Term 4 Week 3 2023

Key Information

Term 4 Important Dates

• Swimming Sessions will continue this week 
  
• Friday 20th October, 1.50pm - Catholic Identity Meeting 
• Friday 20th October - Cycle to School Morning - 7.45am Florence Clark Park
• Monday 23rd October, 9:40am-10:40am - Mission Month Mass (Mt Isa schools joining us)
• Tuesday 24th October, 3-4pm  - FACE Meeting 
• Friday 27th October - Assembly - MMS - 8.30am
• Friday 27th October - Grandparents Day & Day for Daniel
  
• Week 5, 30th October-3rd November - Year 5 Camp 
• Friday 3rd November - Founders Day Fun Run - 2pm - School Oval
• Friday 10th November - Swimming Carnival 
• Tuesday 14th November - Prep Transition Day
• Friday 17th November, 8:30-10:30am - Move Up Morning 
• Wednesday 22nd November - Awards Evening & Christmas Concert 
• Thursday 23rd November - Year 9 Graduation Dinner 
• Friday 24th November - 8.30am - End of Year Mass
• Friday 24th November - Last Day for Secondary Students 
• Friday 1st December - Last Day of School for Primary Students

Tuckshop News

Please email Jamie-Lea at jmcconachy@sjctsv.catholic.edu.au or call the office to let us know if you're available to volunteer!

Our special for Week 3 is:
Lemon Chicken with Fried Rice, Cherry Ripe Slice and a popper.  

Please have your orders in by WEDNESDAY 8:30 am.

To order: https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Uniform Shop

Our Uniform Shop is now located in the new office space (old library). We are open to orders being placed via the app, https://myschoolconnect.com.au/

Please give us 24 hours to organise collection for your order, we generally contact you when your order is ready to collect.

As this is a new system for us, please be kind and considerate while we find our feet in the new office space.

Miss Heather

Mission Month Mass - Save the Date

End of Term Date Claimers

Awards Night & Christmas Concert Invitation

End of Year Mass Invitation

Founders Day Colour Run - Save the Date

Principal's News

Welcome to Week 3, 

It is hard to believe that the weeks are going by so quickly, before we know it we will be celebrating the end of a very busy but successful school year. 

As I reflect on the incredibly busy year, I am reminded of the great growth we have seen in our teaching and learning portfolio, particularly in the writing domain due to the recent implementation of Writers Toolbox and scheduled (non-negotiable) time for literacy each day. This was presented at both our FACE and Board meetings last term and I am excited to see where this will take us. I know parents are very busy and can’t always make our FACE meetings, we have therefore recorded some of the progress we have experienced and will publish this to families and carers in the coming weeks. 

If your child is in year 3 and above I encourage you to discuss The Writer's Toolbox with your child. I have included some questions below that may assist you with this:

• I know you are currently using the Writers Toolbox in class, what are you currently doing on the website?
• What have you written about recently?
• I heard it gives you instant feedback, tell me about that!
• Does the program tell you how long your average sentences are? How long should they be?

If your child is loving the daily challenges they can access this software from home. The platform itself will provide a daily challenge for your child to work on. You don't need to do a thing. It will also give your child instant feedback on how they can improve their work or prompt them with idea's to strengthen their writing.

The relationship between parents / carers and the school is vital in your child achieving growth and reaching their goals. It is great for parents to check in with their child’s classroom teacher regularly or read the newsletter to engage with your son or daughter about what they are learning. These conversations show your child that we are in partnership, working together to ensure they reach their full potential. 

What a busy week our students and staff had last week. I spoke to student’s last Friday at assembly about the business of term 4 and with that said last week alone we had swimming lessons, the year 5 camp information evening, Rock Pop Mime rehearsals each day, the Bank half day public holiday and the Rock Pop Concert on Friday evening in Mount Isa. Wow, what a week! I would like to formally congratulate our Rock Pop students (all 60 of them), you represented St Joseph’s Catholic School with pride and we are so proud of your achievements. A big thank you to Mrs Delaney-Lovett, Miss Ansell, Miss Brock and Miss Haley for making this possible for our students. I would also like to thank Miss Humes and Mr T who travelled to assist on the night and assisted in the weeks leading up to Rock Pop with the painting of back drops and supervision at rehearsals.

