Filter Content
- Prayer Focus
- Leader's Message
- Parish News
- Digital Technologies and Innovation
- Sunshine Cafe
- PBS (Positive Behaviour Support)
- Principal's Award
- Student Awards
- P&F Community Connect
- Premier's Reading Challenge
- Sport Spotlight
- Yarning Circle - Indigenous News
- Free Parent Webinars
- Scholastic Book Club Offer
- What's On Next Week ...
- Advance Dates for Your Diary
- This Week's Notes
- Billboard
The Spirit of Sportsmanship
Yesterday our Zone Athletics team went to St Joseph's Regional College to compete. It was a day full of excitement, anticipation and school spirit. There have been several reports back at school today commenting on the sportsmanship displayed by students from St Joseph’s. It is a very proud moment when the community acknowledges our amazing students in this way. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the team and the staff who supported the students throughout the day.
Some of the values we would like to instil in our students is that of empathy, resilience, understanding and selflessness. This was demonstrated by two students in particular at yesterday’s carnival. Caden Connor (Yr 5) and Lucas Single (Yr 4) were both competing in events where they were potential podium finishers. During Caden’s 800m race, a student from another school stumbled and stopped. Caden stopped running and went to the aid of the student. He encouraged the boy and ran the rest of the race with him. Similarly, Lucas’ 1500m event also had a boy stumble. Lucas stopped, turned around and ran back to support the student across the finish line. The boys received a Principal’s Award at today’s Prayer Assembly in recognition of their sportsmanship.
Schools Tree Day
Today at St Joseph’s, we celebrated Schools Tree Day.
It was a great opportunity to inspire and educate future generations on the many benefits of trees and connection with nature.
Today, each grade took part by planting a Lilly Pilly along our fence line. Check it out as you drive past our school! We are grateful to Bunnings Port Macquarie, who donated 14 Lilly Pilly plants for this occasion. Thank you so much!
COVID/Flu/Illness
As we enter Term 3, we appear to be faced with more uncertainty around the spread of COVID-19/flu related symptoms in our school setting and the broader community. Please be assured that we have continued to maintain strict health and safety measures throughout the school to ensure that we keep our staff and students safe.
We ask for your ongoing support in testing your children if they develop any symptoms and to keep them home to prevent the possible further spread throughout our school community. We will be distributing more RAT kits to students next week.
School Review
In Week 6 of this Term, a School Review panel will be visiting our school on 23rd, 24th and 25th August, to support the school in our 3 Year Cyclical Review Process.
Our school has sent documentation to the panel which provides evidence of how we are supporting students in their faith, learning and well-being.
The panel will come in for the 3 days and during that time will:
- Interview individually class teachers, small groups of Educational Assistants, a representation of families and a representation of students.
- Use the above interviews to determine whether the practice is in line with the previously sent documentation.
- Determine with the school the strengths and commendations.
- Determine with the school recommendations that will provide important opportunities for growth over the following 3 years.
- Support the school to create a first year plan for 2023, which will develop goals to realise the above opportunities
Pastoral Care & Wellbeing Student Check-in
As a way to check in with the students at St Joseph's, teachers will begin trialling collecting data from students about how they are feeling at school. The purpose of this check-in is to be aware of student wellbeing and support if needed in order to improve students accessing their learning. The check-in survey will consist of questions to find out how students are feeling about their learning, on the playground, and if they have any messages to share with their teacher. If you have any questions about this please contact your child's class teacher.
Tell Them From Me - Upcoming Partners in Learning Survey
This term we will be inviting students, teachers and parents to provide feedback on their experience of our school using an online survey. The surveys are an important part of our whole school evaluation and planning process.
We would like to invite you to complete the Tell Them From Me (TTFM) Partners in Learning survey. As we value the role of parents and carers within our school community we would greatly appreciate your feedback. The information you provide will be used to maintain our commitment to working together in partnership to further improve student learning and wellbeing at St Joseph’s Primary School. Next week you will receive a message about the survey to complete. Thank you for completing the survey when it is shared with you.
