Dear parents and carers

This week we celebrated ‘officially’ the beginning of our school year with our opening school mass.  It was a wonderful celebration and a special moment for our Year 6 students as they received their leadership badges, the outward sign of the important role they will play in our school this year.  It was great to have so many members of our community present for the mass.  Once again an enormous thank you to Mrs Jones and Fr. Joseph for such a memorable celebration.

You will have noticed building work has begun at St. Patrick’s College, with the demolition of some older structures.  During this stage of the project there is and has been increased heavy vehicle traffic along Fryer Street.  I would ask all families to remain vigilant in this area during peak traffic periods (drop off and pick up).  I would also take this chance to remind all families that the parking bays in front of the school need to remain vacant between 2:30 and 3:10pm.  Vehicles parked in these bays at these times, can impede traffic flow and make the area less functional.  It is important for the safety of all our families and students, that we work together and remain patient during these periods.  I am grateful of your assistance in this matter.

All families will have received a copy of the contact details that are currently on file at our school.  It is important that we have the most up to date details for your family to ensure that we can contact you should the need arise.  All families will receive a copy of these details.  Please check them carefully, make any changes if necessary and return them to school as soon as possible.  Communication during the recent weather event has highlighted that some details we have on file are not current.  If all details could be returned to school by Friday 8^th March it would be greatly appreciated.

Finally this week, it was great to see so many parents and carers attend the Volunteers Induction session on Tuesday evening.  We are blessed to have so many willing volunteers that support our teachers and students in and out of the classroom.  For those people unable to attend and still interested in volunteering, a second session will be made available in the coming weeks.  Thank you once again for your support of our school.

Have a great week.

Tim

World Day of Prayer

Tomorrow  is World Day of Prayer.  This day is celebrated in over 170 countries around the world on the first Friday in March.  The World Day of Prayer aims to bring together people of different races, cultures and traditions in prayer as well as in friendship, understanding and peace.  To celebrate World Day of Prayer we will be gathering as a school community to pray using Christian Meditation. We will be gathering in the Hall at 8:45am. We would like to invite all parents to join us for this simple, still and silent form of prayer.

Shrove Tuesday Tuesday March 5th marks Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday at the beginning of Lent.  Shrove Tuesday gets its name from the ritual of shriving that Christians traditionally participated in.  In shriving, a person confesses their sins and is forgiven. Lent is a time of abstinence, of giving things up.  So Shrove Tuesday is the last chance to indulge yourself, and to use up the foods that you may be giving up in Lent.  Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.

As a family, you could celebrate Shrove Tuesday by: having pancakes saying a prayer for those in our community who are going without dinner tonight discussing the traditions and history of Shrove Tuesday reading scripture from the Bible about forgiveness

We will be having our Ash Wednesday liturgy at 2pm on Wednesday in the Hall.  All parents and friends are more than welcome to join us for this liturgy to be marked with ashes.

On Ash Wednesday we are marked with the sign of the cross using ashes from the previous years palms from Palm Sunday. The season of Lent is a time to turn back to God and refocus our mind on doing things in the name of Jesus. Many of you would have grown up choosing something to give up for the season of Lent such as chocolate, these days we try to promote with the children doing something extra, that is hard to do. Some examples include; reaching out to those who they don’t normally associate with, doing an extra chore at home or using their pocket money for something that is for someone else.

Defence Families

If you are a defence family could you please let me know.  This year I will be continuing to offer support to our defence students, checking in to see how they are travelling and will be there to support them during exercises and deployments.  As a defence wife, this is very close to my heart and I look forward to working with our defence students and their families.

https://www.pray.com.au/month/february-2019/page/2/

I hope that you all have a wonderful week.

Take care and God bless

Amanda

SJS PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Last week, we shared aspects of our Pedagogical Framework and our beliefs about learners at SJS. The overarching message that we give to our students is to strive for the principle of ‘Our Best Always’. This applies to staff and the broader community of SJS as much as to our learners. This week, teachers are working to build understanding with our students about the values that apply in all our classrooms and that support this principle of doing our best - Respect, Responsibility, Resilience, Right Relationships and Rigour.

STAFF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

An essential part of our classroom teaching practice involves teacher reflection and ensuring that research-based pedagogies inform all teaching and learning. Our whole school approach to lesson design involves The Gradual Release of Responsibility model(Fisher and Frey). Our staff have been involved in a Townsville Catholic Education Office professional development BETTER program. The BETTER program is offered by Dr Jenny Nayler, who has worked in our diocese for many years, giving teachers a chance to work collaboratively to improve learning outcomes for our students. This week, Tessa McKinnon and Johnathon Greer began their BETTER journey, which is a great opportunity to reflect on teaching practices and to share their learning with colleagues at St Joseph’s and other schools in the diocese. 

