St Joseph's Catholic School - Cloncurry eNewsletter

Key Information

Term 3 Important Dates

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 5 is: Chicken Burrito Bowl, Cornflake Choc Slice 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 5,

This week marks the halfway point of Term 3 (isn’t that crazy?). I must say term 3 would have to be one of my favourite terms. We come together this term for quite a few celebrations and today is a great example of this as we celebrate The Feast Day of St Mary MacKillop. The students morning session (period 1 and 2) was unchanged, however, after morning tea students joined with fellow members of their Flinders or Kennedy House as they competed in a kahoot, drew an artwork of Mary MacKillop which was prepared by local artist Mrs Ruth Chaplain and acted out the life of Mary MacKillop in a play. We also joined together at 1.50pm in the MMS for a Mass by Fr Mick. 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. Also a special mention to our teachers for assisting with the activities, our students loved them!

Staff Appreciation Day:

This Friday we will also be celebrating Staff Appreciation Day!

We can’t wait to celebrate the impact that we all make on the lives of our students each and everyday.

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 Friday. We have some surprises planned for staff, but a personal touch from our students is always well received.

Save the Date - Learning Breakfast & Book Week Parade

Friday 18th August:

7.45am - Breakfast
8.00am - Classrooms Open
8.30am - Book Week Parade in the Courtyard

Fete - Free Dress Day & Pantry Item Request - Friday 25th of August 2023:

We are excited for our School Fete which is approaching incredibly fast - Friday 25th August. This year the funds raised will go towards renovating our Arts and Drama room. We had hoped to have this completed prior to the new building, however, it has been challenging to find a company with the time and resources to take on this project. We are hopefully to attach this onto our refurbishment.

On Friday 25th 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 baked good for our cake stall at the fete.

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

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal

APRE News

Welcome to Week 5!

Today we are celebrating 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 a good old game of tug a war. 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 let’s not forget the celebration donuts - always a big hit!

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

Action for Happiness
The mission of Action for Happiness is ‘Let's create a wave of kindness to spread around the world.’ I have shared many of these calendars over the last few years but did you know you can have these sent as reminders in your Google calendar or through the app available for both iOS and Android. The free Action for Happiness app gives you friendly nudges with an action idea each day, sends you inspiring messages to give you a boost and helps you connect & share ideas with like-minded people. Check it out today at https://actionforhappiness.org/

Make your home a mindful one!

Establish new habits and foster positive mental health routines with your family. Mindfulness not only benefits children, it supports parents’ and caregivers’ mental health and wellbeing, benefiting the family as a whole.

Smiling Mind has developed a range of tools and resources to support families to build their mental fitness together. The Smiling Mind free app has programs developed specifically for families to help with:

Sleep - Establish good sleep routines and support a better night’s sleep for the whole family.
Meal times - Make meal times calmer and more enjoyable.
After school - Reset kids’ minds and bodies after a busy day of learning.
On the go - Engage with mindfulness while your family is travelling.
Weekends - Foster connection and help your family prepare for the week ahead.

Mr Dom Purcell
Acting Pastoral Care Leader

Prep

Welcome to Week 5,

During maths this week the class will continue exploring measurement. In literacy we will learn the sounds "z" and "ch" and revise the tricky words ball, call, tall, all, little, go, so, no, this, then. Please practice these words at home. The Preps begin our new science unit this week which is about how things move based on characteristics such as shape. On Tuesday the whole school will spend time celebrating Mary Mackillop Feast Day. Mary Mackillop is especially important to us as our school was the last school she founded before her passing. Miss Tamara is away this week. Please be mindful that I may not be able to help with morning separation issues if morning carpet time has begun when you drop your child at school.

Reminders:

Tuesday - sport, Mary Mackillop feast day activities
Wednesday - order tuckshop
Thursday - tuckshop and bring home reader folders back.
Friday - Library

Please bring in waterproof recyclable containers for the class to make boats with in design technologies.

Yours in fun and learning,

Miss Tamara Williams, Miss Brie Thew and Mrs Sharon McLauchlan

Year 1

Welcome to week 5. Wow, half way through the term already!

This week we will celebrate the Feast of Mary MacKillop on Tuesday with activities followed by a whole school Mass.

Miss Haley is out on both Tuesday and Wednesday at a Beginning Teacher’s Conference in Townsville.