Celebrating Our Faith
This term, primary students who are preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation will be engaging in learning to explore the Christian call to be saints – to holiness – which all of us receive at our Baptism. Students will identify, in their experience, people who demonstrate holiness in love and service of others. The Sacrament of Confirmation is the second of the three sacraments of Christian initiation. It completes Baptism, by which in the laying on of hands and the anointing with Chrism Oil, candidates are confirmed with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
The preparation time for each sacrament marks another significant step in your child’s formation in the Catholic faith and continues to be a very important period in your family’s life too, with Jesus Christ and his Church.
Students who are preparing to complete the Sacrament of Confirmation will need to be registered by Wednesday 10th August. A note with further information was emailed to parents of Sacrament candidates this week.
Dates for your calendars and parent reminders are:
Workshop 1 - Tuesday 23rd August at 3.30pm - St Agnes’ Primary School
Workshop 2 - Thursday 25th August at 6.00pm - St Agnes’ Catholic Church
Workshop 3 - Wednesday 31st August at 3.30pm - St Joseph’s Primary School
Workshop 4 - Thursday 1st September at 6.00pm - St Peter’s Primary School
Learning Together
Open Classrooms for National Science Week
National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. It aims to encourage an interest in science pursuits among the general public and to encourage young people to be fascinated by the world we live in.
‘Glass: more than meets the eye’ is the school theme for National Science Week in 2022 to celebrate the United Nations International Year of Glass.
This year at St Joseph’s, we are opening up our classroom doors and inviting our families to participate in a morning full of investigation. We will be running simultaneous science experiments across Kindergarten to Year 6 on Wednesday 17th August.
Dust off your lab coats and come prepared for a fun filled morning of learning!
Science and Technology is a foundational subject for inspiring young minds to explore, test, play and ultimately create. Starting with a simple idea, students are able to try and prove or disprove a concept, learn from the outcome, improve their knowledge, delve into digital technology, design and create.
Students are able to learn important developmental skills through processes that naturally transpire in Science and Technology, skills such as critical thinking, open-mindedness and intellectual rigour.
Science and Technology helps students to answer questions about the world they live in by showing them how to think critically and learn the resilience to keep on questioning.
If you would like to know more about National Science Week, you can visit the website at: www.scienceweek.net.au
Here at St Joseph’s we want to instil a love of learning through subjects such as Science and Technology and what better way to accomplish this than immersing ourselves in National Science Week.
We look forward to celebrating with you.
Stay tuned for more information.
Digital Technologies and Innovation
Year 5 Drone Experience
Last Friday, Tracey Catling from the Catholic Schools Office, Lismore ran a drone experience for our Year 5 students where they learnt to fly the TELLO EDU drones which are specifically designed for classroom learning. This complemented their current learning about natural disasters and the management of bushfires this term.
They practised flying the drones safely and are now learning how to code the drones to map fire affected areas and how drones can be used in the fire fighting effort.
Coding is all about problem solving, and using the scientific process of constant testing and evaluating. As the students work with small chunks of code at a time and then test it to make sure that it works before growing it, they build their problem solving capacity.
A big thank you to Eloise Wilson and the Year 5 teachers for supporting this experience.
Sarah Blundell
Leader of Innovation and Digital Technologies
BIRTHDAY BUCKETS
Don't forget we offer Birthday Buckets for your child to share with their class for their special day.
How much do they cost?
Just $10.00 per bucket.
The bucket will be decorated for your child’s birthday and collected during the day as directed by the teacher to share with their class. The buckets are reusable and will need to be returned to the canteen.
How do you order them?
They can be ordered via Flexischools on the day you would like your child to share them or can be ordered in advance. Alternatively, if you don’t use Flexischools, you can call the school office to order directly from the Canteen.
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!
Term 3 Canteen Menu
PBS (Positive Behaviour Support)
Congratulations to our MJR (Making Jesus Real) House winners for Term 2... MACQUARIE!
