Dear parents and carers

It has been a week of reality checks for me.  I have spent some time with our preps over the last week and in addition to their enthusiasm and energy levels, their honesty is always refreshing.  As I sat with Ms Megan at lunchtime this week a few preps came to have a conversation with us while we were talking.  One young lady asked, 'Mr Ham what colour is your hair?' Immediately I knew this was not going to end well.  I said, 'I think it's mostly grey.' To which another young lady pointed out quite loudly, 'And white!'.  Others joined in by speculating it was more silver than grey, but unfortunately, no one was suggesting the 'and white' comment was anything but correct.  I didn't hear too many other comments due to Ms Megan's laughter and fortunately had to go before any further conjecture could begin over other symptoms of my advancing age. Apart from the realisation that they were correct, it is also one of those fun moments that I will remember.   

There is an innocence and directness that children at that age seem to possess.  There is nowhere to hide, things are very clear and very simple.  As we get older and life becomes busier, I think we can lose that clear simplicity.  We can get caught up in the superficial and lose touch with what is real and important.  So many things cloud our judgement, we second guess, we assume, we imply and many times this leads us away from the truth.  One of the Lenten questions this week asked what gets in the way of us listening to Jesus.  It made me think about what got in the way of me listening not only to Jesus but to others? I know myself there are times my energy levels, lack of sleep, stress, second-guessing and assumptions impair how I listen.  Sometimes I hear what I want to hear, what I think I should hear and times I  hear things that weren't even said. It gets in the way of what is really important.  It isn't always easy to listen or hear as we should.  Pope Francis wrote, 'Listening(with an openness of heart) helps us to find the right gesture and word which shows we are more than simply bystanders.' Sometimes we need to put aside the white noise and our own detractors to listen and understand.  For me this week the challenge is to look at what stops me from listening with that openness of heart.  How do I move past those things that hold me back from hearing what I need to hear?  It is food for thought.  

Quite clearly though one message that I did hear this week is that I may need the assistance of a good hairdresser!

The hot weather certainly isn't letting up as we move towards the Easter break.  There have been quite a few students ill over the last few weeks.  Some local schools have noted an increase of Influenza A  cases and Hand, Foot and Mouth.  Attached to the newsletter this week is the Time Out chart.  This indicates periods of exclusion for certain illnesses.  Please take time to check through the chart.

Have a great week.

Tim

St Joseph’s Day

On Tuesday 19th March, we celebrate the patron Saint of our community St Joseph.  St Joseph was the husband of Mary and the father of Jesus here on earth. God chose Joseph for a very special mission and Joseph carried out this mission with courage, strength and integrity.  We would like to invite you to celebrate the feast day of St Joseph with a special Mass to be held in the Church on Tuesday 19th March at 9am.

Icy Cups

As part of our fundraising efforts for Project Compassion we will be selling icy cups each Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school during Lent.  Icy cups will be sold for 50c each and will be available near the Prep playground.  Thank you to the many staff who have volunteered their time to make the icy cups over the past two weeks.

Project Compassion

Sunday’s Gospel

Luke 4:1-13  - In the desert, Jesus is tempted by the devil.

In Luke's Gospel, the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert appears just after Jesus' baptism and before Jesus begins his public ministry. We can imagine this as a time of transition, a turning point in Jesus' life. Perhaps we can liken it to one of the important turning points in our own lives: the decision to marry, the birth of a child, the acceptance of a new job, or the decision to move to a new home. After the moment of decision, having reached the point of no return, we sometimes begin to wonder if we are prepared and ready for the task before us. Turning points can be times of doubt and insecurity. Jesus' response to the temptations of the devil offers an example for responding in faith when our doubts and insecurities tempt us to distrust God's sufficiency. Jesus rebukes the devil by quoting Scripture. Each citation is an affirmation of trust in God. We learn to trust in big things by practicing trust in little things. Our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving invite us to trust God in these small ways. They remind us that God will suffice for us. They prepare us to trust in God in all things, especially in moments of doubt and uncertainty.

https://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-faith/liturgical-year/sunday-connection

Have a wonderful week.

Take care and God Bless.

Amanda

SJS PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK

This week, we have focused on Responsibility as one of St Joseph’s 5Rs and the ways that this value can be demonstrated in the classroom as learners.      

Being responsible means we are accountable for our actions.  It means that as learners we know we have a job to do each day and make the most of all activities. When we are responsible, we keep to our word and give our very best to every task. Being responsible is also being a leader who others can depend on and being helpful and safe.

We have so many responsible students at St Joseph’s and we are grateful to our families who reinforce this value outside of the classroom.

As staff at St Joseph’s, we strive to

1. Know our learners
2. Know our curriculum
3. Know how to target or differentiate learning opportunities for each of our students.

In order for us to know our learners, teachers use a range of assessments to target teaching and learning.  Recently, our school has completed the TCEO Early Years Project. This involved our Prep and and Year 1 students having an individual assessment with class teachers of their current oral language and numeracy skills. Year 2 students completed these assessments online in their classrooms. Last week, teachers met to review the results from this valuable information on the strengths of each child and where they need to target their teaching for both individual students and whole class groups. Teachers are then able to access a wide variety of resources and devise strategies to target strengths and weaknesses.

One resource is the Literacy and Numeracy Progressions, developed by  the Australian Curriculum Authority, which outlines the order that most children develop these skills. This allows teachers to work on the next step in children’s skill development.

If you would like to know more about these progressions,  ACARA has produced a guide for parents.

We’d like to provide you an update on some of the issues Flexischools have experienced over the last few Fridays during peak time in the morning, as well as some measures we’ve taken to address these issues.
 
Based on a number of things identified last week, we invested in some significant infrastructure upgrades, improving the processing power of our system. In doing so however, this uncovered what our IT team believe to be the root cause of the ordering issues – a bottleneck caused by the performance of our database. Following this discovery the team made significant improvements to the database throughout the weekend and during this week, resulting in tangible increases in our database capacity, which we believe have resolved the problem.
 
We appreciate this has been a stressful time for you, dealing with frustrated parents who have struggled or have been unable to place an order – we are truly sorry for the pressure this has put on you and the inconvenience it has caused. Whilst we are very confident that all the improvements we have made will bring about a resolution to the Friday ordering issues and a return to the reliable system that we’ve all become accustomed to, we can’t completely guarantee that parents won’t experience any problems on Friday morning. Consequently, as a short term measure, we are recommending that if you are communicating with your parents, that you suggest putting in an order for Friday service prior to 7:30am AEDT on Friday.
 
We thank you again for your continued support and ongoing patience whilst we work through these issues.

Kind Regards,

The Flexischools Team