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Term 2 Week 3 2023

Key Information

Term 2 Important Dates

Tuesday 2nd May - FACE Meeting - Library - 5pm
Wednesday 3rd May - UPP Leadership Workshop - Year 7 to 9 students
Friday 5th May - QMEA Tradies for a Day workshop - Year 9
Tuesday 9th May - Writers Toolbox Professional Development for staff
Thursday 11th May - QMEA STEM Unearted workshop - Year 8 and 9 students
Thursday 11th May - Mothers Day Breakfast
Friday 19th May - Under 8s Day and Athletics Carnival
Saturday 20th May - Open Day
Tuesday 23rd May - Indigenous Education Advisory Committee Meeting - 3 to 4pm
Monday 29th May - Reconciliation Week
Friday 16th June - Show Holiday Public Holiday
Friday 23rd June - Last Day of Term 2

Tuckshop News

Miss Jamie-Lea is searching for some more volunteers if there are some available! Please email Jamie-Lea on jmcconachy@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au or call the office to let us know you are keen.

Our Special for Week 3

To order: myschoolconnect.com.au

Uniform Shop

Open Days:

Monday: 2.30pm-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's News

Welcome to Week 3,

I hope you had a relaxing long weekend with your family. The weather was delightful, however, some students let me know it was "freezing" while camping. I am sure a lot of our students used their weekend to recover from the amount of dancing they did at our first SRC Disco on Friday evening. The turn out was incredible. Thank you to the staff, parents and carers that helped with supervision at the Disco, we appreciate you.

Attendance:
Attendance - Every day counts – Our current whole school attendance to date this term is 85.1%. The class with the highest attendance rate in Term 2 so far is year 3 at 91.88%, followed closely by prep on 91.29% and year 5 on 90.12%, congratulations. There is a direct correlation between academic success and student attendance. It is important that students are in attendance at school to learn and develop. It is also important that students are arriving on time. Teachers often have their literacy and numeracy rotations and lessons in the morning session, if students are arriving to school late they are missing this learning time each day. We also have our whole school writing initiative every morning across the whole school from 8.20am to 8.40am. It is important students are in attendance to develop their skills in writing consistently.

Staffing Update:
It is with sadness that I inform our St Joseph’s Catholic School community that Mrs Nicola Cullen our wonderful year 3 teacher will be departing at the end of Week 3 Term 3, Nicola will be relocating home to Ireland. As a school we are very sad to see Nicola, Laurence, Sean, and Erin departing our community. The wealth of experience and knowledge that Nicola has brought with her to her position at St Joseph’s has been incredible. We are very fortunate to have had Nicola on staff since Term 4 of 2022. I have included a departing message from Nicola below:

“I am extremely sorry to announce that I will be leaving St Joseph’s in Week 3 of Term 3. I will be returning to my Principal position in my school in Ireland. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff, parents, and children of St Joseph’s for the warm welcome you have extended to myself and my family. We have travelled to the other side of the world but have felt at home immediately in St Joseph’s and Cloncurry. The warm and caring nature of everyone associated with St Joseph’s was evident from the minute we arrived; it is not something any of us will ever forget. As a family we have learnt so much from our time here particularly to look out for others and offer help when needed. Mary MacKillop’s message ‘Never see a need without doing something about it’ is apparent every day in St Joseph’s.

Go raibh maith agat agus slan go foil (Thank you and goodbye for now)

Nicola Cullen

Mothers Day:
We will be celebrating Mothers Day next Thursday with a breakfast at 7.45am in the Mary MacKillop Shed. Our students have been working on a song to present to you as an acknowledgement of all that you do.

There will also be a mothers day stall next week in the front office. Classes will be invited to the stall at different times across the week if they would like to purchase a gift. The gifts will be priced from $2 - $20.

