Translate

Term 3 Week 1 2023

Key Information

Term 3 Important Dates

Monday 24th July and Friday 28th July - Catholic Education Week
Wednesday 26th July - Dress by Vinnies Free Dress Day
Wednesday 2nd July - Bravehearts - Prep to Year 2
Friday 4th August - Merry Muster - IPRASS
Monday 7th August - Earth Science Workshop - Year 7, 8 and 9
Tuesday 8th August - Mary MacKillop Feast Day Activities and Mass
Friday 11th August - Staff Appreciation Day
Monday 14th August - Friday 18th August - Book Week & Science Week
Friday 18th August - Learning Breakfast and Book Week Dress Up
Friday 25th August - School Fete
Thursday 31st August - Bush Dance
Friday 8th September - Cross Country

Tuckshop News

Please email Jamie-Lea on jmcconachy@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au or call the office to let us know you available to Volunteer!

Our Special for Week 1 is: Cheesy Chicken Pasta, Chocolate Fudge Cake and a Popper

Please have your orders in by WEDNESDAY 8:30am

To order: https://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 Term 3,

I hope that you have all had a refreshing break with your loved ones and ready to tackle a very busy term!

An email was sent to all parents and family members on Sunday the 9th of July outlining important details about upcoming events, pupil free days and staffing updates. There was however one staffing update that I didn’t include in the email. I would like to let our St Joseph’s Community know that Dean, Danny and I are expecting a new addition to our family in December. We are very excited to be welcoming another baby boy into our Cloncurry Community here. I will conclude the year and begin Maternity Leave from Term 1 2024. Townsville Catholic Education will be working hard to secure an Acting Principal for the duration of my leave. Please note that I do not intend for my leave to go for the whole year and ideally would like to be back on deck for the movement into the new school building in Term 4 2024.

Please jump onto your emails to read the term 3 information. If you are an enrolling parent and/or caregiver and have not received this email please check your junk folder first and if the email isn’t there please notify the front office. We have had several parents that have had issues with their school emails. I have included some information from the email below in case you missed it:

Pupil Free Days:

There are two pupil free days this term that I wanted to bring your attention to:

Friday 4th August (Merry Muster)
Friday 1st September (Staff Professional Development)

Term 3 Events:

NAIDOC March - Friday 14th July - departing school at 8.50am.
Catholic Education Week Liturgy - Friday 28th July - 9.30am - MMS.
Mary MacKillop Feast Day - Tuesday 8th August
Book Week Parade - Friday 18th August - 8.30am - Primary Courtyard.
Learning Breakfast - Friday 18th August - 7.45am - Home Ec.
School Fete - Friday 25th August.
Bush Dance - Thursday 31st August - 5.30pm - MMS.
Cross Country - Friday 8th September - MMS - following assembly. Please note that the wrong date was sent in the initial email.

Board Meetings:

Tuesday 1st August
Tuesday 5th September

Family and Community Engagement (FACE) Meetings:

Tuesday 25th July
Tuesday 29th August

NAIDOC March - Friday 14th July:

This Friday the 14th of July the staff and students at St Joseph’s will be gathering with the Cloncurry State School for the annual NAIDOC March. We will be beginning our march at 9am. We will aim to depart St Joseph’s at approx. 845-8.50am. We will have a quick assembly in the morning in the Mary MacKillop Shed to present prep students with their 100 days of prep awards and will then head straight to the march. Students will need to bring a hat and water bottle with them for the day. We will be finishing the march at the State School and should return to St Joseph’s in time for first break at 10.40am. We would love parent help on the day, please let your child’s classroom teacher know if you are available.

New Build:

The planning for our upcoming knockdown and rebuild project is going well. There is a lot happening behind the scenes.

We are due to receive demountables on Wednesday the 2nd of August. The demountables will then take approximately 2 weeks to install. Year 1 - Year 4 will move into the demountable buildings which will be located along George Street. The Library will also be relocated into a demountable. During the demolition and construction the front office and uniform shop will be moved into the library, which will be accessible from Ham Street.

The demolition will take place over the coming Term 3 holidays and throughout Term 4. The hope is that building of the new building can begin over the Christmas holiday period, however, if this is not possible a Term 1 start will be possible. We hope to be in the new buildings by Term 4 2024.

