Filter Content
- Prayer Focus
- The Principal's Report
- School Photos
- Celebrating Our Faith
- Learning Together
- Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD)
- #Yr6leaders
- Year 2 Coding: Moonhack
- Sport Spotlight
- Parish News
- Sunshine Cafe
- P&F Colour Run - Save the Date
- Student Awards
- What's On Next Week ...
- Advance Dates for Your Diary
- Launching the SZapp
- This Week's Notes
- The Billboard
WELCOME NEW STAFF
This term we welcome two new teachers to our staff for the rest of 2019, both of whom have been working in casual roles previously. Mrs Jemma Wilkins is working in 1 Green on Thursdays and Fridays for Terms 3 and 4, sharing the week with Mrs Rhianna Hancock. Mr Brent Nichols is working in 5 Green on Mondays for Terms 3 and 4, sharing the week with Mrs Vanessa Goldstein. He will also be working collaboratively with Year 5 on Wednesdays. I know that our families and staff will make them welcome.
WELCOME NEW FAMILIES
We are happy to introduce and welcome two new families to St Joseph’s this week, with three students starting on Monday. We welcome the Howell family to our school community with Mia in 3 Green and Jasmine in 4 Green. We also welcome the Sachan family to St Joseph’s with Khussh in 6 Green.
FATHERS DAY - SAVE THE DATE
Please mark your calendars for our Fathers Day celebration which will be held on Friday 30th August. We will have a prayer service to give thanks for our remarkable Dads, Grandads and special role models at 10:30-11:00am in the MPA. This will be followed by a shared lunch with your children on the playground. We hope you can come along.
A BIG THANK YOU - SCHOOL FACELIFT
We would like to express an enormous thank you to Mr Matt Moretti (School Grounds and Maintenance) and Mrs Josie Wilton (school Education Assistant) for some much needed work to spruce up the area around the canteen. With some hard work and paint, Matt and Josie took the red brick front and side of the canteen and transformed it into a work of art, which has completely lifted it to a lighter and more inviting area. They are not finished yet…...both of these superstars have some other ideas to brighten our school environment.
GROWING MINDS OUTDOOR CLASSROOM WORKING BEE
Our school Sustainability Team have been working with Mrs Shannon Kelly (Teacher) and some experts in the field, to plan and organise the concept of our “Growing Minds' Outdoor Classroom”. The area between the Library building and Year 1 classrooms has been cleared in preparation for this work to commence. See the flyer below for all of the details for the project. We warmly invite parents, carers and children to be involved so if you have a little bit of time, or the whole day, available on Saturday 24th August, we would love you to play a part in the work. It will start at 9:00am and go until it is complete. More details to come.
CONGRATULATIONS
A big congratulations to Kingston Shooter (K Green) and Elsie Enriquez (K Gold) and their families for the recent arrival of new baby boys. Elsie's brother's name is Kaden and Kingston's is Carter.
Tess Koning
Principal
School photos will be arriving during Week 4 and will be sent home as soon as they come in. Thank you for your patience.
SRC AND LEADERSHIP NEWS
Last Friday, St Joseph’s SRC and students leadership team received a visit from Mr Stephen Pares, the Executive Officer of St Agnes' Parish, to discuss all things pertinent to their leadership at school. His tips and anecdotes were invaluable.
Thank you for your time and contribution to our students at St Joseph’s.
ACCENDERE YEAR 4 RETREAT
Last week Mrs Blundell and some of our Year 4 students had the opportunity to deepen their own faith through the Year 4 Accendere Retreat. It was a privilege to spend the day with students from our other Parish Schools. We are extremely fortunate to be provided with these experiences by the Lismore Catholic Education Office and St Agnes’ Parish. The children had a wonderful day and their behaviour was a credit to them.
CONFIRMATION DATES
This term, the St Agnes' Parish begins to prepare for the Sacrament of Confirmation. The following dates will need to be diarised for all families wishing for their children to participate in the Parish Sacramental program.
Registration in this Sacrament is open to all students from Year 2 and up and will require full participation in all elements of the preparation program.
