Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been another wonderful week for St Joseph’s.  On Tuesday our Quest for Knowledge team were very impressive with both their knowledge and sportsmanship in bringing home the trophy.  Last night our Readers Cup teams also experienced success. St Joseph’s took out first and second place in the primary competition. A massive congratulations to all of the students who were part of these teams.  Our school community is incredibly proud of your achievements but most importantly the way in which you conducted yourselves throughout the competitions. The sportsmanship and joy that you demonstrated is a true credit to you all and you showed what it means to be a Joey’s kid.  Well done!

This week we received notice that St Patrick’s will begin removal of contaminated fill on Monday 17th June.  This work poses limited risk to our community and we have been assured that adequate steps will be undertaken to mitigate any potential risks.

On Tuesday 18th June our P&F will be holding their Annual General Meeting at 6pm in the staff room.  I encourage you to come along to this meeting to hear about the wonderful work that our P&F does within the school.

In Term 3 we celebrate Catholic Education Week.  During this week people across our Diocese are recognised through Spirit of Catholic Education Awards.  These awards recognise the outstanding contributions by individuals within the Catholic Education community.  This year the nominees from St Joseph's are Arlene Curley and Bronwyn Reguson.  We would like to congratulate and thank both of these ladies for their wonderful contributions to our school.

Have a wonderful week.

Amanda

Parish Winter Dinner

Crazy Hat Day

Tomorrow we are celebrating Crazy Hat day to raise sun safety and melanoma awareness.  Students are encouraged to wear a crazy hat to school and bring along a gold coin donation.

Altar Servers

If your child has made their First Eucharist and is interested in becoming an Altar Server for Sunday Mass, could you please send me an email by Friday 14th June.  My email address is ajones13@sjnwtsv.catholic.edu.au.  Fr Joseph and I will then organise a training session for the students. Once we have conducted training then your child will be placed on the Sunday Mass roster with more experienced Altar servers to help them learn the ropes.  If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Sunday’s Gospel

John 20:19-23 - Jesus appears to his disciples and gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is sometimes called the birthday of the Church. The Gospel for Pentecost reminds us that the Church begins with the command to forgive. Within the family, the domestic Church, we learn how to forgive and we learn to accept forgiveness. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that enables us to do both. Today is a fitting time to share a family celebration of reconciliation.

As you gather together as a family, sit quietly for a few minutes, inviting all to reflect upon their need to forgive and to receive forgiveness. If there is a situation or issue within the family that needs attention, spend some time reflecting upon the concern and how your family might address it. Read together today's Gospel, John 20:19-23. Talk together about how Jesus gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us in the work of forgiveness and to bring us peace.

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

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful.

And kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.

And you will renew the face of the earth.

Lord, by the light of the Holy Spirit

you have taught the hearts of your faithful.

In the same Spirit help us to relish what is right

and always rejoice in your consolation.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

https://www.pray.com.au/month/june-2019/

Have a great week!

Take care and God Bless

Amanda

Assessment and Reporting 

At St Joseph’s The Strand, student achievement is recognised and celebrated in many ways throughout the school year; at informal meetings, through awards at school assembly, parent/teacher interviews, through class work that is sent home, through class oral presentations and through written reports.

Reporting communicates information that has been obtained from a variety of assessment processes and involves a professional judgement made on a body of evidence about a student’s progress and achievement against a set of clearly articulated standards. These standards for each learning area are designed to be consistent across all schools as an essential element of implementing the Australian Curriculum.

There are two main forms of assessment that help to inform a profile for each of our learners.

Formative assessment includes a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process and summative assessment tasks which are tasks linked to the achievement standards for that year level. 

The Australian Government has legislated a number of requirements of schools to ensure parents receive reliable information about their child’s progress. At the end of Semester 1, the first of our formal written reports are shared. You may have heard your child talk about a class test or assessment and this is most likely a summative task that feeds into their profile for the semester. 

Achievement levels are assigned using a five point scale

• P-1​: Applying AP, Making Connections MC, Working With WW, Exploring EX, Becoming Aware BA

• Years 2-6: ​A, B, C, D, E. 

If you would like further information regarding the reporting process, please feel welcome to drop into one of the following sessions. Year 2 parents are especially encouraged to attend as the transition from the Prep - 1 scale to A-E’s can be confusing. 

Tuesday,18th June - 8am, Thursday, 20th June - 2.30pm in the library. 

Report Cards for Semester 1 will be available for parent access on COMPASS on Friday, June 28th. If you have not yet  logged in to our COMPASS portal or are having any issue with logging in, please contact our office staff as soon as possible. 

What a week and what a team!  

Some of the extra opportunities for our students to extend their talents and to shine academically add a very valuable aspect to their school experience. St Joseph’s teams have had a wonderful string of results in Young Speechmakers Competition, Quest for Knowledge and Readers Cup. While it’s exciting and great for our students and school to win these competitions, the persistence developed in practise sessions, the collaborative skills formed when working in teams and the presentation skills honed when in front of an audience are such benefits to our students. These are the skills that teachers work  to develop everyday in their students. Congratulations to all students, staff and parents for being part of these amazing performances in the past week.  We encourage all of our students who are in a relevant year level to try out for a St Joey’s team when these opportunities are offered. Optiminds Challenge for upper classes is coming up in August and of course all of our classes will be competing in the choral section of Townsville Eisteddfod in September.

Quest for Knowledge Team

Awards will be presented at Assembly on the 19th June at 2pm

Class in the spotlight is Prep C

http://readiscover1.blogspot.com.au/ 

Congratulations to our 2 Readers cup teams. They did an awesome job on the night achieving 1st and 2^nd place in our regional competition.  We have truly gifted readers as they read the 5 books at least twice.  I’m also glad we decided to enter 2 teams as it is a wonderful experience for our students. They all worked very hard during lunch breaks and at home.  Read, Read, and Read some more!!  Thank you to their parents too as it takes parent initiative to foster a love of reading from a young age.  The winning team will be off to Brisbane for the state finals in September. 

If your child is in year 5 and participating in the litpro program by reading weekly they have a high chance of being in the readers cup team next year.  Go the reading Knights of St Joeys.

The magic of reading can be seen on their faces.

Book Week celebrations term 3: If you are new to our school, ask someone about our long-standing dress up day for book week.  The students love looking at the theme and working out their favourite book character.  The theme this year revolves around the magic and power of reading.  It has certainly manifested itself at our school. During term 3 I will explore this theme to assist children in dressing up as their favourite book character.  My Junior librarians have already said they love Harry Potter and our preps are looking closely at Magic Hat by Mem Fox.  Preps will have a book chosen for them and guided closely to help them create their own costume.  Holidays is a good time to start preparing their costume.  We strongly advocate creating a costume rather than buying one which has been the standing tradition at our school.  Here are our Year 2 students from 2018 when we did our treasure this theme.

Happy Reading

Belinda Walker

(Teacher Librarian)   

Rugby Union Representatives

Congratulations to Toby Kennedy, Orlando Lochowicz, Nicholas Barr and Anthony Roveglia on their selection in the North Qld under 12 School Rugby Union Team.

They will participate in the Qld Rugby Championships held in Townsville.

We wish our Joey's Boys well.