Term 3 Week 4 2023

Key Information

Term 3 Important Dates

• Wednesday 2nd August - 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 if you're available to volunteer!

Our special for Week 4 is: Beef Ramen, Pancake Muffins 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 Week 4, 

This week our staff and students will enjoy a shorter week as The Cloncurry Community prepares to celebrate The Merry Muster. Friday is an IPRASS Day, which means St Joseph’s will be closed. Due to our rural and isolated location our school receives two IPRASS days per year. This assists our students and staff who may need to travel for any reason. Our other IPRASS Day was at the end of Term 1. 

Merry Muster Float:
This Friday our students are invited to join us for our Merry Muster Float on Station Street at 5.00pm. Students will also need to be collected from the same location at the conclusion of the Street Parade. Please read further into the newsletter to see each class's costume guide. 

Bravehearts - Prep to Year 2 - Wednesday 2nd August:
Bravehearts will be presenting to our Prep to Year 2 students on Wednesday afternoon from 1.50 - 2.50pm. Bravehearts present a fun, interactive live incursion which teaches young children essential personal safety skills and knowledge using age-appropriate language, songs, and dance, starring Bravehearts’ lovable lion cub ‘Ditto’ and a specially trained presenter. The bravehearts website also has great resources, including Parent Pack's. Jump on and have a look: https://bravehearts.org.au/education/dittos-keep-safe-adventure-program/dittos-keep-safe-adventure-show/

St. Mary MacKillop Feast Day:
Next Tuesday we are excited to celebrate Mary MacKillop Feast Day. Please note that awards will be given out at our school mass in the afternoon as there will be no assembly next Friday. Please join us for an afternoon of celebrations ✨.

Demountable Buildings and New Build Update:
As you would be aware St Joseph's is preparing for the demolition of our administration building and year 1 - year 4 primary classrooms. In 2022 I presented at The Queensland Catholic Education Commission to request funding for this project and we are very blessed to have their support with this. We are hopeful that this demolition will take place in the term 3 holiday period. We are excited to provide our students with contemporary learning spaces to learn and develop within. However, we do acknowledge that there will be some disruptions in this time. 

To prepare for this our demountable buildings have been transported to Cloncurry and will begin installation tomorrow (2nd of August). Please note that this will impact the angled parking on George Street (not all of it, but majority). We're currently working with the council for more parking options during the building stage, but will need to update you on this as we go. 

Ausco is the company that have assisted with the relocation and installation of the demountable buildings. Today Ausco will be setting out block tie downs and tomorrow will be lifting the buildings into place. 

In the coming weeks we will update you on our relocation timeline of classrooms into the demountable buildings, however, the following rooms will relocate into either our new demountables or our current arts/drama room:

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3
• Year 4
• Library 

The front office, uniform shop, sick bay and printing station will be relocated into the library. 

The placement of the demountable buildings on George Street took a lot of consideration, however, this placement will have the smallest impact on the day to day running of the school. The only other option was our school oval, however, many of you would be aware of the work that went into the installation of the oval 2 years ago. A lot of this work was an in kind donation from our families. The placement of the demountables on George Street will not only ensure our oval doesn't get damaged, however, will ensure the student's play space and lesson's won't be impacted for the duration of demolition and construction. 

We are very excited about this project and apologise for any inconveniences caused by the upcoming demolition and building plans. I am hopeful to have a new 'fly through' video for you shortly. 

Staff Appreciation Day:
At St Joseph’s Catholic School we celebrate Staff Appreciation Day together as one. In previous years we have celebrated separately on World Teachers Day, World School Officer Day and World Administration Day. However, we love coming together in unisom to celebrate the impact that we each have on the lives of our students each and every day. 

On Friday of Week 5, being Friday the 11th of August our staff will celebrate. I encourage our students to take some time over the coming weeks to write and/or draw a message or picture of appreciation for our staff and hand it to them on this day. We have some surprises planned for staff, but a personal touch from our students is always well received. 

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

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal 

APRE News

Welcome to Week 4!

On the 8th of August (Tuesday next week) we will celebrate the Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop, the first Australian saint, and our patron Saint who granted our Cloncurry community a catholic education. We have such a strong connection to Mary, and it is important that as a school we recognise this with a celebration. Classes will participate in activities in the middle session of the day followed by a Mass at 1:40 pm. We encourage our school community to join us for this special mass.  