For your convenience, registration evening bookings are online. Please visit the link below to the St Agnes’ Parish website. https://stagnesparish.org.au
Please scroll down to the “Sacraments” heading and choose “School Sacraments.” This will direct you to the bar to click for online bookings to register for the registration night. This will enable you to access the booking form required, entering code bhm8v. Once completed, an email will be sent to your nominated inbox confirming your selection and providing you with a link to the registration form.
Please print the form, fill in the details and submit the completed form with a copy of your child’s Baptism Certificate at your nominated registration evening. This is your authorisation for your child’s participation in this program.
Confirmation Registration
St Agnes’ Church - Tuesday 3rd September 2019 at 6:00pm
(Or Thursday 5th September 2019 at 6:00pm as a follow up for those who missed Tuesday 3rd September. )
Confirmation Workshops
St Joseph’s Primary School - Thursday 12th September 2019 at 3:30 - 4:40 pm
Presentation of Confirmation candidates
St Agnes’ Church or Star of the Sea, Lake Cathie - weekend of 19th and 20th October
Sacrament of Confirmation
St Agnes’ Church - Tuesday, 22nd October at 5:30pm
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN
Change is occurring much more quickly than in previous generations, which means that the future our students are facing is rapidly evolving. As the future for today’s students unfolds, it will appear very different from what we are experiencing today. As educators of these young people, we are preparing them for a future that lacks the clarity of past generations. What is clear though is that learning how to learn will be vitally important, more so than ever before.
In the 90’s the trend in education was of Learning Styles – Visual, Audio and Kinaesthetic. The idea was that we all had a particular learning style and, taken further, that teachers were supposed to teach every lesson to every different learning style in the classroom. What the theory behind this concept actually said was, we all have a preferred learning style, be aware of it; it is a strength, but make sure that you practice other ways of learning so you have the ability to learn in a variety of ways. Then, when presented with a problem or concept, students have a number of different strategies to tackle it in order to find a solution.
Regardless of whether we agree with the concept of learning styles or not, what I hope we all agree on is that we want our young people to have a range of ways and strategies to help them with their learning. In educating our students for their future we must all be nurturing their ability in ‘Learning How to Learn’. If a student struggles to spell a word, solve a problem or understand a concept, they need to be able to employ other ways to do so. Finding information has never been easier, but the ability of a person to move their learning forward, to be a valuable team member and contribute in various situations helps to build confidence, courage, tenacity, sense of responsibility and self-awareness.
If we think about people of past generations who were visionary, creative and definitely before their time, like Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, we can see people who were able to adapt to anything required by the circumstances at the time. We must make sure that our students don’t put themselves, or allow themselves to be put in a box and categorised by the notion of a predisposed, inflexible thinking style.
Assistant Principal Learning and Teaching
DEBATING COMPETITION AGAINST ST JOSEPH'S WAUCHOPE
Zoos Should be Abolished
The debate was a delightful and fun experience for us all. We enjoyed the time with St Joseph's Wauchope and emerged victorious by 13 points! We all thought that the opposition spoke really well, but in the end, the scores show that we became triumphant. We were very excited and quite nervous but we had so much fun. Thank you for giving us this opportunity, Year 6 teachers; Ms Hatherly, Mrs Mitchell and Mrs Thompson, you helped us to achieve this wonderful result.
Milly McGrath
Today Mia Lawrence, Ava Basanovich, Tully Dwyer and James Cremmins had a debate against Wauchope. WE WON!!! It was very fun and we all worked hard. St Joseph's Wauchope came here to our school and debated against us. The topic was Zoos should be abolished. It was a rewarding experience.
Mia Lawrence
YEAR 2 CODING: MOONHACK
To start the term Year 2 have been participating in Moonhack. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing Year 2 have been building their own space-themed game.
On 20th July 1969, humankind landed on the moon. It was an incredible achievement for humanity and science.
Every year Code Club celebrate this ambition by getting as many kids together to write code alongside a space theme. The event aims to encourage children to get together with their friends, following the step-by-step instructions to create a moon themed game in Scratch.
In 2017 there were 28,000 kids coding together. In 2018, it was 35,000.
