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- Prayer Focus
- Leader's Message
- Parish News
- P&F Community Connect
- Band News
- School Bus Changes - Effective Monday 23rd May 2022
- Sport Spotlight
- PBS (Positive Behaviour Support)
- Sharing our Learning
- CSO Esports Gaming Competition 2022
- Sunshine Cafe
- Student Awards
- School Photos
- Northern Rivers Flood Relief Concert
- What's On Next Week ...
- Advance Dates for Your Diary
- This Week's Notes
- Billboard
Mary, Help of Christians, Queen of heaven and earth, and tender Mother of humanity, we entrust to you our nation, Australia, and all who live in this country.
We commit to your intercession all the members of our community, beginning with the weakest ones, from the unborn to the sick, the disabled and the elderly.
We commit to you our families, our young and old, and all who are vulnerable or anxious.
We entrust to you those who work each day in the service of others, particularly those who minister to people suffering sickness of mind and body.
Reign over us, Mother of God, and teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus reign and triumph in us and around us, as it has reigned and triumphed in you.
School Disco
It was so much fun to see the excitement on the faces of our students as they walked in the gates on Thursday night covered in “neon” and great outfits for our first disco in three years!! Thanks to our dedicated P&F committee, a number of parent helpers and our always committed staff, the night was a wonderful event for our students. You will know that these things don’t just happen, but they come about from planning, preparation and hard work by P&F and staff in our school. We look forward to more wonderful community events that bring us together and contribute to our school being connected.
Proposed Industrial Action in Schools
Recently, teachers in government schools were given the opportunity to engage in industrial action around conditions being negotiated for improvements to their work. On Friday 27th May, staff in non-government schools (including the systemic schools of the Diocese of Lismore), have been given the opportunity to follow this action through the Union who represents them. How this may affect the supervision of our students will be communicated to parents and carers early next week. As you will see in our Sport section of this newsletter, this will not impact on our Athletics Carnival as it has been postponed due to the grounds at St Joseph's Regional College being too wet.
Celebrating Our Faith
Sacrament of First Holy Communion
In the coming weeks, our students in Years 4 and 5 who will receive the Sacrament of First Holy Communion, will be preparing for this wonderful step in their faith journey and development. This is the final sacrament of initiation, which brings them to full membership of the church, and means that each time they come to Mass in any Catholic church, they are able to fully participate in the Mass through receiving the Eucharist. Each student has been asked to commit to this through attending a Narrated Mass, which is where the priest will explain to them as they move through, the rituals and elements that are contained within it. This assists students to understand the importance of the parts of the Mass and to feel more engaged when they do attend Mass. If you are unsure of anything around this, please contact your child’s teacher or call the school.
Our Lady Help of Christians (One of the many names Mary the mother of Jesus is known by)
Tuesday 24th May is the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians. This is an important Feast in our country because Our Lady, under the title “Help of Christians”, is a spiritual Patron of Australia, along with St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Most images of Our Lady Help of Christians depict her standing on a globe of the world, holding the child Jesus in one arm and a sceptre in another. Her head is always crowned and the child Jesus in her arms is often crowned as well. In some images the map of Australia is featured on the globe to signify her special relationship to Australia under this title.
Learning Together
Have your say…….
What do our learners of today need to know, understand and be able to do? This is the question we discussed at a recent staff meeting and are now asking you for your input. Please think about the skills and attributes you believe your child/ren need to focus on in Primary School. If you would like to contribute to our ‘thinking pit’ please share your thoughts with us via this online form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1
Hastings Education Fund (HEF) Charity Golf Day and Annual Raffle Draw
The HEF provides financial assistance and mentoring to support local students moving into further education. Typically it assists around 35 students a year with grants of up to $3000 each. The major fundraiser for HEF is the raffle (see prizes) which is drawn at the Charity Golf Day on Sunday 29th May. For tickets please contact Parish Administration Reception or hastingseducationfund@gmail.com.
School Bus Changes - Effective Monday 23rd May 2022
New Bus Timetables and Additional Service (Bus S652)
If you require this new bus service, please advise your child of the new number. You might also like to send a note in with your child or phone the school office so that your teacher is aware of the change for your child. Teachers who are on bus duty will assist students in becoming accustomed to the new routine.
