Term 3 Week 5

Key Information

Vision Screening - Tuesday 9th August 
Fire & Emergency Service Presentation Yr 1 to Yr3 - Thursday 11th August
Book Week Parade / Learning Breakfast - Thursday 25th August
School Fete - Friday 26th August
Cross Country - Friday 9th September 

Pupil Free Days Term 3
Week 8 Friday - 2nd September 2022
Week 10 Friday - 16th September 2022

Upcoming P&F Meetings
Week 6 Monday - 15th August 2022

Upcoming Board Meetings
Week 5 Tuesday - 9th August 2022
Week 10 Tuesday - 13th September 2022 

Tuckshop Menu:

Orders to be in by 8.30am Wednesday morning! Click the link to order!

https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Uniform Shop

Open Days:

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

Any requests for uniforms outside of these days MUST be done via the link below. Please click the link to access the Uniform shop! https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Principal News

Welcome to Week 5, 

This week marks the halfway point of Term 3 (isn’t that crazy?). I have no idea how we are here already. I must say term 3 would have to be one of my favourite terms. We come together this term for so many celebrations and yesterday was a great example of this. We celebrated The Feast Day of Mary MacKillop with activities after morning tea, students joined fellow house members as they competed in a kahoot, drew an artwork of Mary MacKillop which was led by local artist Mrs Ruth Chaplain and competed in a range of sporting games on the oval. We then came together at 1.30pm in the Mary MacKillop Shed for not only a celebration of Mary MacKillop, but to also acknowledge the service of Sr Lyn (20 years in Cloncurry) and The First Holy Communion of Carly, Michael, Noah, Sidney, Mr Scott Murray, Mr Dean Kelley, Mrs Rachel Delaney-Lovett, Miss Emma Young and Mr Zach Kollman. I couldn’t believe how many family members and friends traveled from near (Mount Isa) and far (Toowoomba, Townsville and Brisbane) to join us for this occasion. I would like to personally thank Mrs Therese Curley for the enormous amount of work that went into making this day so special - you are truly a blessing to our school and community. 

Staff Professional Development:
Tomorrow afternoon our staff will be joined by members of TCEO as we ‘Walk on Country’ to connect and learn about Mitakoodi Country and Culture. A big thank you to Mrs Louise Martin for her work in organising this, as well as Mitakoodi elder, Ron 'Hombre' Major who will be leading us in this professional development session. It is so important for us to continue to close the gap and embed Indigenous Perspectives into our school and we strive to engage in meaningful experiences like this to develop, improve and further enrich our knowledge and skills in this area. 

Please note that staff will be unavailable tomorrow afternoon from 3pm. 

School Improvement Plan:
In our school improvement plan this year we are working on a number of goals to ensure our school is the best possible place for our students to develop a love of learning. At the board meeting this afternoon I will be presenting on some of our goals this year. I have included one of our goals below for you to view as well:

There are three domains on our School Improvement Plan. The first being Mission and Purpose, the second being Climate Conducive to Learning and the third being Emphasis on Learning. 

In the third domain, Emphasis on Learning, one of our goals is to enhance teaching and learning through improved student outcomes in writing. Our teaching and learning team have been working on this goal for quite some time and we are excited to announce that St Joseph’s will be implementing Writer’s Toolbox in Semester 2. Writer’s Toolbox⁠ offers a complete writing system with explicit writing skills and measurable performance for every year level. It also includes ongoing professional development opportunities for our educators to continue to extend their inclusion of writing in learning experiences. I am very excited for the implementation of this program and I would like to thank the Teaching and Learning Team for their initiative with this. 

The best way parents and carers can assist in the development of writing at home is by encouraging your child / children to write. The repetitive nature of writing will not only build your child’s confidence in writing, but will assist in developing their skills in this. It is important to find a balance with this and to make it fun and enjoyable for your child. A great way to do this is to sit together and write a letter to a friend or family member in another town / city / country. I am sure once they respond your child will be thrilled to keep writing to them. You might want to spend some time researching the structure of a letter, talking about how to address an envelope, where to write the date and how to begin a letter. Select a new skill each letter that you write. 

Fete - Free Dress Day & Pantry Item Request - Friday 12th of August 2022:
We are excited for our School Fete which is approaching incredibly fast - Friday 26th August. This year the funds raised will go towards replacing the sound system in the Mary MacKillop Shed. If you have been joining us for assemblies, liturgies or masses in the shed you would have noticed the sound either dropping in and out or not working due to the system that we currently have not being suitable. We will be moving our current system over to the Parish once we have updated the schools. 