Unleashing Personal Potential - Student Leadership Workshop - Year 7 to 9
St Joseph’s Catholic School have organised for the team at Unleashing Personal Potential to come to school tomorrow to run a workshop with our year 7 to 9 students. This workshop has been amazing each year, so we continue to make this investment. The sessions are engaging and interactive. It includes team building sessions with all students to strengthen leadership and wellbeing. The sessions are based on research in psychology, neuroscience and education. The sessions usually focus on some of the following topics:

Growth Mindset
GRIT
Wellbeing
Leadership is influence
Different leadership strengths
The power of a team

I look forward to hearing the feedback from our students on this workshop.

God Bless you and your families for the week ahead,

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal

APRE News

Welcome to week 3. Yesterday marked the feast of St Joseph’s the Worker. This is one of two feast days that honors St.Joseph—with the second one being the Feast of St. Joseph the Husband of Mary that’s held on March 19th.

The feast of St Joseph not only honors Joseph for his participation in the creative work of God but also honors the dignity of work by everyone who does it. Pope Pius XII said Saint Joseph was a model of holiness to all workers.

“The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work,” (Pope Pius XII).

The feast day was established to both honour Saint Joseph and to make people aware of the dignity of human work.

Have a blessed week!

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

Unleashing Personal Potential Impact Workshop - Year 7 to 9
This Wednesday, Years 7-9 students will be attending the Unleashing Personal Potential (UPP) Impact Workshop. In the past two years, we have witnessed significant relationship building and personal growth in each student after attending the UPP workshop.

This workshop has been designed to assist our students to:

Lead by example, service and action;
Build healthy relationships with their peers;
Develop a positive school culture;
Experience genuine, authentic opportunities to contribute and serve the school community through their leadership role
Improve collaboration, teamwork skills, respect, listening skills and empathy.

The workshops involve the UPP team working directly with our students. They use a learning, action, reflection process in the three sessions throughout the day.

I hope our Years 7-9 students have a great experience at the workshop on Wednesday and will learn lifelong skills and build confidence to unleash the potential within themselves.

QMEA Tradies for a Day Workshop

This Friday our Year 9 students will be attending a Queensland Minerals & Energy Academy workshop titled, Tradies for a Day. The Tradies for a Day event is designed to provide students with an insight into trades within the sector. Students will also have the opportunity to engage with professionals from the resources sector.

Next week, St. Joseph’s will host QMEA for a STEM Unearthed workshop for Years 8 & 9.

Pastoral Care Leader

Mrs Toni Schneekloth

Prep

welcome to Week 3,

Egg incubation update. When we candled the eggs last Friday we discovered that only 6 of the eggs had chickens developing inside. The smaller bantam type eggs did not develop. The class will continue to look at the daily development of chickens inside our eggs this week as part of our calendar routine. To extend our learning about what living things need to survive, the class will learn how these needs are met inside the eggs. We will also explore what hatched chickens need to survive.

During Initial Lit this week the new sound/letter will be “h”and the new words will be was and you. I should finish individual testing of sound/letter knowledge and reading and writing of short words which can be spelt phonetically. It is really important to practice looking at a letter and knowing the sound it makes, AT HOME as well as at school. This is the basis for reading and writing and the students that do this easily are able to consistently read and write simple words. The sounds taught are; m,s,t, a, p, i, f, r, c, d. The story focus this week is identifying fiction and non-fiction books and also describing what is liked about a story.

In music the class is exploring beat and rhythm and that music is made up of sounds and also silences.

During math the Preps will move on from 2D shapes to 3D shapes while continuing number activities.

Reminders:

Tuesday - sport
Wednesday - order tuckshop
Thursday - tuckshop and library

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs Sharon McLauchlan, Miss Tamara Williams and Miss Bree Thew

Year 1

Hello everyone,

We can’t believe it is week 3 already. Year 1 has hit the ground running this term learning new things. We are excited to see the progress by the end of the term.

Here is a snapshot of what we will be learning this term;:

English: This term we will be identifying both the short and long vowel sound that our vowel letters make. (a, e, i, o and u). We will also be writing an informative text on a chosen dinosaur.

Math: Identifying representations of halves and telling the time to the half hour. Students have enjoyed making their own clocks and using them to tell the time to the o’clock.