Students from Macquarie House received the highest total of tokens for 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!
KHB | Bowie Blackstock | Ethan Ocbina | Lucas Andrew |
1CS | Elvis Scott | Noah Lynch | Scarlett Slater |
3MH | Elsie Steadman | Marco Grech | Nevaeh Fletcher |
4MM | Hannah Tony | Hayley Ylias | Aidan Shoby Alias |
4R | Lilly Chapman | Amica Tuddenham | Toby Smurthwaite |
6L | Edvin Benny | Peyton Berry | Zali Roberts |
Reminder for students participating in the
2022 Premier's Reading Challenge that
online entries close on Friday 19th August 2022.
ZONE ATHLETICS
Congratulations to all of our students who competed at the Zone Athletics carnival on Thursday. It was great to see so many of our students competing out in the sunshine!
Extra congratulations to the following students who have progressed to the Diocesan Athletics Carnival on Wednesday 10th August in Coffs Harbour.
Gemma Cooper | Ruby Holmes | Keilah Long | Emily Meehan |
Charli Robinson | Bronte Sprague | Lailah Watson | Cooper Bell |
Edvin Benny | Tomas Butler | Caden Connor | Xavier Mat |
Finally, we want to celebrate our three students who received major awards at the Zone Athletics Carnival. So amazing!
Ruby Holmes - Age Champion
Caden Connor - Age Champion Runner Up
Bronte Sprague - Age Champion Runner Up
Grade Sport Uniform Days
David Lynch
Sports Coordinator
Yarning Circle - Indigenous News
In our ongoing exploration of Indigenous culture, Kindergarten were fortunate to engage with a special guest speaker this week, Belinda Stewart. Belinda spoke with us about the importance of family and traditional foods that children would have collected. The children had the opportunity to look at artefacts and hear about the uses of bush foods in healing. We would like to thank Belinda for sharing her stories with us and we can’t wait to have her back again to talk again.
The Butterfly Foundation
The Butterfly Foundation is the national charity for all Australians impacted by eating disorders and body image issues, and for the families, friends and communities who support them.
Butterfly changes lives by providing innovative, evidence-based support services, treatment and resources, delivering prevention and early intervention programs and advocating for the needs of our community.
Butterfly operates a National Helpline that includes support over the phone, via email and online, reaching 20,000 people each year. The Helpline is staffed by trained counsellors experienced in assisting with eating disorders and body image issues. They also provide a wide range of programs for service providers and recovery groups.
Butterfly currently has 2 free parent webinars scheduled:
GROW YOUR HOME LIBRARY (& INDEPENDENT READERS) WITH THE FREE BOOK OFFER!
Every child deserves access to quality and affordable books, and Scholastic Book Club offers great prices with Value Books as low as $3 on every issue of Book Club. Best of all, if you order on Issue 5 you can select FREE BOOKS!
Place your Issue 5 order on LOOP to select up to 3 FREE BOOKS. To qualify all you have to do is spend over $30 and you can select 1 FREE book, or spend over $50 and you can select 2 FREE books or over $70 and you can select 3 FREE titles from a special online list. The list will display after you create your order and head to the checkout. See www.scholastic.com.au/LOOP
Did you know that 20% of your Book Club order goes back to our school in Scholastic Rewards? These Rewards are redeemed on Books and Educational Resources which helps stretch our budget further.
Week 3 - Term 3 2022 |
|
Monday |
|
Tuesday |
|
Wednesday |
|
Thursday |
|
Friday 5th August |
|
Week 4 - Term 3 2022 |
|
Monday |
|
Tuesday |
|
Wednesday |
|
Thursday |
|
Friday 12th August |
|
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 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
Labour Day – 3rd October (Public Holiday)
Christmas Day - 25th December (Public Holiday)
Boxing Day - 26th December (Public Holiday)
Life Education Van 2022
Year 1 Space Day
Year 6 - 2022 PDH Sensitive Issues_Growth and Development Note to Parents
Sacraments Parent Letter 2022-2023 Candidates