Next Friday 12th of August we encourage students to come to school in free dress to celebrate our upcoming fete. Instead of bringing a gold coin donation we ask that students bring a pantry item (teachers will send a list home of desired items this week). This will go towards a raffle on the night of the fete. For just $2 a ticket someone can win a wheelbarrow filled with pantry items.  

May god bless you and your families for a great week ahead, 

Samantha Kelley
Principal

APRE News

Welcome to Week 5!

Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. The students enjoyed participating in rotational activities to commemorate our beloved Saint. The students joined in their pastoral house groups and participated in a Kahoots Quiz and good old games of tug a war and the egg and spoon race. We were also very fortunate to have our local artist Ruth Chaplain demonstrate drawing St Mary MacKillop - the pictures looked amazing. Thank you, Ruth!  We then finished the festivities off with a Mass celebrated by Fr Mick and Fr Emene and let’s not forget the cake and celebration donuts. Thank you to Miss Pete for making the cake!

At the Mass we also celebrated Sr Lyn’s 20 years of service to our community and First Holy Communion. Congratulations to Michael Curley, Sidney Chaplain, Noah O’Brien, Carly Pattison, Dean Kelley, Scott Murray, Emma Young, Rachel Delaney-Lovett,  and Zach Kollman who all received the Eucharist for the first time.

It was a very special mass and a lovely way to recognise Sr Lyn’s contribution to our school and community. Thank you, Sr Lyn, for answering the call to serve Cloncurry, we have been truly blessed by your presence. 

Notices: 

• This Sunday 14th Aug we will have a Children’s Liturgy during Mass at 8:30. All children are welcome.

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

The Resilience Project - TRP@Home

Heard your child keep mentioning "Dis!!" and are wondering what it is all about? Have you had a chance to view the TRP@Home site? TRP@HOME is a place filled with inspiration and activities to help us improve our wellbeing and build resilience.

TRP@Home is divided into four sections - Kids, Teens, Adults and Parents & Carers. The Parents & Carers section is purpose built for people who support children – providing practical activities and advice for their kids and themselves.

Check out https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/

eSafety Project

Education is an important part of prevention and a powerful tool for behaviour change. eSafety uses a range of strategies to raise awareness and promote online safety for young people, providing resources and training programs for educators, young people and their parents. These education strategies are underpinned by a strong research and evidence base, enhanced by insights from the cyberbullying and image-based abuse complaints scheme, which provide unique insights into the nature of online harms. We are continuing on our path to becoming an eSmart school by completing the requirements of the eSmart framework.

Positive Behaviour For Learning (PB4L)

Work is continuing for our PB4L committee to establish a consistent behaviour management system using the principles of Positive Behaviour for Learning. PB4L looks at behaviour and learning from a whole-of-school as well as an individual child perspective. The framework is based on international evidence that can be tailored to our  school’s own environment and cultural needs.  It’s not about changing the students; it’s about changing the environment, systems, and practices you have in place to support them to make positive behaviour choices.

Mrs Toni Schneekloth
Pastoral Leader

Prep

The class had a lovely day being involved in activities to celebrate Mary Mackillop feast day on Monday. This week we will be exploring the Three Little Pigs Story. We have a retell area set up and also a STEM challenge area where the students build a brick (lego) house, straw house and a stick house. They then use our “big bad wolf” hair dryer to see which houses blow down. In Math we will explore measurement and weight, I’m hoping to get a pulley put on the roof in the block area which we can attach buckets to and explore weight. 

Please start to think about buying or making playdoh and/or small toys or utensils to use with the playdoh for our Fete stall.  

Reminders:

• Tuesday: Sport
• Wednesday: Order tuckshop
• Thursday: Tuckshop and library

 Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs Sharon McLauchlan and Miss Tamara Williams

Year 1

Wow half way through this term already! 

This week in year 1 we are spending some time consolidating our learning so far. This Friday I will be out of the classroom completing Early Years Testing, Mrs Kylie Cook will be taking the class for the day. 

Reminders

Wednesday

• Students may wear their sports uniform on Wednesdays.
• Homework: Please ensure your childs’ is handed in so readers can be swapped. 

Thursday

• Library with Mrs Chaplain. Please make sure your childs’ library bag is at school.

Friday

• Sport is on Friday with Mr Murray. Students may wear their coloured house shirts.

Literacy Groups: Literacy groups will be on Monday - Friday at 9am. If you are available to help out please let me know. 

Design Technologies: This Term Mrs Laffey and the Year 1’s will be making sustainable solutions in Design Technologies. If you would like to contribute please see the flyer below for recommended items.

Have a wonderful week!

Miss Mae-Louise Brock

Year 2

Hi all,

We’re halfway!