The initial fly-through of the new building has changed quite a bit since the video was sent to parents. Once the new fly-through is ready we will share this with you.

We are so excited to have this opportunity for our students and feel very blessed to have received support in making this possible.

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

Mrs. Samantha Kelley

Principal

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

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal

APRE News

Welcome back to Term 3!

I hope the holidays gave everyone a chance to relax, refresh and pull out their winter wardrobe. I visited classes yesterday. It was lovely to see smiling faces, who were happy to be back with their friends and sharing stories.

Catholic Education Week is an annual state-wide event that promotes the distinctive mission of Catholic schools throughout Queensland.

The week 23rd - 29th July is celebrated by all schools through a range of liturgies, events and activities.

The Catholic Education Week 2023 theme continues on from last year "Communities of Faith, Hope and Love".

A Mass to mark the official launch of Queensland Catholic Education Week 2023 will be held at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Townsville on Tuesday 25th July 2023 and 10am this mass will be live-streamed and links available on social media pages.

Catholic education strives to make a difference in the lives of those in our schools and in the wider community by challenging young people to live out the message of Jesus and to reach their full potential as compassionate, contributing, life-giving members of society.

We invite all members of our school and parish community to our school's Catholic Education Week liturgy on Friday 28th of July at 8:30am to celebrate together this significant event as a Community of Faith, Hope and Love.

**CATHOLIC EDUCATION WEEK IN QUEENSLAND 23rd - 29th July** (Week 3)

Notices:

Children’s Liturgy - All Children Welcome: This Sunday Mass (16th July) at 8:30 am, we will be running a Children’s Liturgy. These liturgy’s run during the Mass. After the congregation has been welcomed the children will be called to come forth and receive a blessing. The children will then head over to the school and share the gospel message. This is delivered in a child friendly manner with songs, prayers and an activity sheet. 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/

The Imperfects Podcast

Teaming up with one of Australia’s most successful comedians, Ryan Shelton, and his very talented brother Josh van Cuylenburg, Hugh, founder of The Resilience Project, has put together a podcast which is all about how perfectly imperfect we all are. Constantly comparing ourselves to others can not only be exhausting, but extremely harmful. However, when we share our struggles, we start to realise that everyone, no matter how successful, has something they are battling with.

In this podcast, Hugh, Josh and Ryan chat to a variety of interesting people who bravely share their struggles and imperfections, and we all learn some valuable take-aways we can apply to our own imperfect lives.The Imperfects has three different formats: an interview, the Vulnerabili(tea) House, and, the Academy of Imperfection. Check it out https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/podcasts/

Mr Dom Purcell
Acting Pastoral Care Leader

Prep

Welcome back for a busy Term 3. I hope you had an enjoyable break from the school routine!

Can you believe that, on Thursday, the Preps have been at school for 100 days? Time has flown! To celebrate being "100 days brighter" we are encouraging the Preps to wear bright colours on Thursday. We will also celebrate with a cake and some fun activities. On Friday's assembly, before the NAIDOC March, the Prep class will be awarded with certificates to celebrate this milestone. On Thursday this week the class will also participate in a workshop with Queensland Ballet. In the past these workshops have been amazing! During HASS over the next few weeks, Prep will be exploring the features of places, creating story maps, identifying places they belong to and developing an understanding that places can have significance to themselves or others. We will also explore ways to care for places. Our new letter sounds this week are "w" and "ck." Literacy groups will be back on this week, although they may start slightly later as there will be a literacy activity to complete before group work. Volunteers, please feel free to continue coming at the same time as help with the activity would also be appreciated. Home readers and homework will be sent home on Thursday. During Math the class will continue to consolidate their understanding of number to 20.

I am looking forward to another positive, educational, creative and fun term 3!

Reminders:

Tuesday - Sport

Wednesday - order tuckshop

Thursday - 100 Days Brighter Celebrations (Preps to wear their brightest colours)

Friday - Library (Week A), tuckshop, Prep given 100 Days of school certificates at assembly. NAIDOC march with the State School; wear warm clothes as an assembly is held at the State School shed after the march and it can be freezing!

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs McLauchlan, Miss Tamara

Year 1

Welcome to week 2!

We hope everyone had a great first week back to term 3.

Snapshot for the term ahead:

English: Year 1 have enjoyed the start to english this term by identifying character traits and creating character profiles in the book ‘The Rainbow Fish’. The students will continue to look at other characters in other books this term.

