Wishes for the end of 2021

Thank you to all of our parents, carers and families for your support of St Joseph’s in 2021. We thought it would be a more “normal” year than 2020 which saw COVID-19 significantly changing how we did things. As we look back now, we see how we became accustomed to potential and real lock downs, Blended Learning,  mask wearing, QR check ins and being unable to welcome our families into school. However, our students, families and staff continued to work together to achieve much to be proud and thankful for. As we are reminded daily on our thankful tree, we can still be grateful for so much and I pray at this time of the year for you all and that the year to come holds more to be thankful for. We wish you the most wonderful Christmas together and hope that over the holidays there is some time to spend together. May God bless you all, and the Nativity be a reminder of how much you are loved and cared for. 

Blessing and Dedication of our Memorial Garden

On Friday 3rd December, we held a special blessing and dedication prayer service in memory of Mrs Rosemary Saunders, who many will know and remember as a teacher who was part of our school community for 43 years. After Mrs Saunders passed away in November 2020, her family and our community wanted to remember her service to education and her faithfulness to our community in a special way. In our Prayer Garden close to the MPA, there is now a special space in memory of Mrs Saunders and all others who have been a part of our community but are no longer with us. When we are able to invite parents and carers back into our school, we welcome you to come and “sit awhile” in this special space. We have included for you a video this week of our Blessing.

Year 6 Graduation

This week, we enjoyed celebrating the conclusion to the primary school years for our Year 6 students with their Mass, awards, dinner, fun day and final farewell assembly. We are thankful for being able to give our students these experiences. It has been a pleasure to work with these students and their families for all of us at St Joseph’s. We wish them the very best in moving on to high school and we know they will achieve great things. A very big thanks to all parents, carers and staff who made the graduation events so very special.

Major Award Winners

Thank you for Parish hamper donations

St Joseph’s, along with St Agnes’ Parish, would like to thank all families for their generosity once again in donating items for our hampers this year. Our Parish team could not coordinate the enormous efforts they normally do, but our schools and other Parish groups worked together to ensure that we could still give to those in need within our own communities and beyond. We also give a very special thanks to Lisa Gilchrist, Laura Hatherly and our Mini Vinnies students who worked tirelessly to organise and pack our hampers. A thank you goes to our staff who delivered these for us to the families in need over the past weekend: Holly Hough, Laura Hatherly, Kathy Bailey, Jeannine Ucdereli, Sarah Blundell, Deb Rennes and Karen Davies. It is truly a privilege to be able to bring some joy to those who would be feeling things are pretty tough this year.  

Christmas Mass Times

Goodbyes and Thank yous for Staff

I would like to acknowledge staff who will be leaving or changing their work with us for 2021. 

We say goodbye and thank you to Mr Nathanael Spannari, who has worked with us at St Joseph’s since November 2020. His contributions to our school have been appreciated and valued, and we will miss his crazy socks, dance moves, warm smile, compassion and gentle faith. Nathanael with his wife Lauren and baby Addelyna, are moving to Grafton to be closer to family and to take on a new position. We wish him all the best in this new adventure.

We also thank Miss Lauren Ussher, who worked part time in our teaching team this year across a number of grades. We greatly appreciate Lauren’s commitment and work with us, and will continue to have Lauren work with us on a casual basis next year, so we will only be saying “see you later” and thank you for now. 

Staffing 2022

Leadership Team 

Premier's Reading Challenge 2021

Congratulations to the following students who completed the Premier's Reading Challenge for 2021