Our school fete is coming up fast! This year we will be doing the bottle stall. We need donations of glass jars and packets of little chocolates, lollies, stationary, kick-knacks that are small enough to fit in a little jar.

This week we are learning:

English: Procedural Texts. Our tricky words are: through, every, only

Maths: Multiplication and Division

Religion: God’s Covenant with Noah

Science: Water is a resource

HASS: Significant people in our community

Health: Food Advertisements

Media: Stop Motion Animation

Reminders:

• Wear sport uniform on Wednesdays 
• Tuckshop orders due Wednesday
• We have Library on Thursdays
• We have Sport on Fridays (house shirts)
• Homework due on Friday

Have a great week!

Miss Leonie Ansell

Year 3

I hope you all had a wonderful Merry Muster weekend. Can you believe we are moving into week 5 already? It has been exciting to watch our Year 3 students improve their reading stamina and find books that they really love to read. We are becoming a class of wonderful readers.

Here is what the week ahead looks like for Year 3;

English - we will review the features of writing an information report. Our assessment will be a book review so we need to begin planning what a good one might look like. 

Maths - we will continue with our work on symmetry before we complete a short assessment. 

HASS - as we continue to look at Australia’s neighbours, we focus on New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. 

Science - learning that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people see themselves as caretakers of the land. 

Reminder: Please ensure all library books or class home readers are returned. We have a number of students with overdue books.

We hope you have a great week.

Mrs Deb McCann 

Year 4

Our Week in Year 4

A trip to the river to look at erosion.

Mrs Lesley Wall 

Year 5

Welcome to Week 5!

HaSS: Last week, we went on an excursion to Mary Kathleen Memorial Park and Museum. It was a fabulous experience for everyone who went, including Miss V and Miss Vanessa! We had time to explore the museum, before asking Gail the inquiry questions we had prepared. We learnt so much about the relationship between the mine and mining town and the impacts they had on each other. Miss Vanessa was very kind and treated us to an ice block to cool us down, before we left:) Overall it was a very enjoyable and educational experience, and I know there are students who are keen to go back!

Maths: Students are learning to compare, order and represent decimals. They will be using Place Value Sliders to reinforce division by 10 to extend the number system to thousandths!

English: Students have been working in pairs to annotate a variety of poems. They will begin to explain the meaning of selected poems. 

Religion: Students will be given scenario cards, which relate to the 10 Commandments. They will need to develop and explain, from a Catholic perspective, reasoned judgment about how to respond to the scenario.  

Behaviour: Students have been working on creating a peaceful classroom environment, respecting their teacher, respecting the right of their peers to learn, and respecting their right to learn. 

Homework: Homework is handed out on Monday and is to be returned on Friday. Homework is a chance to revise concepts taught in class. 

PE: Monday

Library: Wednesday

Free Dress Day - Friday 12th August: Pantry Item for Fete!

Enjoy your week,

Miss Therese von Drehnen 

Year 6

Welcome to Week 5!

This week’s learning focuses are:

Religion: We have been learning about the themes, messages and rituals for three Jewish high holy days: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah. This week, the students will review some scripture before participating in some of the rituals of these celebrations.  

English: This week, students will be practising and presenting their persuasive pitches. Then, we will begin learning how to effectively write informatively. 

Mathematics: The students have begun learning about performing operations with decimals. This week our focus is revising decimals and then adding and aubtracting them. 

HaSS: We did not get around to beginning the role playing game - that will begin this week. In addition, students will communicate their learning of some of the reasons FOR and AGAINST federation. We will be learning about some of the prominent figures and events that led to federation. 

PE and Library have remained as is, on Wednesday. 

Homework: For the remainder of the year I will be encouraging students to utilise their student diaries. They will be bringing these home to be signed. Students are encouraged to read each night. At key intervals throughout the week and/or based on the progression of content covered in class, students will have maths homework to consolidate their learning from class. On some occasions, their may be some class work or assessment work that can be completed at home. This will be communicated with parents and students. 

Have a blessed week!

Mr. James Delaney and the Year 6 Legends!

UMY Spotlight

Year 7 Science with Mr Murray

In Science, students are examining the seasons, different cultural understandings of the seasons and explore how science understandings influence the development of practices within agriculture and marine and terrestrial resource management. Students will be examining data about weather and climate from different sources and examine the impact of seasons on animals, plants and human endeavours, such as farming and fishing.