To our families that went along in the evening to support our students, thank you! Everywhere I looked on the night I saw a member of our St Joseph's Community. It was wonderful. 

Our junior primary group placed 2nd overall for their performance and our secondary group placed 1st. The trophies will be displayed in our front office shortly.

Staff Professional Development - Wednesday 18th October 2023
Please note that all staff will be unavailable on Wednesday 18th of October from 3pm. We will be engaging with Mrs Kim McCosker, First Nations Advisor from TCEO and Mrs Kate Sargent, Curriculum Advisor from TCEO as they deliver training on cross-curricular priorities in Version 9.0 of The Australian Curriculum. You may have heard that the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) will be implementing Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum. As the world is changing so quickly, so is education and it is important that we stay up to date with the needs of our students, as well as the needs of 21st Century Learning. We are committed to joining together in inservice professional development to improve our practices for the needs of our students. In 2024 St Joseph's are hopeful that we will be implementing Version 9.0 in Maths and English across the school. 

New Building Update:
Tenders for the new building will close today, Tuesday 17th of October 2023. I am excited to work with i4 architecture to secure a company to build our new school. The demolition went relatively smoothly and we are very grateful for your patience during this time, particularly with the lack of parking. 

Swimming Carnival - Friday 10th November 2023
Our swimming carnival is fast approaching and will take place on Friday 10th November 2023. The students started their swimming lessons last week at the pool in preparation of this. We are excited that Nerissa can offer lessons to our students this year, as in the past we have only been able to offer water safety. I strongly encourage families and students to access the pool outside of these sessions to prepare for the carnival. Mr Purcell will send information home soon about this event. 

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

Mrs Samantha Kelley
Principal 

APRE News

Welcome to week 3! 

Catholic Identity Meeting:
This Friday our Catholic Identity Meeting will be coming together to finalise our mission and vision at St Joseph's. We have spent the year reviewing our mission and vision statements and working on improving them to align better to the mission of St Joseph's Catholic School, Cloncurry. If you would like to join us we will be meeting this coming Friday 20th of October at 1.50pm. 

Catholic Mission Mass: (Socktober Shootout and Gold Coin Donation Day)
Next Monday 23rd October, we will celebrate a Catholic Mission Mass at  9:20 am in the St Mary MacKillop Shed, followed by a Socktober shootout competition during 1st lunch. Students are to bing in a Gold Coin to participate in the shootout to raise funds for Catholic Mission. Students have also been asked to bring in recycled material e.g. bubblewrap, old socks, styrofoam and plastic bags to assist in the creation of the Sockballs.   Please view the following links for more information on the sockballs and Socktober.

Children’s Liturgy this Sunday - All children are invited to join in on our Children’s Liturgy this Sunday during Mass at 8:30 am at St Colman’s Church. Students will be taken out during the mass to focus on the scripture in a more child-friendly way.

Have a blessed week,

Mrs Therese Curley
APRE

Pastoral Care

Mental Health Month
This month encourages all of us to think about our mental health and wellbeing, regardless of whether we may have a lived experience of mental illness or not. It also gives us the opportunity to understand the importance of good mental health in our everyday lives and encourages help seeking behaviours when needed (https://mentalhealthmonth.wayahead.org.au/).

Becoming Citizen Scientists
This week is the Aussie Backyard Bird Count - an annual event that we at St. Joseph’s participate in. If you aren’t into birds, there are other ways you can still collect valuable data on fauna distribution!

Last year, 10 million species observations were collected in the Atlas of Living Australia. Our new research shows 9.6 million of those came from citizen scientists.

If you've got a smartphone or tablet, citizen science is at your fingertips. #WorldAnimalDay is the perfect occasion to start on your journey.

Here are five ongoing citizen science projects you can join today:

🐦Aussie Bird Count with BirdLife Australia

🐟Redmap - What's on the move in Australian seas? with University of Tasmania

🦋Butterflies Australia with Moths and Butterflies Australasia Inc

🔎Report a platypus with Australian Platypus Conservancy (Official)

🐸Frog ID with Australian Museum

All listed projects feed data into the Atlas of Living Australia, Australia’s largest open-source open-access biodiversity data repository.

By combining citizen science data with professionally collected data, we get a much richer picture of species’ distributions.