Math: At the end of term 2 students started looking at 2D shapes and 3D objects. The students are continuing to learn about 3D object attributes e.g. how many edges, vertices and faces they have.

HASS: This term in HaSS we will be discussing natural, managed and constructed environments.

Health: Students are looking at changes in the stages of life. This week we have started to identify differences and similarities from when we were infants to now in the childhood stage.

Science: We are learning about materials and their properties. We will go on a hunt around our school environment to identify the materials we see and use daily.

Religion: We are learning about Jesus’ mission and ministries.

Dance: This term for the arts the students are focusing on learning about dance and specifically bush dances. The students will perform their dance at the bush dance night later in the week.

Reminders:

Homework will be handed out Friday and to be returned the following Thursday please.

Literacy Groups started this week. Please send an email if you are wanting to help out during this time.

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.

Have a wonderful week!

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

Year 2

Hi all,

Welcome back to Term 3. I’ve really enjoyed listening to all the student’s stories from the school holidays, it sounds like they had a blast!

We have hit the ground running with our learning areas because we have a jammed packed term ahead with events like our school fete and bush dance taking place. During Writing this term we will be looking at Informative texts. During HASS the students will be researching significant people in our community and this research will be used to create an information report on a chosen person of significance for writing. Our maths topic for the next few weeks is fractions. This sets us up for concepts that will be covered later on in the term. In Science, we are looking into Earth’s resources and how they are used in a variety of ways. We will also be examining messages and advertising during Health and communicating about music we hear and make.

There has been a change to our Library day. Library will now take place on Friday Week A

Reminders:

Homework - Homework day is Wednesday

Library - Friday Week A

NAIDOC March - This Friday

Have a great week,

Miss Ansell

Year 3

Welcome back to Term 3!

I hope you all had a lovely break. We are so excited to welcome Miss Laura Cooke to our Year 3 class. I will be working alongside Miss Cooke to ensure a smooth transition for all the children when I leave to return to Ireland at the end of week 3.

This term the children will be learning lots of new and exciting things. In Maths we will be looking at symmetry, division, money, measuring and much more. In English we will be concentrating on information texts and reading for enjoyment. In Religion we will be looking at The Beatitudes and their meaning for us today. In Health we will be looking at ways to help the children manage changes. I will keep you updated on our other topics in the coming weeks.

There are a few changes to our timetable please check below.

What’s on this week:

Monday: Homework will be set and Home Readers given out

Tuesday: Chaplain’s Breakfast in MMS at 7.45am

PE the children can wear their sports shirt

Wednesday: Tuckshop orders must be in by 8.30am

Thursday: Chaplain’s Breakfast in MMS at 7.45am

QLD Ballet 10.30am - 12.00pm

Townsville Youth Team visit

100 days of Prep -Dress Up

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: Assembly 8.30am to 8.50am MMS

NAIDOC march at 8.50am

Thanks

Nicola Cullen

Year 4

Hi all,

Habitat Boxes: If your child has completed their habitat box please get them to bring these in on Friday. We will have a small show and tell after Assembly and the NAIDOC march.

Timetable Change: Our Library time has changed this term. We will now be having our Library visit on Fridays the week that Assembly isn’t on. This means we have Library starting next week.

Writing: Our sentence focus this week is The Adverb Start. The Adverb Start Sentence is a sentence that starts with an adverb. Adverbs are (nearly) all the words beginning with -ly in English. Words like: cleverly, usefully, firstly, brilliantly, sneakily, importantly, cheerfully, silently, curiously, and finally.

Check these out:

Sadly, the pirate captain Greenbeard Hawkins never learned to swim.
Carefully, Sophie snuck the spider into her brother’s cornflakes.
Fortunately, Henry’s grandmother was quite good at ducking flying apples.

Spelling: Our sound for this week is ‘o’ as in boat. This sound can be represented by the following graphemes (letter combinations): oa, o_e, ow, o.

The O (boat) sound is frequently represented by the grapheme o (e.g. bonus, radio).
The grapheme ow for boat is often used at the end of words (e.g. show, yellow).
The grapheme ough is an unusual way to represent the sound (boat) (e.g. though, dough).

Reminders:

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

Library - As noted above, our Library visit is now on Fridays. Students have already visited the Library this week and everyone has at least two books.