Please see the below letter for the new bus timetable or visit their website - https://www.busways.
Athletics Carnival - Postponed
Our annual school Athletics Carnival which was scheduled for Friday 27th May has been postponed due to the weather and the condition of the grounds at Regional College currently. The carnival will now be held on the new date of Wednesday 8th June (Week 7, Term 2) at St Joseph’s Regional College, College Drive Port Macquarie. Students will travel by bus to and from Regional College. There is no cost to you for this. Kinder and Year 1 will run 100m races and enjoy Novelty games during the morning, while Years 2 to 6 will compete in Athletic activities for the day. House points are awarded for each event.
As the carnival is offsite we require your permission for your child to be able to attend. If you haven’t already completed the online permission and nomination form from the original note please do so now via the link below by Friday 3rd June. Please note that if we do not receive your permission by the nominated date your child will be unable to attend the carnival and will stay at school with a supervising staff member.
If you previously let us know that your child would not be able to attend on the original date but with the change of date they now can please complete the online form. If your child is unable to attend on Wednesday 8th June please let us know by completing the online form below.
Zone Cross Country
Well done to all of our students who represented St Joseph’s at the Zone Cross Country event on Wednesday in Kempsey. We are so grateful for the beautiful weather and the amazing students who raced for our school.
Congratulations to the following students on achieving selection in the Hastings Zone Cross Country Team. This Team will compete at the Lismore Diocesan Cross Country Carnival which will be held on Tuesday 24th May (back up date 31st May) at Grafton Racecourse, Powell Street Grafton.
Caden Connor 2nd place medal |
Gemma Cooper 2nd place medal |
Zoe Lawrence 3rd place medal |
Mia Basanovic | Hannah Cooper | Evie Johnson |
Xavier Mat | Baxter Matthews | Blayde Redding |
Charli Robinson | Bronte Sprague | Bailey Thompson |
David Lynch
Sports Coordinator
PBS (Positive Behaviour Support)
Making Jesus Real
Students from Hastings House received the highest total of being noticed as making Jesus real at St Joseph’s. They enjoyed extra play and received an icypole to remind them how proud we are of their efforts. Thank you for continuing to show the face of Jesus at our school!
Kindergarten
Explicit and systematic approach to teaching phonics is a key to early reading and spelling success. Our Kinder students have been working hard to grow their knowledge of letters and the sounds they make. We have been learning phonics concepts through an engaging multisensory approach which incorporates songs, actions, rhymes, tactile activities, handwriting practice and explicit sounds lessons. This week, after having learned most single letter sounds, our Kinder students have welcomed the challenge of exploring and learning their very first spelling rule!
The children have been using their sounding out skills and their knowledge of vowel sounds to decide when to use /c/ and when to use /k/ at the beginning of a word and they have been excited to realise that instead of guessing, they can use the knowledge they already have to get it right. We have practised this new skill by sounding out and writing single words and simple sentences and we hand-made our very first spelling rule posters. If you ask any of our Kinder students how they know whether to use c or k, they will tell you: "K takes i and e, C takes the other three!"
Year 4 Literacy Block
Year 4 would like to share a snapshot of their learning. They have chosen to show you what they get up to during their literacy block. Below are some student statements and photographs to share with you.
Literacy Groups
- Lucas S - I really enjoy learning new words and their meanings in literacy groups.
- Koby - In literacy groups we have been doing typing.com and we have been doing other activities such as acting out plays (books that have the characters names and you do that role). We have also been learning about the First Fleet in our activities. Another group has been learning about Convict Girl and Birrung the Secret Friend.
Sentence A Day
- Hannah - You need to find all the problems in a sentence. It is fun to find all the problems!
- Hayley - I like how we edit and fix sentences including capital letters, full stops, spelling mistakes, commas and apostrophes.
Spelling
- Jack S - In spelling we have been working on silent letters and prefixes. We have also been doing a prefix brainstorm where we had a BIG competition!
- Chase - We do activities like finding plurals and sometimes we test each other.
Quality Literature
- Marielle - In quality literature we look up different books each week, some are informative, some are fiction and other ones are about the past, some are even historical fiction! We have a lot of fun reading all of these books, and this term we are looking at books about the First Fleet and what happened when the British came to Australia.
- Eden - I’ve learnt so many things from the books I’ve been reading in class. I know a lot about when the British people took over the land in Australia.