HASS: Identify and describe important dates and changes in their own lives.

Science: Describe how different places meet the needs of living and non-living things. Students have been loving looking at different dinosaurs and describing what they looked like.

Religion: Identifying words, actions and symbols used in the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist to communicate God’s presence and action.

Art: Revising our Primary and Secondary colours and exploring the element of line.

Reminders

Library: Monday (week 1,3,5,7,9)

Resilience Project: Monday (week 2,4,6,8,10)

Sport: Wednesday (every week)

Technology: Thursday (every week)

Homework was sent out on Friday and is expected back on Thursday so readers can be scanned in.

Literacy groups started on Tuesday this week. If you would like to help out on a day starting from 9am, please feel free to send Miss Brock an email just letting us know so we can plan for you to have a group. mbrock3@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au

Have a wonderful week,

Miss Mae-Louise Brock, Miss Erin Haley and the always fun Year 1’s!

Year 2

Hi Year 2 Parents,

During Writing this week, we are plotting our own Imaginative texts. During Maths we are looking at Doubles and Near Doubles as strategies to help us with Addition and Subtraction. We are also looking at changes to living things in Science, Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Religion and our world at different scales, how we are connected to different places in HASS and Stop Motion animation in Media.

There will be some changes to our Homework day this term. Homework will now be due in and going back out on Wednesdays.

A few reminders:

Technologies is on Tuesday each week.
Sport is on Friday each week. Students are to wear house shirts for this and we will wear our Sport shirt on Wednesday so we get to use all of our uniforms.
Library and Resilience Project will be on a fortnightly rotation on Mondays. Monday Week A (week 1, 3, 5, 7, 9) will be Resilience Project. Monday Week B (week 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) will be Library.

Homework due and back out on Wednesday

Have a fantastic week,

Miss Leonie Ansell

Year 3

Welcome to Week 3!

I hope you all had an enjoyable long weekend.

This week in writing we will be exploring the structure of Procedure texts. In Maths we will be continuing work on multiplication. In Year 3 the children will work on 2,3,5,and 10 times tables. Please help the children at home to have rapid recall of these multiplication facts. In Religion our topic Welcome to the Church we will be looking at Baptism this week. Our Science topic is Night and Day and we will be looking at the movement of the Earth around the Sun and also the movement of the Moon around the Earth.

Can I ask that parents help their children look for library books or Home Readers at home as we have a number missing.

This week’s events

Monday: No school - Public Holiday

Tuesday: Homework will be set this week

Chaplain’s Breakfast in MMS at 7.45am

PE the children can wear their sports shirt

As this is Week A the children have Resilience lesson

FACE meeting at 5pm - 6pm in Library

Wednesday: Tuckshop orders must be in by 8.30am

Thursday: Chaplain’s Breakfast in MMS at 7.45am

Tuckshop - if your child is having tuckshop please remember to send healthy snack for brain break and something for second lunch

Children have Technology with Miss Laffey

Friday: Homework and Home Readers to be return today

NO Assembly this week

Have a great week,

Thanks

Mrs Nicola Cullen

Year 4

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping everyone had a relaxing long weekend. There will be a Mothers Day breakfast next Thursday to celebrate all the wonderful mums in our lives so please put this in your calendar and feel free to come along to celebrate.

Reminders:

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

Library - Students will be visiting the library this Thursday. If your child's library bag is at home, please make sure they are brought to school before this time.

PE - We have PE this Thursday. Please make sure your child is wearing their PE uniform.

Assembly - There will be no assembly this week.

Have a great week,

Miss Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Dear Families,

Well done to Year 5 on an excellent reflection assembly about ANZAC Day. I was sad to have missed it but heard great things! Their preparation and support to add finishing touches was greatly appreciated - especially the mammoth task of baking Anzac Biscuits for everyone at school. Special thanks to Tamara Williams and Toni Schneekloth for their help last Wednesday.