Learn about how we test the reliability of citizen science data, and its contribution to research: https://www.csiro.au/.../Sept.../citizen-science-naturalists

*Taken from the CSIRO Accessed 4th October 2023

Ride to School

Don’t forget to meet us this Friday!

Day for Daniel is Australia’s largest child safety event of its kind. It’s held in schools, workplaces, early childhood centres and public and private events all across the nation. Most commonly held on the last Friday each October, however, at SJC this year, we are holding this on Friday 27th October 2023.  Students will participate in activities and are encouraged to wear a red shirt to raise awareness of the importance of child safety.

Mrs Toni Schneekloth
Pastoral Leader

Prep

Welcome to Week 3, 

This week in Prep we will continue with our Construction Site theme and use this as our writing stimulus. The class will also explore what an architect does, look at the plans for our new school and create and label their own building design. This activity also fits with our Prep HASS unit. I am sure we will have some creative designs!

During Math we will be focusing on "sharing amounts into groups" (division). The potatoes that we planted in Term 3 are ready to harvest. This week we will cut the bucket open and see how many we have. Next week the class will use these to cook mashed potatoes with different toppings.

Reminders:

• Tuesday - Swimming
• Wednesday - order tuckshop
• Thursday - tuckshop, library and return reading/homework folders.

Yours in fun and learning,

Mrs Sharon McLauchlan, Miss Tamara Williams and Miss Brie Thew

Year 1

Hello and welcome to week 3!

This week in English we have started to collaboratively construct a Bump It Up Wall identifying how we can successfully work to our personal best. Students have all completed their ready to launch task, checking the success criteria. 

Over the last two weeks students have had a one-on-one meeting with Miss Brock to co-construct a reading, writing and numeracy goal for the term. Throughout the term we will continue to work towards these goals. Please ask your child about their goals. 

In math, we have finished our unit of work on chance and data. We are now moving into our unit on Direction. Students are learning to use the language of direction to move from one place to another.

Reminders:

• Swimming is tomorrow afternoon. Please remember to pack togs for your child!
• Please remember that homework is expected back on Thursday to be handed out again on Friday.
• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Chaplain’s Breakfast - Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Aussie Backyard Bird Count - Second lunch all week
• Cycle to School Morning - Friday 7:45am Florence Clark Park 
  
• 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.

Wednesday: Swimming

Thursday: Technology

Friday: Resilience Project/Library

Have a wonderful first week!

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

Year 2

Hi all,

This week we are looking into the structure of a Persuasive text and will begin constructing one later in the week. Persuasive writing encourages students to consider their word choices to construct a convincing argument. Talk with your child about their progress with their persuasive writing. 

We have completed our assessment on Flips, Slides and Turns and have moved into Location for the rest of the week. In Science, we are looking into forces, particularly Push and Pull. We will also be looking at healing relationships with God and others.

Reminders:

• Sport (Swimming) - Tuesday
• Library - Wednesday
• Homework due Wednesday
• Technologies - Friday
• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Chaplain’s Breakfast - Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Aussie Backyard Bird Count - Second lunch all week
• Cycle to School Morning - Friday 7:45am Florence Clark Park 
  

Kind regards,

Mrs Leonie Ansell

Year 3

Welcome to Week 3!

I want to congratulate all our Year 3 ‘Rock-Poppers’ who achieved second place last Friday for their Emu performance! The students should be so proud of their massive effort and dedication to Rock Pop. I am so happy for them that their hard work paid off.

Here’s what we are learning this week:

English: Students are learning to write poems with the AABB rhyming scheme, and using other language features like onomatopoeia and imagery to enhance their writing!

Spelling: Students will be focusing on the sound ‘z’ as in ‘was’, which is represented by the graphemes z, zz, s, se, and si.

Maths: This week we will be learning about angles in the real world, identifying right angles, obtuse angles and acute angles.

Religion: Students will be reading two key scriptures from Luke and the Corinthians to explore what Jesus’ life was like at the time and how he is believed as the Messiah today. 

HASS: Students will be learning how to pose inquiry questions. They will also be learning and using research skills to locate and collect information to answer inquiry questions. This week's focus is on John Flynn (a significant figure who has impacted our Cloncurry community). 

Science: Students will be learning about how particles behave in the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. 