Writing
- Zoe - In writing we are working on the First Fleet and the colonisation of Australia. We are also learning how to take information from a website that you can trust and put it into dot points and write it in your own words. We are learning how to write an informative text about a place, person, animal or thing.
- Amica - In writing, we are learning to write about the First Fleet and the colonisation of Australia. We are also learning about looking at informative texts and making dot points on the text.
- Dustin - It’s very fun making your own stories and making up characters. You can write whatever you want!
We have so much fun in Year 4 and really enjoy sharing our learning with you.
Sarah McKinnon, Robyn McDougall, Deb Rennes
Year 4 Teachers
CSO Esports Gaming Competition 2022
This year St Joseph’s Stage 3 students will be participating in the Inaugural Esports Games organised and run by the Lismore Catholic Schools Office.
Esports is not about playing more video games, in fact, it often leads to a better understanding of balanced gaming. It is very different to playing at home alone or online.
It provides students with a face to face, safe, competitive and challenging esports opportunity while also promoting concepts such as Digital Wellbeing, Inclusion and Social Values.
Being part of a team and learning how to contribute towards a common goal is a valuable life skill. This is an important aspect of participating in the CSO Esports Games Competition which students gain insight into.
The games are all Nintendo Switch Games which include Mario Kart, Just Dance and Rocket League. There will be a termly competition for each game starting with Mario Kart this term.
This week we have been busy running trials for Stage 3 to pick our team who will compete next week on Wednesday 25th of May.
Sarah Blundell
Leader of Innovation and Digital Technologies
Supply issues and item availability
There are some ongoing issues with supplies and unfortunately this means some items will not always be available. I am updating Flexischools daily so you can see what is available when you go to place an order, however sometimes I don’t know that something isn’t available until I receive my delivery. In this case, I will offer an alternative item which is as close as possible to the item that has been ordered.
There are other items that I have had to remove from the menu for now as there is not enough time to make or prepare them when I am working by myself. Now that I can have volunteers back to help in the Canteen, hopefully I can reintroduce these items again. Please see the section below for information on how you can help in the Canteen if you have one free morning per month.
Term 4 Canteen Menu
Fruit for Crunch’n’Sip
Fruit can be ordered in a lunch order for Fruit Break (Crunch’n’Sip) but please remember to let your child know that it is part of their lunch order and that they will need to collect it from the Canteen. Fruit can be ordered with over the counter lunch orders or Flexischool online orders (preferred method).
Lunch Orders and Flexischools Cutoff Time
A friendly reminder that Flexischools cutoff for canteen lunch orders is 8.30am each day.
Orders can be placed via Flexischools or by dropping them in the basket on the counter each morning.
Flexischools is our preferred method for submitting lunch orders.
- Download the Flexischools app from the App Storeor from Google Play.
Note: for iPhone and iPad please select ‘Allow’ notification - Click “Register Now” to create account
- Top-up your balance
- Start ordering immediately
- Alternatively Go to www.flexischools.com.au or you can find the link on the school website.
Don’t forget you can place your online orders days or even weeks in advance, making the morning rush even easier!
Volunteers
Our new COVID guidelines now allow volunteers into the school. As we prepare to start back with volunteers, you can register to volunteer via this link - Click here for Volunteers Form. You will also need to email or drop in a copy of your Volunteer Working With Children Check and a proof of double vaccination to sjpport@lism.catholic.edu.au. After registering your availability in the above online form and sending in your supporting documents Kim, our Canteen Co-ordinator will be in contact with you to arrange your first day.
Kim Goldie
Canteen Coodinator
KBB | Nikyla Cook | Lana Crook | Henry Preston |
KHB | Lily Beukers | Indi Ross | Bowie Blackstock |
1CS | Cody Ylias | Elvis Scott | Noah Rex |
1PS | Malakai Enriquez | Aria Takiari-Conceicao | Brayden Watson |
2BT | Jacob Lees | Mia Moss | Hannah Cooper |
2DT | Harvey Porter | Yzekiel Neiva | Anika Suveesh |
3MH | Marco Grech | Harrison Slater | Keilah Long |
4MM | Josie Shipp | Hannah Tony | Noah Alchin |
4R | Dustin Clement | Kalani Berry | Jacob Gluckstern-Hill |
5BH | Blake Herbert | Tomas Butler | McKenzie Newton |
5T | Ariannah Beard | Lilliana Anderson | Ruby Holmes |
6L | Hayley Honeysett | Lilly McKern | Amelie Obeid |
School photo order envelopes have been sent home with the students. We also have Sibling order envelopes (for brothers and sisters here at St Joseph’s) available in the office if you would like one. Payment can be made online, with cash, credit card or cheques following the instructions on the envelopes. Please return your completed order envelope to the school office prior to or on School photo day.