ENGLISH: Our lessons this week will focus on learners investigating the language features and structure of Informative Texts. We will read texts related to our Science and HASS - Light and Gold Rush to identify features. We will also discuss our interests and expertise to consider topics for our writing. We will use Writer's Toolbox to discuss 'Explore the Subject Sentences' and using 'Expansion' to add a greater level of detail to our paragraphs. Our Sound Waves Spelling will focus on the different ways to make the j sound [j, g, ge, dge] in words as well as continuing to inquire into the Latin and Greek origin of words - this week the Latin Root -ject has the meaning 'throw'.

MATHEMATICS: Our investigation into Fractions will start this week - initially unit fractions and the importance of understanding and using visuals to represent the fractions. Connecting fractions to 'real life' can be as simple as dividing a cake/pizza into five equal pieces. Talking with your child about the number of equal pieces helps to develop their understanding of the denominator in fractions. Using lollies, multi packets of chips, chocolate bars, egg cartons allow them to make the connections with their lives. Knowing that, just as 2/4/8 multiplication facts are connected, halves, quarters and eighths are connected and can be discussed in terms of equivalence e.g. 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4 and 4/8. The 5/10 and 3/6/12 would also be explained as connected. Playing UNO Card Games allow learners to create visuals for fractions, make fractions that are larger/smaller than a half, before beginning their work on adding/subtracting fractions with the same and similar denominators.

Enjoy your week,

Mr Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Welcome to Week 3!

This week the Year 6 Students have started creating short stories- looking at developing their own exciting characters, just like the ones they see in all of their favorite texts. They have worked through the writer's toolbox learning journey- focusing on Plot creation and Characterisation.

In Maths, Our Year 6 Prac student Miss Menkins has been teaching them all about length and perimeter and how to convert between different units of measurement. The students have loved having another teacher in the classroom to lend a hand

In HASS, students have been identifying what scarcity is, in particular why items become scarce within the community. We looked at examples such as toilet paper and building materials during Covid, and how hard they were to come by because of how expensive they were to purchase. ‘

It had been another busy week in the Year 6 Classroom.

Mr Dom Purcell

UMY - Spotlight

9 Science with Mrs Tania Laffey
Year 9 Science have been looking at VOLCANOES! Well, not just volcanoes. We have been trying to understand how, where and why volcanoes form, by learning about Tectonic Plate movements. As there are, once again, many new words for students to recognise and use, I am encouraging students to talk about what they are learning at home. If you need some terms to quiz them on, ask them what convergent, divergent and transform plate boundaries are. Ask them if they can tell you where subduction occurs, or what exactly is sea-floor spreading. Ask them about the game Orator.

8 Science with Ms Gillian Gardiner
Energy is all around us and this term we are going to be examining how this abstract entity is neither created nor destroyed, merely transferred or transformed when used.

When it comes to Science as a human endeavour, we shall explore how scientists are inventing or innovating ways to make our appliances, from light bulbs to washing machines, ever more energy-efficient. This is because so much of the energy transformation that occurs is into wasted energy instead of the energy for which the appliance is designed. Therefore, we’ll be calculating energy efficiency, which means we’ll be engaging our mathematical brains, too!

There are two summative assessment pieces for this unit. Firstly, each student will develop a collection of work to demonstrate understanding of key concepts, such as energy efficiency. Secondly, each will then design an experiment to measure energy input and output in a simple system. This means plenty of practical fun as students apply the Scientific Method and record, analyse and evaluate their findings. Here’s to a term full of learning energy!

8 Maths with Mr Dean Kelley
This term, students are solving problems related to Statistics and Probability. Probability deals with predicting the likelihood of future events, while statistics involves the analysis of the frequency of past events.

For the first 3 weeks of this term we have focused on Mean, Median, Mode and Range.

Mean: The average of a set of numbers

Median: The middle number when numbers are put in order (numerical order)

Mode: The most occurring number in a set of numbers

Range: Largest number - the smallest number

We have come a long way within a short space of time and I’m ecstatic with the classes progress. I have added a set of numbers below. Test your year 8 studen’s ability to solve mean, median, mode and range on this data set.

1, 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 19, 20