PE - Students have PE on Thursday

Have a great week,

Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Welcome back to Term 3! A terrific first day back on Monday - great focus and contributions to discussions.

ENGLISH: This week we have started our explicit teaching focus about Making Inferences. We have started with several short animated video clips where learners have to ‘read between the lines’ and discover what authors mean when they say things. We have discussed IMPLIED being indirectly stated where we need to make inferences and EXPLICIT as being directly stated and well explained by the author/creator. Many of the videos are without spoken or written words - this allows the learners to have open ended discussion about what they think the intended or implied meaning is. In continuation of our work on implied meaning, learners have begun to investigate IDIOMS - random phrases that the English language and many other languages have like, ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you’ or ‘she’s got ants in her pants.’ These phrases are often confusing because the meaning is again IMPLIED/hidden and not EXPLICIT/directly stated - but are great fun to try to incorporate into daily life. Try to use ‘That is a blessing in disguise!’ literally meaning something that at first seems bad but turns out to be a hidden benefit. In spelling, we are inquiring into words with the different [oa] phonemes - [ough], [ow], [o-e], [oa] and [o] and investigating homophones (through and threw - words that sound the same but have different spelling/meanings). We are also studying the Latin roots mot- (meaning to move) and pos- (meaning place or put - compose meaning ‘put together’ a piece of music). Reading every day for homework was discussed (and the following infographic showed us that) - 1 minute a day gives a child 8000 words a year, while reading 20 minutes gives the reader nearly 2 million new words per year throughout their school life.

MATHS: Our Think Mentals are a review of division strategies from last term - number splitting and then dividing each part by the divisor. The aim is for this to be a mental strategy with a few written notes when the numbers are larger. So, 721➗7= is asking the question how many 7s are in 721. We can split the number into 700 and 21, both of which are multiples of 7, giving the answer 103. We have commenced our work on geometric shape with early discussion and review of prior learning. For the next several weeks, we will investigate the properties of 2D shapes, focusing on the number of sides, vertices and angles of polygons, including focus on types of triangles and quadrilaterals. We will investigate the protractor and how to use this mathematical tool accurately. Development of learning about symmetry and the transformations associated with reflection (flip), rotation (turn) and translations (slide) will follow after our work on 2D shape. The progression takes us into angles of turn and 3D shapes. Multiplication facts are essential homework this term with a focus on the multiples 3, 6 and 12 - using doubling/halving to calculate quickly before developing their recall of all multiplication facts in Term 4.

SCIENCE: This term we investigate the interesting project about space - the Sun, Earth, Moon and stars, as well as other planets in our solar system. Generating questions for research about our universe is always inspiring as a teacher - you really get deep engagement and the desire to continually discover more. If your child asks questions that you don’t know the answer to, believe me there are plenty, the best response is - let’s discover the answer together. Discussion about the International Space Station and what life might be like in space as humans return to the Moon and eventually Mars will spark huge interest. Google is an amazing scientific research engine but it often throws up technical vocabulary that requires additional investigation. If you can encourage your child to connect this with daily reading, there are many informative texts about space and the sky at night!

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

NAIDOC March - Friday 14th July

MERRY MUSTER FLOAT: Our class voted for B1 and B2 (Bananas in Pyjamas) and will dress up on Friday 4th August. I will discuss ideas with the class to support families - basically blue and white striped pyjamas.
ST JOSEPH’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL & ST COLMAN’S PARISH FETE: Donations of household items are encouraged for the Wheelbarrow Prize - please click this LINK to donate. To get a good spread of items, the list in the link will continually update, so get in early! The Fete is in Week 7 - Friday 25th August.

PALUMA/GUMBURU CAMP: It is with great excitement that I announce the dates for our Paluma Camp in Term 4 - please be advised that Camp will commence early on Monday 30th October and we will return to Cloncurry on Friday 3rd November. The information from 2022 has been added to our Y5 website - please be aware that this will be finalised and updated closer to Term 4.

Have an amazing week,

Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Welcome back to Term 3 in Year 6!

It’s been a busy first week back and everyone looks like they have had a relaxing two weeks off, ready to work hard for another ten weeks!