At this Mass we will also acknowledge the Week 4 Award recipients as there will be no Assembly next week.

Have a blessed week,

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

MANAGING SCREEN TIME

As a result of the global pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the amount of time people spend on screen-based devices. Families are transitioning back to pre-COVID routines but many are still struggling to re-establish the boundaries and rules around screen use. Some continue to deal with digital conflict and tech-tantrums on a daily basis. The latest research found that 77% of teenagers spend more than five hours on screens per day, but it is important to note that not all screen time is considered equal.

Parents play a crucial role in modelling a positive and healthy approach to using screens and assisting children to navigate the content they watch. It is better to model and mentor screen use, rather than monitor it. Children tend to do more of what they see us do, and less of what we tell them to do. However, it is still important to outline the risks and highlight the benefits of screen use to ensure you keep a balanced attitude. Encourage discussions around the issues that people experience in monitoring their screen time and be honest about your own difficulties.

Parents need to remain firm in their approach to managing screen time. Excessive screen time can be detrimental to a child’s overall wellbeing. Ensuring the correct privacy settings are in place is vital to prevent children from being inadvertently exposed to inappropriate content or online predators. Parents need to also be mindful of the potential impact screen time can have on a child’s social, emotional, educational, behavioural, and even physical domains.

In this edition of SchoolTV, care-givers will be provided with a range of guidelines and strategies to help manage screen time at home.

We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact our Pastoral team of Mr Dom Purcell, Pastoral Care Leader, Miss Bec, Guidance Counsellor, or Miss Pete, School Chaplain, for further information or seek medical or professional help.

Here is the link to the Managing Screen Time edition of SchoolTV

https://sjctsv.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/managing-screen-time

Mr Dom Purcell
Acting Pastoral Care Leader

Prep

Week 4,

This week's news mainly consists of notifications.

• PE was changed to Monday this week.
• There is no school on Friday. Friday evening is the Merry Muster Parade. All of our students are welcome on the float. The theme is Dynamic Duos and Prep is dressing as Bluey. We have made Bluey masks for the students to wear, they just need to dress in blue. More information about times etc. will be sent out later in the week.
• Over the next couple of weeks in Design Tech the Preps will be making a boat. Any recyclable materials that could be used for this would be appreciated.
• I have been out of class for the start of this week to complete Early Years Testing. This testing will show the growth of the students from the beginning of the year up until now and will direct us on how best to cater to the student's learning needs. Mrs Bates has been the teacher on these days.
• We need an extra Literacy Group helper on Monday and Thursday this week. Literacy groups are from about 9.15am to 9.30am. Please let us know if you are able to help.
• At the NAIDOC march and celebration, our students watched The Cloncurry State School Indigenous Dance Group perform. The Cloncurry State School have extended an invitation to students of St Joseph's from Prep to Year 6 to join. The Aboriginal Dance Group is open to Indigenous and Non-Indigenous students and is supervised by a teacher, a school officer, and the dance teacher from The State School. Practices are weekly on Thursdays from 2:50 pm to 3:45 pm at the Cloncurry State School. If your child is interested in joining the Indigenous Dance Group can you please email me your expression of interest and I will pass this on to Mrs Martin.
• Prep will be selling playdough at the school fete. This is made (or bought) by our Prep families. We usually sell small bags of playdough with fun things such as jewels, small plastic animals and dinosaurs, and playdough molds. Can you please send in some fun things to put with our playdough as it gets closer to the fete, any playdough donations would be appreciated.

Reminders:

Monday - PE and Mrs McLauchlan not in class due to doing Early Years Testing with each student.

Tuesday - Mrs McLauchlan not in class due to doing Early Years Testing with each student.

Wednesday - Bravehearts presentation

Friday- NO SCHOOL. Students are invited to go on the school float in the Merry Muster Parade. They will be dressed as Bluey. Masks will be provided, however, can they please wear blue if possible. 

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs McLauchlan, Miss Tamara and Miss Brie

Year 1

Welcome to week 4!

We hope everyone is having a nice week!

Snapshot for this week: 

For English and Math this week students are revising all concepts learnt in the past semester. We are focusing on ensuring that topics are revised and continued to be looked at throughout the rest of the year. 

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

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.

Reminders:

No school on Friday!  We would love to see you at the Merry Muster, We are dressing as Bingo or Bluey. 

