Term 4 Week 7
Principal's Report
Hello parents and friends of St Joseph's
I'm not sure where spring has gone, the winter woolies have come back out this week! Mr McGrath will be on leave until the 12th of December so I will be Acting Principal in the interim. I will be in the office 5 days a week during this time so feel free to drop in or call if needed.
The classroom structure and staffing for Term 1 2023 will be the same as this year with Mr Whatnall in Prep/1/2 and Mrs Armstrong and Mrs Byrne in the 3/4/5/6 room. Mrs Winslade will not be coming back next year so Mrs Johnston will be working on Tuesday to cover Mrs Winslade's position. Mrs Johnston will only be here for first term though, as she is expecting her third baby in May. We welcome Naomi Fitzpatrick to our staff for 2023 as a Learning Support Officer. Naomi will be working from 9:00a.m. to 1:00p.m. every day. We have also welcomed Jodie Heritage back as the cleaner this term.
Today we welcomed our 2023 Foundation students for their first transition day. Sally, Ivy and Samantha all had a fabulous time and wanted to stay longer! They went on a bear hunt and did lots of other exciting things. They will be back the next week two weeks.
Today we also had a practise Lock Down Drill. I'm glad we don't live in the USA as this would be common practise!
We are busy practising for Carols by Candlelight and Graduation Mass. Carols is on Sunday 11th December (time yet to be confirmed) and Graduation Mass is on Tuesday 13th December at 6:00p.m. in the church followed by a BBQ tea (BYO drinks) in the quadrangle. Graduation this year will be a normal graduation for Murphy followed by a farewell for Mr McGrath. We ask that all families attend both Carols and Graduation. If your children have a previous engagement and can't make it to either event, please let me know ASAP. All of the children have special jobs so we will need to change these if they are not attending.
Just a reminder for families to please send a healthy snack, fruit, yoghurt, carrot sticks etc for fruit break every day and also something extra for morning tea. We are finding a number of children are missing one or both of these snacks each day.
Tomorrow we farewell Lara Thompson. Lara has been a wonderful asset to the Prep/1/2 classroom over the past 3 weeks. She has really enjoyed her placement and has loved being back where her educational journey began. Thank you Lara and good luck with the rest of your studies.
Until next week
Cate Olive
Acting Principal
Information
Carols By Candlelight. Carols by Candlelight will be held on Sunday 11th December at the Rex Theatre. Time to be confirmed at a leter date.
Graduation. The Graduation Mass will be held on Tuesday 13th December at 6:00p.m. Followed by a BBQ in the quadrangle. BYO drinks.
Transition Days. The transition days for next years foundation students begin today week. We welcome Sally Armstrong, Ivy Giles and Samantha Revell.
Swimming Programme 2023. There has been a change of plan for our swimming programme for next year. Charlton College has asked us if we would like to join with them for their swimming programme next year. We have decided to go ahead with this plan for 2023 and see how it goes. More info will be provided in the new year but at this stage it will still run the first 2 weeks back at school next year. We will possibly join the college for their swimming sports as well.
Dream Seeds Workshop. 23rd November for grade 5/6 students
Puberty Classes. Grade 5/6 class Wednesday 23rd November and Wednesday 30th November. If any parents of children in the younger classes would like them to attend, please let the staff know ASAP.
Prep/1/2 Class News
It’s been a good week in the junior classroom with the students working hard on their learning goals. This week we’ve explored the narrative text ‘The Brave Knight’ from the Clinker Castle series. We’ve read a few books from this series in class this semester, so it was good for the students to recognise some similar characters and settings in the royal kingdom seen in the book. As we usually do, we unpacked the text before reading and explored the vocabulary in the book by breaking apart words into their onset and rime parts, i.e. cl+ash = clash, spr+ay=spray, individual phonemes, i.e. l-oo-k-ed, sh-ou-t and into syllables, i.e. im+por+tant, cal+cul+at+ing. The students are really good at breaking apart words in our daily reading sessions and are encouraged to use these strategies when reading at home as well as when sounding out words to spell or write. Excellent work everyone!
In Maths, we’ve been consolidating our learning around measurement in class by focusing on areas that there have been some misconceptions or misunderstandings around. The students have learnt about why we make an estimation before working out the answer and how this can help us to check if we were close or far off from where we should have been. Also we’ve talked about the importance of being accurate when measuring because if we aren’t this can affect many aspects of our results.
In Religion this week we’ve started to explore the meaning behind prayer, why we pray, where we can pray, who we are talking to when we are praying and what types of things we can pray about. The students have learnt about the ‘sign of the cross’ and why we do this and what it represents – the Trinity. Next week we’ll learn more about the three parts of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit and what each part represents and means for us. In P.E, the students have had a few weeks of working on upper and lower body exercises. We have worked through repetitions of different movements using both arms and legs and have talked about the parts of the body and muscles that are being worked on with each exercise. The students enjoyed coming up with their own exercises, presenting these to the group and having everyone follow along as they worked through the repetitions. Great work everyone! We’d also like to say a huge thank-you to Ms. Lara Thompson who has done an exceptional job whilst working with us in the junior classroom for the past 3 weeks. We wish her all the best with the remainder of her studies and know she will make a very fine teacher one day.
3/4/5/6 Class News
On Friday the 11th of November students participated in a Remembrance Day ceremony as a whole school. The students learnt about the history of Remembrance Day and how and why it is still celebrated. Students gave their silence and recited the Ode. After this students made a poppy craft. Well done to all that participated.
This week in Literacy students are reading about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in the shared reading. Students have been consolidating their reading skills and learning new vocabulary based around the legend of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Students have revised what persuasive writing is this week. They have explored what persuasive devices are and clear examples of each. Students have started working on their own plans for persuasive writing piece.
In Maths students are in the thick of revision of concepts covered over the year. Students have revised their understanding of the concept of Chance. Year 5 and 6 have been working on revising the likelihood of something occurring using fractions and decimals. They have been revising their recognition of 2D and 3D shapes concerning symmetry and their properties. Year 3 and 4 students have been revising determine likelihood of events using vocabulary such as certain or unlikely and showing this in a visual format. Students have revised 2D and 3D shapes and properties including tessellation and non tessellation.
Students are continuing to practice their song for Christmas Carols and Graduation.
Homework contract 33 and spelling words are due Friday please.
Community News
Humour
Two Irish companies were competing to put up telegraph poles. The authorities decided to test them.
The first company achieved twenty but the second company only managed two.
“I’m afraid you lost the job”, the second company was told, “the other boys managed twenty to your two”.
“Ah”, came the reply, “but they cheated; did you see how much they left sticking out of the ground?”