Miss Brock will be out of the classroom on both Thursday and Friday completing our Early Years Post Testing.

Reminders:

Sport is on Wednesday. Children may wear their Sport Uniform to school.
Library is on Friday. If your child has not yet brought back their library bags it would be great if they did so.
Homework will be handed out on Friday. Homework did not go out last week, however, if your child has outstanding books it would be great if they were brought back.

Have a wonderful week!

Miss Mae-Louise Brock, Miss Erin 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 look at John Flynn. In Maths, we are working on telling the time time 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 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)

Have a great week,

Miss Leonie Ansell

Year 3

Welcome to Week 5,

It was awesome to see so many Blinky Bills and Nutsys on the float for the Merry Muster on Friday! I hope everyone had a great long weekend to follow.

Here’s what we are learning this week:

English: Last week, I modelled how to write a paragraph for an information text to the students. We discussed how paragraphs need a topic sentence, an explanation, examples and a concluding sentence. Then we all co-constructed a paragraph together to practice. This set students up for success to independently write a paragraph. They all did so well! Students will continue to practice writing informative paragraphs this week.

Spelling: Students will be focusing on the sound ‘er’ as in fern, which is represented by the graphemes ir, ur, or, er.

Maths: This week students will explore metric units for capacity, working to measure, compare and order volumes.

Religion: Students will work as a class to rewrite the Beatitudes in their own words and continue to discuss their importance as a moral guide for how we should act today.

Health: Students will explore different tools and strategies they can use to manage their emotions such as taking deep breaths, talking to a friend, or counting to ten.

HASS: In HASS this term we have been exploring Australia's neighbours. We have already researched characteristics of Australia and New Zealand, and this week we will compare the similiarities and differences of these countries. We will also revise climate zones and countries on maps!

Science: This week, students will become science researchers, exploring the school to find living things in our environment. Students have already made predictions for their findings and made plans to be safe and fair in the investigation.

Other Reminders:

Unfortunately I will not be at school Tuesday or Wednesday this week as I will be away for a professional development course.
Homework - Homework will be taken home Monday
Mary MacKillop Feast Day Mass & Activities - Tuesday
Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday
Chaplain’s Breakfast - Tuesday & Thursday at 7:45am in MMS
Rock Pop - Thursday 3pm-4pm

I hope you all have a great week.

Thanks,

Miss Laura Cook

Year 4

Hi all,

Writing: Our sentence focus for this week is The Preposition Start Sentence. This sentence gives your writing more energy. It starts with a preposition such as: on, in, by, after, during, under, over, from, behind, at, before, against, next to, close to, through, etc. After your preposition bit, place a comma. Add your subject, then finish the rest of your sentence. It's that easy. Here are some more examples:

Under Gran's sofa, Billy discovered his long-lost peanut butter sandwich.
Above the treetops, three golden eagle birds searched for their next meal.
At exactly seven o’clock, every light in the house went dark.
Before the end of class, Freddy pressed the switch and the teacher Mr Brown vanished.

Spelling: Our spelling sound this week is the ‘rr’ sound in bird. It can be represented by the graphemes: ir, ur, or and er.

The grapheme or for the ‘rr’ in bird is often used after w (e.g. work, world).
The grapheme ere in the word were is an unusual way to represent the ‘rr’ sound.

Reminders:

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

Library - Students don’t visit the

PE - Students have PE on Thursday.

Have a great week,

Miss Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Dear Families,

Great to see many of you at the Merry Muster on Friday - I trust you all had a terrific action filled weekend. Preparation for the float was considerable and I really appreciate the time taken to create B1 and B2 costumes - check out several of our photos online.

ENGLISH: In English, we will commence our investigation into - paragraphs used in Persuasive texts. The first we look at is the Lawyer Paragraph - so expect to have arguments about mobile phones, technologies in schools, plastic waste among other topics around the dinner table. In spelling, we are investigating the multiple graphemes used to represent the phoneme (sound) [er, ir, ur and or] and also investigate into the suffix verb endings -ed and -ing and continued work on Latin and Greek Origins - prefix circum- (circumference, circumnavigate) and the Latin Root circ- (circle, circular etc). We are currently reading Space Boy by David Walliams in class, which has generated much laughter and joy. Our comprehension structure reflects on many shorter texts that learners read and respond to. The focus of our work continues to involve hidden meaning - discovering authors' inferred meaning.