TECHNOLOGIES in YEAR 5

Our aim at St Joseph’s is to integrate the Design and Digital Technologies Australian Curriculum into other learning areas to enhance the experiences of our students. This week, Year 5 classes were introduced to Minecraft worlds, which will be then used as a stimulus to design settings and characters for a fantasy narrative that students will be writing as part of their novel study "Deltora Quest". Many students are experienced users of Minecraft and are learning by collaborating with and teaching their peers. We look forward to reading the narratives which form part of the students assessment for English.

Hi Parents/ Caregivers,

Just a few reminders

If your child/ren is absent from school could you let After School Care know.

Please remember to sign in/out your child/ren everyday.

If your child/ren is attending any after school activities for example Chior, Basketball could you please notify us.

Notice of Cancellation without charge is 48 Hours prior to your booking

OSHC CONTACT DETAILS

Email: oshc@sjnwtsv.catholic.edu.au

Ph: 07) 47725547

Mb: 0447839549

Last Friday, we enjoyed our annual St Joseph’s Swimming Carnival at Tobruk Pool. The tropical NQ conditions made our swimmers even keener to get into the water. Our year 6 seniors demonstrated excellent leadership, leading their houses with rousing ‘war cries’ and preparing competitors for their events. This year again, Faulkner were victorious (narrowly holding off Ryan and Benjamin) securing the Overall Trophy. The Spirit Shield was well contested, with Benjamin taking the coveted prize. In a complete upset, the Year 6 Faulkner relay team held off the fast finishing parent/teacher outfit, providing a rare win to the students. I'm sure that the tables will be turned in 2020! The day would not have been the success it was, without our incredible staff and parent helpers.

A special thanks goes out to our Sport Pastoral group who assisted with the set up of the carnival. Our Interschool team (please see in the newsletter) will compete in the A Schools Carnival on 20 March at Long Tan Pool. We wish our reigning A Schools champion team all the very best.

Interschool Swimming.

Congratulations to the students selected in the 2019 St. Joseph's Putney Swimming Team. Our team will be competing at the A Schools Carnival on Wednesday 20 March (9.15am - 12.00) at Long Tan Pool. Parents of students participating will receive an email with all necessary information. We look forward to some training sessions before our big day out.

Update from the P&F

Welcome back to all of our St Joey’s families and hello to all of our new parents, guardians and friends who have joined our school community this year.  I think everyone would agree it’s been an unusual start to the year and it’s difficult to fathom that we are heading into autumn with the first day of March tomorrow.

Firstly, we know that the recent floods have impacted many of our families, staff and our wider community; evacuation, inundation of property in many suburbs, loss of personal belongings, many of which hold special family memories and displacement from home with temporary accommodation being very difficult to come by with the number of people affected.  As our community clears away the destruction and suburbs start to look like they did before the floods, I would encourage you all to continue to reach out to those who have been impacted as the mental and emotional trauma many have experienced may be longer lasting and harder to move past.  There are many support agencies at work in our community who are here to help and I have included some flyers that may be of interest when accessing mental health support for those close to you.

The P&F IS our school community.  All families with children enrolled at our school are members of the P&F and we encourage you to participate in and contribute to the P&F in whatever ways you can.  I would like to sincerely thank all of the staff, parents, families and friends who answered the P&F call for help giving their time to call families, clean houses, donate cleaning products, cook meals, deliver food hampers, look after children at the school, source rental properties, make lunches, donate uniforms and essential products to support each other.  The efforts of many to assist in the immediate disaster recovery for over 45 families from our school who were directly impacted by the floods is testament to the St Joey’s community.  Many more helped their own families and friends in this period and we hope that opening the school to enable children to be looked after made the massive job of cleaning up an easier one.  We have certainly lived out our Mercy value of “Never see a need without doing something about it” and our school motto “love God, love each other.”  Please continue to let the P&F know if we can help you and your family in any way as we settle in to the second half of the term. 

Our next P&F meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 12^th March 6-7:30pm in the staff room with care provided for school aged children in the library.  We have the position of secretary currently vacant and would welcome any nominations to this important position.  Please join us if you are able or contact us via email at; pandf@sjnwtsv.catholic.edu.au     

Love God, love each other

St Joey’s P&F