In English, we have spent time writing about our holidays, reading newspaper articles in preparation for when we have to create our own articles later in the term. Students have also been introduced to Federation- Why Australia federated and who the important people were in making it happen. Later in the term, Year 6 students will create a newspaper article from 1901, on the day of federation! In Maths, we have been refreshing the importance of the use of fractions, and how they are used in our everyday lives.

There have been a number of small changes to our timetable for year 6 in Term 3.

Resilience (Library every second week) and Languages have now been moved to periods 4 and 5 on a Friday!

Hope everyone had a great first week back!

Mr Dom Purcell

UMY Spotlight

Yr 7 Maths

I will be taking the Year 7 students for mathematics this term!
We are beginning with some revision on the Cartesian plane coordinate system - plotting and writing ordered pairs in each of the four quadrants. This will lead into the students describing transformations of shapes on the Cartesian plane - this will include line and rotational symmetry.

THEN, later in the term, ALGEBRA…

We will be learning about the concept of variables as a way of representing numbers using letters. The students will create algebraic expressions, substituting and solving formulas (simple linear equations), and applying this knowledge to represent word problems.

Yr 9 Language

This term, the Year 9 students will be learning about famous places and landmarks in Japan. In addition, they will be learning the names of Australian cities and landmarks - this means that we will be learning and practicing the katakana script (used for foreign/borrowed words). They will have a short weekly test based on the sets they have learned in previous weeks.

We will be learning how to explain the location of cities and landmarks, describe the appearance, express what we like about them, the meaning beyond them, and the kanji characters used to write them. Their final project will be to write a postcard from two famous places/landmarks - including one from Uluru and another of their choosing in Japan. This will require research and learning new sentence structures including the use of verb and adjective forms, and conjuctions to extend writing.

Book Week!

Term 3 is very special as we participate in National Book Week! Our school fete is during the actual designated week, so we’ll be celebrating the occasion the week prior, 14-18 August (Week 6). This year’s theme is ‘READ, GROW, Inspire’ and the costume parade will be on Friday 18 August. Come as your favourite book character, or your favourite author, or even your favourite book! Dress as whoever or whatever in the literary world inspires you to keep growing to be your best self.

Student Wellbeing

Social Media Influencers

Social media influencers wield significant power, shaping opinions, particularly among young people. However, their impact on youth mental health is concerning. Most recently, the controversial actions and statements of Andrew Tate and his rise to fame, has made him a polarising figure, amassing a significant following of mostly young males. Educators and families have raised urgent concerns about the damaging nature of Tate’s content, worried that his messages may radicalise students and create a generation of young men with regressive and harmful beliefs.

In today's digital world, anyone can be an influencer, exerting influence through their audience relationship. Comparisons to idealised lives on social media can contribute to feelings of inadequacy, while exposure to inappropriate content and distorted body image perceptions exacerbate the issue. The fast-paced environment inundates young people with information, making them susceptible to certain beliefs and evoke strong emotions. Attention has become a valued commodity, therefore influencers design content to captivate their audiences.

Filtered portrayals of perfect lives create unrealistic expectations often resulting in dissatisfaction. Comparisons with peers intensify insecurities and anxiety. Social media algorithms may also expose a young person to inappropriate content, fostering negative and divisive narratives which can then lead to cyberbullying and online harassment, further harming their wellbeing.

It is therefore crucial for parents and caregivers to guide a young person’s social media use, encourage open communication, and educate them about the realities of social media. Be curious to comprehend why they might be drawn to radical influencers, like Andrew Tate, and actively seek understanding as part of the solution. Through modelling kindness, respect and positive values, you can help tackle the sway of such influencers, countering unhealthy masculinity and mitigating potential harm. While not all influencers have a negative impact, it is important to ensure there is a balanced approach between online and offline activities. Emphasise the importance of critical thinking, real-life connections and positive values.

For more information on how to instil positive values in your child, you may find the following websites useful.

White Ribbon: This is part of a global social movement working to eliminate gendered violence.
Man Cave: A preventative mental health and emotional intelligence charity that empowers boys to become great men.
Orygen: A framework to help boys learn healthy behaviours and develop a positive approach to masculinity.
R4Respect: An education strategy to prevent domestic and family violence led by young people for young people.
Flourish Girl: Promoting mental health and emotional intelligence for teenage girls and gender diverse teens in schools.
Girl Power: Fostering a positive mindset, inner confidence and resilience in girls at a young age, before they embark on their teenage years and are exposed to the powerful world of social media.