Other Reminders:

• Homework - Homework will be taken home Monday and is due on Friday.
• Swimming - Tuesday in PE
• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Chaplain’s Breakfast - Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Aussie Backyard Bird Count - Second lunch all week
• Cycle to School Morning - Friday 7:45am Florence Clark Park 
• Socktober Challenge - if you can, please start sending students into school with any materials to contribute to our sockball!

Thank you. Have a great week!

Miss Laura Cook

Year 4

Hi all,

Writing: Our sentence focus this week is 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.
• The sun, which is 150 million kilometres away, is the star at the centre of our solar system.

Spelling: We have two spelling sounds this week, the ‘z’ sound for zebra and the ‘ge’ sound for treasure. The zebra sound can be represented by the graphemes z, zz, s and se while the treasure sound is most commonly represented by the graphemes s and si.

Zebra

• The graphemes s and se frequently represent the zebra sound (e.g. was, his, please, because).
• The suffix s commonly represents zebra (e.g. dogs, tubs).
• The suffix es commonly represents the sequence of sounds ‘er’ then ‘z’ (e.g. lunches, peaches).
• The grapheme ss is an unusual way to represent the ‘z’ sound (e.g. scissors, dessert).
• The grapheme x can represent the two phonemes ‘g’ then ‘z’ (e.g. example, exact).
• The grapheme zz for zebra is seen after short vowel sounds (e.g. fizz, puzzle).

Treasure

• The ‘ge’ sound in treasure is most commonly represented by the graphemes s and si. Both of these graphemes are used in the middle of words (e.g. usual, version).
• The grapheme ge can represent treasure. It is often used at the end of words (e.g. beige, collage).

Reminders:

• Tuckshop - Please make sure Tuckshop orders are placed by Wednesday morning.
• Library - Students have their library visit this Tuesday
• PE - Students have PE on Wednesday
• Aussie Backyard Bird Count - Second lunch all week
• Cycle to School Morning - Friday 7:45am Florence Clark Park 

Have a great week,

Miss Mairin Borlase

Year 5

Dear Families,

SWIMMING: Swimming lessons continue on Wednesday 18th October. Please arrive at school promptly for our 8:20 roll so that we can head straight to the pool. Wear bathers/togs (or whatever you want to call them) under school uniform so that it can be a quick change at the side of the pool. Please remember towel, goggles and underwear - school shoes must be worn on walks to and from the pool.

Congratulations to our Rock Poppers - their performance was excellent and being my first ever Rock Pop, I was exceptionally proud of the way the team handled themselves throughout. I am immensely proud of all of them!

Thank you to all families for their attendance at the Camp Information Meeting. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me in the next couple of weeks. Any families unable to attend need to forward the Medical and Consent forms ASAP. All paperwork should be returned by Monday 16th October.

ENGLISH: This term, we will focus again on persuasive writing and our Daily Challenges. In spelling, we will focus on the letters (graphemes) used to make the sounds (phonemes) [ou ow] and also investigate suffix -able and continue to work on homophones (words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings - e.g. council and counsel).

In our reading comprehension, our focus will be on word meaning in context and facts/opinions used within texts we read. There are a range of excellent texts which will be used throughout the term - mostly focussed on the connection to Biology and plants/animals adaptations. We will discuss the roles within a Socratic Debate - Director, Question Maker, Word Detective, Clarifiers, Creators and Connectors. The purpose of this 'reading circle' is to discuss texts that we read, contribute to debate about vocabulary meaning and how we can connect reading with our own life.

MATHEMATICS: We will begin to further investigate and revise our work on fractions, decimals and percentages. We will continue to investigate place value with decimals. Think Mentals continues to focus on revision of different strategies to solve problems involving all four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Wishing you a great Week 3,

Mr Mike Tarleton

Year 6

Welcome to Week 3 everyone!

This week we have begun looking at the visual, structural and language features of the Literary text ‘The Lorax’ as well as the informative Brochure ‘Threats to the Daintree Rainforest. 

In Maths we have been spending a large portion of the week looking at different examples of Pyramids and Prisms–focusing on the different characteristics of each. 

In HASS this term, we have started to look at Migration–why people choose to leave their country and why people have to leave their country due to a number of reasons. The class has spoken about a number of reasons and we have discussed the fact that Australia is a very multicultural country that has welcomed a number of migrants throughout its history. 