Emma Francis
Infants STEM Teacher
ZONE ATHLETICS
Our Zone athletes travelled to St Joseph's Regional College today to compete at the Zone Athletics Carnival. Congratulations to all. Results to come next week.
3RD ROUND RUGBY LEAGUE INDEPENDENT AND CATHOLIC CUP - NORTHERN STATE TITLES
Congratulations to our team of Year 5 and Year 6 students who competed at the 3rd Round Rugby League Independent and Catholic Cup competition at Regional Stadium on Thursday. They competed at a very high level against St Mary’s Toukley and Scone Grammar.
A great day had by all.
Yours in Sport
Laura Hatherly
SPORT UNIFORM DAYS FOR TERM 3
Changes to Flexischools
Please check your online ordering account. Flexischools have updated their app.
Don't forget you can order online by 8:30am- it's so easy!!
- Go to www.flexischools.com.au
- Click “Register Now” to create account
- Top-up your balance
- Start ordering immediately
If you have a spare morning a month please volunteer at the Canteen - more helpers are always needed. Your children will love having you help at school and the rest of us will really appreciate it also!
Our Volunteers for Week 3 Term 3
Monday | You are welcome to join us |
Tuesday | You are welcome to join us |
Wednesday | Lorraine Bennett and Sally Marsh |
Thursday | You are welcome to join us |
Friday | Robyn Hunt and Wendy Fairhall |
We ask that if you are unable to attend on your rostered day it would be very much appreciated if you could organise your replacement and let me know. This would really assist me enormously. Thank you.
Annemaree Tonkin
Canteen Coordinator
P&F Colour Run - Save the Date
The P&F committee are excited to share their plans for the upcoming 2019 Colour Run.
Please save the date for Friday 6th September AND start saving those squeezy sauce bottles!! We require LOTS of bottles. Please thoroughly clean your empty bottles and drop them off to the School Office. These will be filled with the coloured ‘dust’ in preparation for the event.
Many hands make light work so keep an eye out next term for colour run ‘working bees.’ These times will be allocated to colouring and filling bottles. As always, your assistance will be greatly appreciated.
More details will be shared shortly here in Joey's and via the School Facebook Colour Run event page https://www.facebook.com/events/618079888685458/.
Regards
St Joseph’s Primary School P&F Committee
K Gold | Isla Baird | Marco Grech | Spencer Searle |
K Green | Indya McKenzie | Caspar Redding | Isabel Shijo |
1 Gold | Jessica Dennes | Jack Slater | Dakota-Rose Fletcher |
1 Green | Aidan Shoby Alias | Lucas Single | Dustin Clement |
2 Gold | Hudson Alexander | Ariannah Beard | Cooper Bell |
2 Green | Evelyn McKenzie | Emily Meehan | Aryan Vishanth |
3 Gold | Gene Smith | Asia Steinhour | Kruz Batterson |
4 Gold | Luke Davies | Caleb Edkins | Sienna Edwards |
4 Green | Isaac Angland | Ivy Basanovic | Jasmine Howell |
5 Gold | Grace Chuwen | Darcy McHugh | Zoe Little |
5 Green | Kyuss Batterson | Sophie Pynaert | Milla Swain |
6 Green | Khussh Sachan | Izaiah Riske | Keanu Smeich |
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STAFF DEVELOPMENT DAYS 2019
As we are aware that parents and carers need to know about Staff Development Days so they can forward plan work arrangements, our remaining days (pupil free) are:
- Friday 27th September (Term 3, Week 10)
- Monday 4th November (Term, 4, Week 4)
For each of these days we will offer limited child minding places. Closer to each date we will advise on how to register for the child minding if you require it.
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 school term dates are located on our website. Click on the words “TERM DATES” on the home page.
SZapp is the new mobile app for the school to communicate directly to parents and carers. It works through both smart phones and smart devices (such as Androids and iPads). We will no longer be using the ‘Skoolbag app’.
Through the app we are able to communicate - push notification alerts, school events, newsletters, school documents and emergency notifications. You can use it for canteen ordering, submitting a student absence and more. See the below flyer for information on how to install SZapp. If you have any questions please contact the Office Aunties.