Homework was handed out and is to be returned on Thursday. Please ensure that readers are coming back each week as well so that they can be swapped. 

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,

During writing this week, students are constructing an informative text on their peers. They have asked their peers for facts about themselves and are independently creating their texts.  In HASS over the next few weeks, students will be looking at significant people in our town’s history. This week we looked at Burke and Wills. In Maths, we are working on telling the time to the quarter hour. 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 the music we hear and make.

Reminders:

Homework - Homework day is Wednesday

Library - Friday Week A (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)

Resilience Project - Friday Week B (2, 4, 6, 8, 10)

This Friday is Merry Muster. We’ve been busy painting shirts for the float and I can’t wait to see everyone all dressed up as our dynamic duo “G’day” and “Mate”

Have a great week,

Miss Ansell

A message from Mrs Martin

Dear Parents,

At the NAIDOC march and celebration our students watched The Cloncurry State School Indigenous Dance Group perform. The Cloncurry State School have extended an invitation to students of St Joseph's from Prep to Year 6 to join. The Aboriginal Dance Group is open to Indigenous and Non-Indigenous students, and is supervised by a teacher, a school officer and the dance teacher from The State School. Practices are weekly on Thursdays from 2:50pm to 3:45pm at the Cloncurry State School. If your child is interested in joining the Indigenous Dance Group can you please email me your expression of interest and I will follow up with additional information.  

Yours in Faith and Education,

Mrs Louise Martin

Inclusive Practice and Indigenous Education Teacher

lmartin3@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au

Year 3

Welcome to Week 4,

Last Friday was a sad day for the Year 3s (and the whole school) to have to say goodbye to Mrs Cullen. We will all miss her! But as a class, we will be able to keep in contact with Mrs Cullen throughout the rest of the year. 

Here’s what we are learning this week:

English: Students will continue to explore the features and purpose of information texts. This will equip them with the knowledge and skills to create their own information text later in the term. 

Spelling: Students will be focusing on the sound ‘s’ as in see, which is represented by the graphemes s, ss, se, ce, x, and c.

Maths: Last week, students were introduced to metric units and began exploring length. We learned how to use rulers and practice converting between cm and m. This week, students will continue working with length and also start exploring capacity. 

Religion: Students will continue exploring the Beatitudes and how they have meaning for us today. 

Health: Students will explore triggers and indicators that are associated with different emotions (such as happiness, worry, anger, sadness, excitement).

HASS: In HASS this term we have been exploring Australia's neighbours, and this week we will focus on Papua New Guinea.

Science: In science, we will continue researching living and non-living things, investigating their characteristics and developing skills to group and categorise them.

Other Reminders:

• Homework - Homework will be taken home Monday (no home readers this week, but please ensure students are still reading for enjoyment!) 
• PE - Tuesday
• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Chaplain’s Breakfast - Tuesday & Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Rock Pop - Research 3pm-4pm
• Merry Muster 

• No school on Friday to celebrate the Merry Muster 
• Students have created a Blinky Bill or Nutsy mask in class
  and should wear red (boys) or purple (girls) in the parade on Friday 5:30pm

A note from Louise Martin:

Dear Parents,

At the NAIDOC march and celebration our students watched The Cloncurry State School Indigenous Dance Group perform. The Cloncurry State School have extended an invitation to students of St Joseph's from Prep to Year 6 to join. The Aboriginal Dance Group is open to Indigenous and Non-Indigenous students, and is supervised by a teacher, a school officer and the dance teacher from The State School. Practices are weekly on Thursdays from 2:50pm to 3:45pm at the Cloncurry State School. If your child is interested in joining the Indigenous Dance Group can you please email me your expression of interest and I will follow up with additional information.  

Yours in Faith and Education,

Mrs Louise Martin

Inclusive Practice and Indigenous Education Teacher

lmartin3@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au 

I hope you all have a great week.

Thanks,

Laura Cook

Year 4

Hi all,

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

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

Spelling: Our spelling sound this week is the ‘s’ sound in seal. It can be represented by various graphemes: s, ss, se, ce, x and c.

• We usually use ss after short vowel sounds at the end of single-syllable words (e.g. floss, dress).
• We can use c for ‘seal’ before e, i or y (e.g. cent, centre, city, pencil, cylinder, fancy).
• We can use x for the two sounds ‘k’ (kite) and ‘s’ (seal) (e.g. six, box, wax, next, sixty).
• The graphemes se and ce for ‘seal’ are usually used at the end of words (e.g. mouse, horse, dance, peace).