RELIGION: This week, we celebrate Mary Mackillop who was Australia's first Saint. Mary Mackillop Feast Day is on Tuesday where we will have Mass and also share activities across the school.

In our religion lessons, we are currently investigating Bible Scriptures with reference to 'Loving one Another as God Loves Us.' We will compare and contrast the different texts using online resources and Bibles.

MATHS: In mathematics, we will continue to investigate 3D shapes - looking at nets (flat representations of 3D shapes), and using nets to create 3D shapes with cardboard. If you have any old cereal boxes, please send them in this week so we can dismantle them and discuss the net. Our Think Mentals is revision of the four operations, decimals, fractions and other areas of maths. We will continue to develop our strategies when adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

Wishing you all a terrific week 5.

Mr Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Another busy week in Year 6!

We have had a huge focus on using a variety of sentence types in our writing for Term 3. This week the focus has been on the Preposition Start Sentence. Students have been trying to include the sentence type in their newspaper article writing.

In Maths- students are revising fractions and percentage discounts in preparation for their Cycle 1 Maths Assessment at the end of the week. They have been working really hard!

In Religion- students are at the end of their unit looking at the Jewish High Holy Days, as well as the importance of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. This week we also celebrated our Mary Mackillop Feast Day, with fun rotations and a Whole School Mass to celebrate the occasion.

We are officially at the halfway point of the term!

Mr Dom Purcell

UMY Spotlight

Yr 7 Business & Economics with Mr Delaney

This term, we are learning about the ancient world! We started the term by exploring ancient Australia through the use of Historical inquiry skills and the concepts associated with history. In addition to conceptualising ancient Australia, we investigated the Narrabeen Man (ancient human remains found in Sydney).

With all of these new skills under our belts, we are moving onto ancient Rome and China. The students will describe the effects of change on societies, individuals and groups. They will also describe events and developments from the perspective of different people who lived at the time, explaining the role of groups and the significance of particular individuals in society.

Yr 9 Maths with Mr Kelley

This term, students have started work on linear equations and algebra. They have focused on finding the midpoint, gradient, and the relationship between graphs and equations. While these concepts can be difficult to understand our Year 9 cohort are showing great resilience when they are in the “Learning Pit”—they can explain that to you.

Below, I have added examples of the type of questions our students are currently working on. Ask them to solve them for you and explain their thinking.

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

Student Wellbeing

Managing Overwhelm

Willingly or not, we have all been exposed to a piece of bad news that has lingered in our thoughts for days afterwards. This seems to be more common in the current environment than ever before. Due to the pandemic, the world we now live in is a very different place, so it is easy to see why we might feel impacted. It can often seem like there are many stressful events occurring simultaneously, and the hyperconnected nature of our environment means we are constantly being reminded of the challenges we face via numerous media and social media channels. Our connectivity to the digital world exposes us to a barrage of messages that can often leave us feeling overwhelmed.

It is therefore important for children and parents alike, to consciously and intentionally learn good wellbeing strategies. Unfortunately, our brains have not evolved fast enough to adapt to the digital landscape we find ourselves in and this often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and can result in increased levels of stress and anxiety. If left untreated or unmanaged, constant stress and anxiety can lead to a number of behavioural issues or health consequences.

The blueprint for parenting, based on our own experiences, is no longer fit for purpose in raising kids as citizens of tomorrow. The combination of constant access to information and having little control over the situations presented, can be stressful and overwhelming. Although we can’t provide our kids with certainty, we can provide them with the skills and strategies to cope to enable them to flourish and thrive, socially, emotionally and academically. It may not necessarily be the information itself that is harmful, but more their inability to process and make sense of it.

https://sjctsv.catholic.schooltv.me/wellbeing_news/special-report-managing-overwhelm

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

The Fete is only 3 weeks away! We are very excited for this year's event, however we need your help to make it happen. We need volunteers! A link has been sent out via emails to families asking them to volunteer for just one hour of their night (if you can do more, you are a champion!). If you missed this email use the QR code below to get on and register your availability to one of our school run stalls.

Alternatively use this link: https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code/ypp5d

If for any reason you have trouble, come into the office and we will book you in.

Look how great our assorted items wheelbarrow is looking! This will be used as a prize at the Fete and is made up of donations from our school community. We would love to have it as full as possible. If you would like to donate any household items to go into this please bring them into the office!