for our assessment.
• HaSS: This week, we are learning about the responsibility of Global Citizens and how we can contribute to the Global Goals.   

A reminder that Physical Education is Week A Tuesday & Week B Monday. Library is Week A Wednesday & Week B Thursday. 

Keep checking in with students to see if they have homework and to sign their diaries - great practice for high school!

Have a blessed week ahead!

Mr. Delaney & The Year 6 Legends

Year 7 & 8 Visual Art

Throughout Visual Arts this term, students will explore the lives, techniques and artistic processes used by various female Indigenous artists, particularly Glenda McCulloch. They will practice the techniques she uses and explain their significance. For their final summative piece of assessment, students will plan, design and recreate a piece of artwork inspired by Glenda McCulloch and communicate the meaning behind their design.

Mrs Renee McConachy

Year 8 Science

This term we are looking at the world through the eyes of a chemist. What are the building blocks from which everything is made? Atoms, elements, compounds, mixtures! Starting with phase changes, we will progress from physical to chemical changes and students can expect to do a number of demonstrations and guided practicals to help them build the skills they need to perform their very own investigations.

Their final, self designed investigation will make up the bulk of their assessment this term, and I am excited to see what methods they will use for their testing. I would remind students and parents that leather footwear is essential this term, so students can participate fully in all our activities. 

Mrs Tania Laffey

Year 9 Science

The primary focus of the term’s work is explaining the transfer of energy through different mediums using the wave and particle models.  Students will have opportunities to form hypotheses and investigate quantitative and qualitative data and information on the flow of electrical energy and heat energy. They will use these findings, scientific knowledge, and prior understanding in order to form conclusions.

Mrs Tania Laffey

UMY Notices

Vaccination Forms
There are a few outstanding Year 7 vaccination consent cards, please hand those back to Mrs Schneekloth as soon as possible.  If you don’t want your child to be vaccinated through the school program, please complete the No to Vaccination section on the consent card and return it.  Thank you!  Vaccinations will occur on Tuesday 8th March.

Uniform
There are still students wearing the incorrect uniform to school.  School footwear is to include plain white/navy blue socks (no brand names or logos permitted) that cover the ankles with black leather lace-up school shoes (black laces) with leather upper and leather lining and sock. The sock is a part of the shoe as it gives a double layer of protection for specialist subjects (Manual Arts, Home Ec, Science). 

Neat and tidy hair is a requirement of our school and as such, we value parent support to ensure students abide by this requirement.  Extreme fashionable styles i.e. shaved patterns in hair or rats tails and hair dyes, are not acceptable.  Students with longer than collar length hair must have their hair tied up at all times. All students’ hair must be out of the eyes and not impede school work. Hair accessories (ties, clips or ribbons) are to be navy.

Homework Club
Just a reminder that homework club is on each Thursday, commencing at 3pm - this is a great time for students to catch up with teachers to clarify any questions or concepts in their subjects.

Library

Books in Homes is an intiative driven by Glencore and our primary students are lucky enough to receive them this term in Week 10. We thank Ernest Henry Mining for their continued generosity. 

Term 2 important dates:

• Week 3 - Book Week - "Dreaming with eyes open....."
• Week 6 - Scholastic Book Fair 

Mrs Chris Chaplain 

Teacher Librarian 

Community Engagement

The goal of the P&F at St Joseph's Catholic School this year is to increase parent engagement in our schooling community. We love having our parents, caregivers and family members join us for assemblies and important events, but we would also love to see this engagement within class times and at special celebrations. 

What's coming up that you can join in with?

We also have St Joseph's Feast Day kicking off after our Opening Mass on Friday 18th of March. Parents and caregivers may wish to station themselves at an activity to assist or move around with their child to support. Please note that parents must sign in at the office before volunteering. 

Timetable for St Joseph's Feast Day Friday 18th March 

Sacramental Program

Project Compassion Fundraiser

Alpha Program

Webinar - Communication

Chaplaincy Breakfast Club

Employment Opportunties - Teachers & School Officers

We are currently recruiting a teacher to join our team in Term 2 - teaching The Arts, 3 days a week. Please apply by clicking the following link: https://applynow.net.au/jobs/ni/TCE1549-teacher

We are seeking two school officers to join our team in Term 2. For more information please contact our office, alternatively please apply by clicking the following link: https://applynow.net.au/jobs/ni/TCE1561

We are seeking casual School Officers and qualified Teachers to cover sick and leave days.  For more information please contact our office.
Teaching staff will need to apply here > https://tceo-portal.applynow.net.au/jobs/TCE679-supply-teacher-registration-2021

Community Notices - Guitar Lessons

Jill Fisher will be holding guitar lessons for any children interested! These will be occuring at St Joseph's Catholic School. Please contact Jill directly if you would like more information.