We ask all students to wear their full school uniform and to ensure that items such as socks, black (no other colours) polishable shoes, hair ties and jewellery are as per our uniform list. If you are unsure, please check the Parent Handbook on our website via the link below.
For the smooth running of the process and so that your child does not miss out on their class group photo we ask that you endeavour to have your child at school on time dressed in their full uniform with their beautiful camera ready smiles.
Northern Rivers Flood Relief Concert
A special fund-raising concert featuring some of Port Macquarie’s finest musicians and singers, assembled under the direction of Robyn Ryan OAM and Jim Matsinos, will take place to support the Northern Rivers Flood Relief.
It will be held at MacKillop College, Ocean Drive, in the school’s theatre, on 4th and 5th June with two afternoon performances starting at 2:00pm.
The money raised is to assist the flood victims of the Northern Rivers of NSW.
There will be a special bracket of songs from the blockbuster Opera Les Misérables, in which the two principal singers from the Taree Arts Council 1995 production of Les Misérables, John Thompson and Jim Matsinos, will be joined by Elizabeth Ryrie.
The school bands from MacKillop College, the Senior School Band and the Saxophone Ensemble will perform under the direction of Robert Denham and Cara Stewart.
Pianists: Joris Vaskys, Gemma Lawrence, Nicola Awad.
Clarinettist: Carol Irving, Big Reds group, Glenn Moore and Bob Barnett.
Vocalists: Nicola Awad, Elizabeth Ryrie, Gillian Bennett, Les Femmes (female choir), Peter Murphy, John Thompson, Robert Wickham, Jim Matsinos and Glenn Moore. Songs performed will be from Opera, the Musicals and popular favourite songs from films.
MC: John Cross, an Australian actor, a master swordsman, has appeared in numerous independent and feature films, Home and Away, Moulin Rouge and the blockbuster Hercules: appearing with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
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Please note these dates can change from time to time due to unforeseen circumstances and we will endeavour to advise you of any changes at the earliest possible opportunity. Our school Google calendar can be accessed via this link for additional advanced dates -
For your convenience 2022 school term dates are listed below. They are also located on our website. Click on the words “TERM DATES” on the home page.
TERM 2
Kindergarten to Year 6 commence classes for Term 2 - Tuesday
26th April 2022
Staff Development Day (Pupil Free) - Friday 24th June 2022
Kindergarten to Year 6 last day of classes Term 2 – Friday
1st July 2022
TERM 3
Kindergarten to Year 6 commence classes for Term 3 - Monday
18th July 2022
Kindergarten to Year 6 last day of classes Term 3 – Thursday
22nd September 2022
Staff Development Day (Pupil Free) - Friday 23rd September 2022
TERM 4
Kindergarten to Year 6 commence classes for Term 4 - Monday
10th October 2022
Kindergarten to Year 6 last day of classes for Term 4 - Friday
16th December 2022
Staff Development Day (Pupil Free) - Monday 19th December 2022
Staff Development Day (Pupil Free) - Tuesday 20th December 2022
Other Holidays in 2022
Australia Day – 26th January (Public Holiday)
Good Friday – 15th April (Public Holiday)
Easter Monday – 18th April (Public Holiday)
ANZAC Day – 25th April (Public Holiday)
Queen’s Birthday – 13th June (Public Holiday)
Labour Day – 3rd October (Public Holiday)
Christmas Day - 25th December (Public Holiday)
Boxing Day - 26th December (Public Holiday)
Appointment of Assistant Principal Mission
STEM MAD 2022 - Expression of Interest (Year 5 and 6)
Year 6 Camp Arrangement Changes
2022 Athletics Carnival - Postponed
School Bus Network Changes from 23rd May
Proposed Industrial Action in Schools