Reminders:

• Merry Muster - Remember that we have Friday off school to celebrate the Merry Muster. 
• Tuckshop - Please make sure Tuckshop orders are placed by Wednesday morning.

• Library - Students will miss their library visit this week due having Friday off for the Merry Muster.

• PE - Students have PE on Thursday.

Have a great week,

Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Dear families, 

Hope you all had a great weekend at Quamby or if you stayed in town - the weather couldn’t have been better. This Friday is a school closure and we will meet at…5pm on Station Street for our Merry Muster Float. Remember we are dressing up as B1 and B2. Many thanks for embracing this bit of fun and helping your child to dress up - it is very much appreciated.

ENGLISH: This week, we will continue with our investigation into figurative language - personification is often used by authors. E.g. The Moon played hide and seek with the clouds. The Moon is not human but saying it plays hide and seek personifies it. In spelling, we are investigating the multiple graphemes used to represent the phoneme (sound) [s, ss, se, ce, c, x] and also investigate into the suffix -ous and continued work on homophones - words that sound the same but with different spellings and meanings. In our writing, we are using our scientific learning to continue information texts.

MATHS: In mathematics, we are using 3D software called TinkerCAD. Children are working in small teams to design and create a Moon base. Students are developing their understanding of angles, measurement and 3D shape while developing their communication, leadership skills and Elements for Success. We will finalise our learning about transformations - reflection (flip), translations (slide) and rotations (turn) before further investigation into angles of turn and compass point directions.

HEALTH: There is a separate news item on our Y5 Website, please check this out online. I am in the process of organising an excursion to the Dam - it will be Week 1 in Term 4. Please click the BIKE link to complete the survey about bikes, support etc. Thank you!

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

• MERRY MUSTER FLOAT: Our class voted for B1 and B2 (Bananas in Pyjamas) and will dress up on Friday 4th August.
• 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. Our class is currently 4th on the leaderboard for selling raffle tickets!
• OptiMINDS 2023 - You should have received an email regarding this, if your child nominated themselves, as our Y5 Team of 7 students, for this event. Saturday 26th August is the date of the event in Mount Isa, more details will follow. 

• 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 a terrific week,

Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Week 4 has been a busy one in the year 6 classroom!

We have been getting our costumes ready for the Curry Merry Muster. Students have been creating their Magpie costumes, with a small group of students preparing their bike helmets with Zip ties to avoid being swooped. 

In Maths, we have switched the focus to Prime and Composite numbers for Week 4. Students have been working out quick and easy ways to determine if numbers have a number of different factors.

In English, there has been a large focus on different sentence types, in particular the Explore the Subject and Em–Dash Sentences. It’s amazing how much the writing has improved in the past two weeks and we can’t wait to see how they will be used in the Federation Newspaper articles being produced at the end of the term.

UMY Spotlight

Yr 7 Science with Ms Shara Humes

This term we have moved into the field of Physics. Within this branch of science, we are further developing our understanding of how the world works, particularly in regards to motion. What exactly causes a bowling ball to drop straight down, while the feather glides and twists its way to Earth? Why does this happen? Students are given the opportunity to discover this and more as we explore the different forces in our world and the effect they have when balanced, or unbalanced as the case may be. Here’s a handy guide to the different forces – maybe ask your child about some of them and see what they can teach you!

Later this term we will also look at how these different forces are applied in relation to simple machines – such as a lever or pulley system – and how they work. To finish up with, though, students will revisit one of the first experiments we completed for Physics, improving on initial designs with the new knowledge gained through our understanding of different forces. This is, of course, the classic egg drop, where we aim to protect an egg dropped from height.  Hopefully their results are a touch less ‘smashing’ this time. 

Merry Muster Float

The theme of the Merry Muster Float this year is Australian Dynamic Duo's. Our classes 'Dynamic Duo is listed below:

2023 Non-Government Schools Census Notice - Privacy Statement

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.

Indigenous Education

St Joseph's Catholic School & St Colman's Catholic Parish Fete

Wheelbarrow Raffle Donations 

If you would like to donate to the assorted items wheelbarrow this year please click the link below or use the QR code to choose the item/s you want to donate and then bring them into the office. https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code/5wkg7  

St Joseph's School Blessing

Community Information