St Joseph’s Primary School Charlton eNewsletter

Principal's Report

Frank is away at the Northern Zone Principal's Retreat in Daylesford this week. He will return to school on Friday, just in time to cook our dad's breakfast. We wish all of our father's and grandfather's a very Happy Father's Day on Sunday and we hope they enjoy their breakfast on Friday morning. We thank all of the staff who have been involved in the preparation for the day. What a fun way for us to celebrate our Dad's.

We have received a letter from Mr Tom Sexton, Chief Executive Officer of DOBCEL, regarding the search for a new Principal. I have attached the letter below this report. The search is still on.

Tomorrow is Calder Athletics Sports Day. We hope the children have a great day and they all try their very best. There will be a slight change to the program. Circular relays will be run as shuttle relays this year because the lines have faded in one area of the oval (where the oval is wettest!) We have a preliminary final in Charlton this weekend so they have decided it is best to keep the children away from this section of the oval as much as possible. Thanks to the parents who are coming along to help. We realise most of our parents are working these days and school activities don't always fit into work schedules.

We are heading towards the end of Term 3 with only two weeks to go. School camp for the grade 3/4/5/6 students will be in the last week of term. The children should have taken home notes to their parents with all the details. The children will be travelling to Daylesford with Mrs Byrne, Mrs Lanyon and one other person. We ask that you keep the childrens bags as small as possible as space will be tight. Grades prep/1/2 will be going on their excursion on the Tuesday of the last week of term with Mr Whatnall and Mrs Winslade. More information to come on this soon.

We will be participating in the STOMP dance program first week back next term. The first session starts at 9:00a.m. so one class will have to get off their buses at the stadium. I am still waiting for confirmation from the College on which class this will be. The teacher will be waiting at the College for these children so they wont be left alone at any stage.

Good luck to all ogf our students playing in hockey preliminary finals this weekend and to Mrs Lanyon's B grade netball team. Go Navies.

Information

Complaints Handling Policy As part of the new 11 Child Safety Standards, our school has a new Complaints Handling Policy. This policy provides a framework for reporting, recording, investigating, finalising, reviewing and monitoring complaints and their outcomes. It provides surety and support for all stakeholders through what can be a difficult process. At St Joseph's, we endeavour to ensure that complaints are managed and resolved fairly and in a timely manner. The Complaints Handling Policy should be read with the DOBCEL Child Safe Standards - Recordkeeping Policy.

We encourage our families to take the time to read the new and updated Safeguarding: Code of Conduct which is available on our website. This document list acceptable and unacceptable behaviours in relation to Child Safety and Wellbeing.

We also welcome your feedback on these new policies and if you have any questions in relation to them, to please contact me at the school.

During the next few weeks, our school will be working with the students on what Child Safety means to them and, if they need to make a complaint, how they can do this. This will help in forming a new and revised Child friendly version of the Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy. This will be in a format and language which the children can understand.

Fr Gerry's 70th birthday celebration. Fr Gerry turned 70 last week. The Parish will be celebrating with a lunch at the Cricket Club Hotel on Sunday 28th August after 10:30 Mass. Please let Sandra Patton (0407 320 633) know if you will be attending as meals will be pre-ordered.

100 years of the Presbytery. The St Joseph's Presbytery and Hall were built 100 years ago this year. There will be a celebration and tour of the presbytery in October.

Prep/1/2 Class News

This week in the junior classroom, the students have been working hard on reading, unpacking and understanding the features that make up an informative text. The students have learnt that informative texts contain facts and real information and we’ve done a bit of work around determining the difference between facts and opinions. We’ve then carried on with this into our writing sessions where the students have been writing facts about particular topics – our house, our family, fruit and vegetables and spiders. The older students in our class have been learning about paragraphs and what this looks like in writing. For each topic the students have been encouraged to choose an idea and to come up with 2-3 sentences about the idea that they can string together into sentences to form a paragraph. Excellent work everyone!

In Maths the students have started learning about fractions and this week we’ve explored the language ‘equal’, ‘same’ and ‘unequal’. The students have practiced splitting objects and groups/collections into two equal groups and when the groups were not the same, the students have been practicing using language to describe this, i.e. the groups are unequal because one has four and one has three. On Friday we had a go at using grid squares to create ‘Area Robots’ which involved counting the squares for each body part, constructing a robot and then adding all the squares together to find out the total area of each robot that was created! These looked awesome and the students had a lot of fun making them and getting creative with the sizes and shapes used.

In Sport we’ve been practicing nice and hard for the Athletics Carnival to be held tomorrow in Charlton. The students have worked on their throwing, jumping and running skills consistently each week, showing continual improvement and readiness for the fun day ahead. Today we had one last practice at our relays, working on the butterfly grip and hand pass, working well as a team and moving fast from one end of the field to the other. Good-luck to all the students tomorrow! We’re also very excited for the Father’s Day breakfast being held at school on Friday, with the students working on gifts and cards to give to Dad this week. We hope to see as many of the Dads at our breakfast for some yummy bacon and eggs with their children.

This week students are reading about quad bike safety on farms. What are the hazards associated with quad bikes and what behaviors and practices can be put into place to prevent these occurring. Students are continuing to work on using context clues to determine the meaning of technical terms such as obstacle or terrain. Students are also consolidating reading skills, such as monitoring, to ensure that what they are reading sounds correct and they are understanding it fully. In writing, students are continuing to work on their video submission assignment on farm safety and their comic strips. Students are also completing a poster on promoting quad bike safety.

In Maths students are continuing to work on understanding patterns and algebra sums, including following rules for patterns, determining rules for patterns, creating balanced equations and problem solving patterns. Students are also working on location and transformation this week. Year 4 students are looking at compass points and following directions. Year 6 students are working on grid references using a scaled map. Year 3 students are looking at symmetry of 2D shapes. Year 5 students are also working on symmetry of 2D irregular shapes using dot paper references.

Students are working on their assignments on the Sacrament of Eucharist in Religion classes.

Contract 26 homework and spelling words are due Friday please.

Wishing all of the Dads a very happy Father’s Day this weekend.