In Health, the focus has been on transitioning for next year–things that will be difficult, and things that we are looking forward to about heading into High School. 

It has been a very busy week. 6 Weeks of Primary School to go! 

• Tuckshop - Must be ordered before 8:30am Wednesday 
• Chaplain’s Breakfast - Thursday at 7:45am in MMS 
• Aussie Backyard Bird Count - Second lunch all week
• Cycle to School Morning - Friday 7:45am Florence Clark Park 

Thanks everyone.

Mr Dom Purcell 

Subject Spotlight

Yr 9 Science with Mrs Delaney-Lovett:
This term the students are studying Physical Science, exploring heat, light and sound. They will describe how energy transfer through different mediums can be explained using wave and particle models. Through this topic, students will place a particular focus on Electricity - static and current - and use hands-on learning experiences to further understand this energy type. This week we have started unpacking the ways to represent a circuit in a scientific drawing format, identifying and applying the appropriate symbols used in circuit diagrams. This unit is short and sharp and will round of the end of their year 9 science journey nicely. 

Year 8 Geography with Miss Humes:
This term we have wrapped up the last of our Geography units in Year 8 by looking at the considerations taken when planning for population growth. This week we begin to look at our next and final topic of the year, Business and Economics. 

In this unit students will be looking at different markets - stock, fast food, etc. - within Australia. We hear about them, but how exactly is it they work, and what impact do they have on us as citizens of this country? For some of us, minimal, but they are examples of some of the questions we might be asking in the coming weeks. On top of this, students will also explore the different types of businesses and how they operate within these markets, as well as the rights and responsibilities of businesses to consumers and employees. There will be a lot of new vocabulary and acronyms involved - ASX, GST, tax - but I am positive we will soon get a grasp on it and the different factors that influence Australia’s economy.

Year 8 Maths with Mr Kelley:
This term students have started work by naming the features of circles, such as radius, diameter, and Pi (π). They have used different round items from the workshop — paint lids, spray cans, and other various items — and calculated the circumferences of each item based either on the diameter or radius. 

Put the Year 8’s to the test. Ask one of the Year 8 students to explain the picture below to you. Hopefully, you will be surprised at how much they know about circles.

This week we will move on to testing for congruent triangles and deduce the properties of quadrilaterals.

Year 8 Science with Mr Timms:
This term the Year 8’s will be having their first taste of geology. Students this term will explore the different rock types and rock formations from within our natural landscapes. Students so far have looked at rock forming and gotten their hands dirty looking at the different samples from our Science Lab. The students so far have shown great enthusiasm and excitement towards the subject and we are all excited to progress in this unit.

Student Wellbeing

School refusal, sometimes called school avoidance or school phobia, is not uncommon. It is different to ‘wagging’ or truancy and is often related to worry or anxiety-related issues about going to school. School refusal may start gradually or happen suddenly. Although it is normal for a child to occasionally miss a day of school, parents should only be concerned if a child regularly complains about feeling sick or often asks to stay home due to minor physical complaints.

School refusal is a complex issue as there is rarely a single cause. It affects children of all ages across primary and secondary levels. It can often occur during times of transition at school. More recently, the Coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the educational experience of all students, affecting some more than others. Dealing with a school refusal child can affect the whole family, adding pressure to an already challenging time. School refusal is not considered a formal psychiatric diagnosis. It’s a name given to an emotional and/or behavioural problem.

In this edition of SchoolTV, adult carers will learn how best to approach this issue and work towards a solution.

Here is the link to the School Refusal edition of SchoolTV
https://sjctsv.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/school-refusal

No Smoking Law

FOR ACTION - New Smoke-Free Law 01.09.2023
From 01 September 2023, new Smoke-Free laws apply. Smoking is already prohibited at public and private school facilities and in a 5-meter buffer zone extending from the boundary of the school.  These new laws extend the smoke-free protection to include all carparks provided for school communities. This includes carparks located on council land that are intended for school community use.

Smoke-free requirements for schools apply at all times which means school carparks are also smoke-free areas outside of school hours, on weekends and in school holidays.  These laws apply to everyone using the school carparks (students, staff, parents, volunteers, visitors, contractors and clubs accessing school facilities).

Smoking products can include tobacco products, personal vaporisers (e-cigarettes/cigars, vape pens), e-liquids & e-cigarette parts, etc.

Community Information