Yr 7 & 8 Food Tech with Mrs Schneekloth

In Food Technology this term, Years 7 & 8 are learning the basics in the kitchen.  They have explored kitchen safety and hygiene and prepared a quick afternoon snack to put to use their knife skills. In this unit, students will explore the culinary and nutritional properties of different staple foods. Students will enhance their skills in healthy menu planning, safe food preparation and appealing food presentation and further their knowledge of persuasive influences of food marketing and advertising. Students will learn vocabulary including: staple foods, pathos, logos, and ethos (persuasive advertising terminology).

AFL Program

Over the next six (6) weeks, AFL will be coming in for a Half Day program with our school, working in conjunction with the State School.

This will see the Game Development Officer (GDO) for AFL coming in on Wednesday afternoons and doing three (3) one-hour sessions with classes.

These classes will work with the AFL GDO for two Wednesdays, before another three groups at school start their two week rotation.

This week, years 6, 7, 8 & 9 are on the second week of their two-week rotation with the AFL GDO.

If it is not your child's PE lesson day, please ensure that they are in Sports Uniform for this.

Mr Scott Murray
Sports & Extra Curricular Coordinator 

Library & Book Week

Greetings from the Library!

Yes, it is that time again… Book Week.

Book Week is a celebration by the Australian Children’s Book Council of Australia.  It celebrates Books and Australian authors and illustrators for a week.  

Book week goes from August 20-26 and the theme this year is Dreaming with Eyes open. 

This gives us a wide scope of characters we can use to dress up as.  I know that some of you parents and carers stress about the dress up bit. Honestly just ask your child as they have lots of ideas and love to have input into designing what they are wanting to dress up as.  Pinterest is a great source for some very simple ideas. 

We will have our dress up parade on Thursday the 25th August at 8:30 am in the Mary McKillop Shed, following the Learning Breakfast. All are welcome to our breakfast at 7.45am. 

We will be doing some activities prior to Book week in the library. 

I have sent a lot of our culled books and second copies of books to Townsville for the Hospital Second-hand Book Fair which is held in September. If you are travelling to Townsville before September and you have excess books at home, they would be only too pleased to receive them.  I would be happy to put you on the contact for the Fair. 

I know it is hard to remember library books, but it is very important that the children bring their books back regularly as other children may what to borrow the book your child has.  

Library is either Wednesday or Thursday.  

Thank you for your co-operation. Happy Reading

Chris Chaplain
Teacher/Librarian.

Raising Resilient Children - Free Parenting Seminar

International Day of World Indigenous People

Spark Club & Chaplaincy Breakfast

We are back and running this week! I will say that this term has been a little disrupted with people being away and sick, so once this clears, and I'm not needed elsewhere, we should (fingers crossed) be running back to "normal". I do apologise for any inconvenience!

Chaplaincy Breakfast was good this morning, nice to see the kids again, as well as some parents. Cornflake biscuits, toasties, toast, fruit, cereal and hot chocolates were on offer. I have eggs galore given to me, which is great as it is always helpful when cooking, thanks Lisa! So Thursday will be some sort of Bacon & Egg pie creation! I do my best to make something different, something a little nutritious, but always from a kids appetite. So yes, there will be some sugar, a few chips of chocolate, cheese and lots of love put into what I make. Most if not all, like what comes from the Chaplaincy Kitchen!

I hope you have a wonderful week and take every moment to enjoy your family. You never know when things change and that change will change your life! Having a grateful heart for every high and low is something to aspire to. I think we are all blessed. 

Keep being amazing :)

Fete 2022

Save the Date: 26th August 2022

Please see our raffles below. All tickets can be purchased at the office. We thank you in advance for your support!

Change to COVID-19 Rules

The Queensland Government has announced an update to COVID-19 isolation protocols. The change relates to people who have had COVID-19 and are considered ”cleared cases”.

Previously, cleared cases did not need to isolate or get tested if they re-presented with symptoms in the 12-week period after having contracted COVID-19. In response to updated AHPPC advice that reinfections may occur as early as 28 days after recovery from a previous COVID-19 infection, the Queensland Government has announced that the “cleared case” period will be reduced from 12 weeks to 28 days (4 weeks). 

This means that people who were previously infected with COVID-19 will need to get tested and isolate if they re-present with symptoms or return a positive test from four weeks after their initial infection.

A reminder to families - please do not send your student to school if they have any flu-like symptoms. Unfortunately the high risk of infection prevents us from being able to accommodate unwell students in our sick bay. If your child is meant to be wearing a mask as a previous case or as a Close Contact, we appreciate your support in providing these and ensuring they are worn.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the school’s front office on 4742 1633.

Commonwealth School Data Collection Notice - Census

Good Shepherd Catholic College Musical

Community Notice - Pop Up Shop

Community Notices - Music Lessons