Term 3 Week 1 2022
Principal Report
Welcome everybody and especially welcome back to Jason and Cate as we roll up our sleeves and get ready for our Premiership quarter, the 3rd term, as we endeavour to maximise all childrens learning. Yesterday we had a visit from our director Mr Tom Sexton. Now with covid restrictions easing, Tom is trying to get around to visit schools and meet the staff and students.
At the end of this year I will be retiring from my position as Principal of St Joseph's School. It is important that we do this now so we have ample time to find someone to take on the Principalship and to drive our school forward. It has been a great journey to be Principal of a school like St Joseph's and I have engaged with many great people and students over this period. I think the time is now right to hang up the boots and enjoy the rest of my life, God willing.
The DOBCEL Leadership group decided at a meeting last term that, schools are encouraged to take the opportunity for a mid-term three break to support other well-being initiatives to combat the fatigue experienced as a result of the pandemic. This break will be held on the 19th and 22nd of August. Being aware of peoples working arrangements, I hope this can sit well with you because Covid/remote learning certainly took a lot out of education staff during Covid lock down and remote learning. (Please see letter below from Tom Sexton , Director)
With the Covid restrictions and remote learning, the Government invested in a tutoring programme to help some students who may need a little bit of help in some areas of the curriculum. St Joseph's have employed Mrs Karina Johnston to work one day a week for the rest of the year to help support those children in need.
We have had the tree stumps removed from the ground where our new outdoor learning area is going to be situated. The site has come up really well and prepartions are coming along nicely with the build.
Information
Badminton Tournament The Shepparton Badminton Tournament will be on Thursday 18th August. Cate and Naomi will be taking 8 children this year. Permission notes and cost will be sent home soon when arrangements are finalised. Children will be required to pay for accommodation and dinner Wednesday night. They will need to bring some spending money to buy their own lunch at the tournament. We will be staying in a cabin at a caravan park, 4 children with each adult.
Athletic Sports. The Calder Athletic Sports will be held on Thursday 25th August in Charlton. We will need helpers to run the hurdles on the day
School reports If anyone wants a hardcopy of the first semester reports, please contact Cate and she will organise it for you.
Prep/1/2 Class News
It’s been great to be back in frosty, cold Charlton after my trip away to the UK for the past 6 months. I have missed the staff, students and families and am excited to work with Prep, 1 and 2 again for Semester 2. This week we started back at school on Monday with excitement to see each other and share stories about the holidays. The students used their ‘senses’ to describe things they saw, ate, did, listened to, etc. over the holidays by creating a snapshot of pictures about the break. Then using this information, the students used conjunctions to string their ‘key words’ together and create sentences. The younger students did this with the teacher, whilst the older students had a go independently. Excellent work everyone! In Literacy, we also began to look at ‘information texts’ and the students will begin to learn about the features of an informative text and how to plan, write and edit a piece of work that informs someone about a topic. This week we’ve been reading ‘From Farms to You’, an informative text that teaches about where food products come from such as milk, honey, jam and bread. The students learnt that ‘processed’ food means the food has gone through changes before it ends up on the supermarket shelf, whereas fresh food means that the food has come straight from the source and is able to be consumed as it is. On Monday afternoon we joined with the older students for some singing practice where the students are building up a repertoire of songs that they can learn and know really well for future performances, before we split into two groups with the juniors starting to learn how to play the recorder. Students enjoyed learning the parts of the recorder, how to hold the instrument and cover the holes, before learning to play three different chords. We look forward to performing for the school down the track!
In Religion we’ve started to explore the concept of ‘Kindness’ and the students have discussed what it means to be kind and what this looks like through our actions. In Science, the class worked with the older students to conduct experiments which explored the properties of different liquids and what happened with them once different liquids were added together to see the ‘changes’ taking place. In Humanities we’re finishing up our unit on ‘Then and Now’, this week focusing on changes to transport over time. The students have been comparing different forms of transport from the olden days and have considered the changes that have taken place over the last 100 years. All in all it’s been a very good week, the students are happy to be back and working hard on their learning goals and we look forward to seeing where this term takes us with their ongoing learning journey.
3/4/5/6 Class News
Welcome back to Term 3 everyone!
This term students are learning about farm safety in their shared reading, including what being safe means and what hazards are on the farm. Students are revising the skills of reading to groups using voice projection, pacing and emphasis. Students are revising their understanding of narrative writing and have written creative stories about unsafe situations on a farm. They are revising story structure through orientation, conflict and resolution.
In Maths students are learning about fractions and decimals. Year 3 students are learning about common fractions and fractions of collections of items, such as ¼ of 12. Year 4 are revising fractions of collections of items, such as ⅛ of 16 and counting by common fractions such as thirds and sixths. Year 5 students are identifying, ordering and counting by common fractions and using a fraction wall. Year 6 students are looking at fractions of quantities below and past 100, such as ⅓ of 360.
In Religion we have read the story ‘Grandpa’s Soup’ and discussed the concept of hospitality. What does it mean? What does it look like/sound like/feel like? How was Grandpa’s experience different or similar from our own experiences of a special meal?
Contract 19 and homework spelling books are due Friday.
Community News
Confirmation and Eucharist 2022
Congratulations to Ruby Sim, Xavier Zagame, Alfie Sim, Luca Zagame, Ruby Wright, Patrick Winslade, Toby Bourke and Isabella Stahl on receiving the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist.
Humour
