Newsletter 2 2023
Principal Report
"Let the words you speak always be full of grace." Colossians 4:6
Hello to Families and all in the St Joseph's School Community,
As we work towards the end of Week Three, both staff and students are settling into somewhat of a daily routine. I am getting a great feel for the pride those in our school community have for St Joseph's. I commend the students for their effort each day and for the respect and manners shown; these are both traits that I aim to continue to grow and nurture in my leadership role. I also thank the staff for their dedication and commitment to St Joseph's School. They have each worked hard to ensure a smooth and engaging start for all students.
Beginning of Year Mass
The Beginning of Year Mass is on this Friday 10th February at 9:30am. All members of the St Joseph’s School Community are welcome to attend. We will welcome the Foundation students with a certificate and acknowledge our Year 6 leaders with a special surprise!
There are NO BUSES running on this day due to the Charlton College Swimming Sports. Parents will need to arrange transporting their children to and from school on this day. It is hoped all students are able to attend the Mass.
Education Consultant Visits
We have been very busy with visits from the Catholic Education Office Consultants during this week. As a beginning Principal, I am supported by Murray MacDonald, who I spent Tuesday afternoon working with. Yesterday Mrs Armstrong and I worked with Monique Ryan(out-going) and Maria Richards(in-coming) who are the Learning Diversity Education Consultants. They guide us in meeting the individual needs of our students, suggest relevant assessments and liaise with specialist staff, such as psychologists and speech therapists, to assist us in achieving the best outcomes for all students. Finally, Sam Meerbach and Shay King spent two days with us completing a Mathematics assessment on every student at St Joseph’s. Staff met to analyse and discuss the data, determining individual and class direction in numeracy going forward.
Parent Teacher Interviews
Interviews will be held during Week 6 (27th Feb – 3rd March). An interview schedule will be sent home next week. Please contact the Office if the allocated time does not suit you. These interviews provide an opportunity to connect with staff and learn more about your child’s academic, emotional and social development and to help your child’s teachers understand more about your child.
School Closure Days
Monday 20th February - Religious Education
Friday 10th March - Structured Literacy
Swimming Program
The Swimming Program commenced this week and we have been lucky to have perfect weather so far and improvements made each day. It is fantastic to see the students enjoying some learning and activity outside of the classroom. Swimming continues each day next week with the Swimming Carnival set for Friday 24th February between 12:30-2:30pm. All welcome.
Lord, let us build places of belonging,
To create a community for all to share their gifts,
To know that each of us is loved,
To help us see the Light of Christ in everything we do.
Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead,
Mary Hogan
Principal
Information
Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday is on the 21st February. We will have pancakes for morning tea on this day.
Ash Wednesday, 22nd February. Mass at 12:30p.m. Potato cakes and chips for lunch.
Camp, Sports and Excursion Fund. If you have a valid health care card, you are eligible for the CSEF funding. Please bring your health care card into the office so Cate can get a copy of it and she will give you the appropriate paperwork to fill in.
Parental Consent Forms/iPad agreements/conveyance allowance forms. The children should have bought home an envelope last Tuesday with classroom notes and a number of forms that need to be signed and returned. Parental consent forms - please make any changes, sign and return; iPad agreements (Grades 3/4/5/6) - please read through parent and student expectations with your child, sign and return; Conveyance allowance forms (some bus students) please sign back page and get children to sign second page. Please return all forms to school ASAP.
School Photos. School photos will be on the 1st of March this year. This is a Wednesday, so all preps will be required at school this day.
Foundation/1/2 Class Report
This week in the junior classroom we've been working hard on setting up routines, getting used to our different learning topics and getting to know each other better.
In Reading, we have read our first book 'What's in the Lake?' The students have enjoyed breaking apart words, rhyming, counting syllables and phonemes, all whilst exploring our story. In writing the students have started learning pre-writing skills needed to be a confident and capable writer. These include skills such as sitting up properly with a straight back, holding your pencil with the correct grip and beginning and finishing your letters in the correct position on the dotted lines.
In Maths the students have commenced learning around the topics of 'Place Value' and 'Counting' forwards and backwards. We've been focusing on working with the different columns to find ones, tens and hundreds and have been manipulating hands on materials to reinforce the learnt concepts.
In PE the students have been excitedly learning how to swim with our daily swimming lessons at the Charlton Swimming Pool. Skills such as floating, holding our breath when going under the water, using correct swimming strokes and working on swimming safety skills, have all been covered during our swimming sessions this week.
In Religion we've been learning about belonging and the students are beginning to understand their place in the school with their new classes and teachers and start to develop a sense of belonging within our school community, our classrooms and different friends.
We are excited to welcome you all to our opening mass this Friday which will be run by Father Gerry in the Parish Church at 9:30am, as we commission the Grade 6's in their new role as school leaders, welcome the new students to our school and ask God to bless the New Year ahead.
Grade 3/4 Class Report
Students have had a wonderful week with the start of our two week swimming program. Students are learning different swimming strokes and techniques, survival skills in the water and having a lot of fun.
In class we have been focusing on the skills of reading and consolidating our skills to become accurate, fluent and expressive readers. Students have focused on the comprehension skill of identifying the main idea of a text and/or paragraphs this week. They have worked on this skill with the teacher and allowed some independent time to consolidate their understanding. Students are working to consolidate their writing skills and have drafted a creative writing piece this week, focusing on sequencing their ideas and writing in complete sentences. Students have revised basic punctuation of full stop, commas, exclamation and question marks and using these in their writing. Students have enjoyed sharing their stories with the class.
In Maths, students are continually practicing their mental math abilities through daily revision and practice of these. Students are continuing to work on place value to tens of thousands with a focus on modelling these numbers using MAB blocks, written and pictorial representations. Students are also working on identifying place value of a number and expanding these to show number values.
A great week.
Homework contract 1 and spelling homework are due this Friday. Thank you.
Grade 5/6 Class Report
Grade 5 & 6
Thank you for signing up to our class Seesaw app! Students are ready and waiting to share their learning with you. I have resent the information today for anyone who hasn’t signed up as it is a great way to see what your children are up to at school and to receive class messages. We had our first assembly for this year which was capably led by this term’s leaders, Lila and Cooper – well done. A further highlight this week has been the super behaviour and effort from all students as we commenced our Swimming Program. Fantastic job everyone.
ENGLISH
In English this week we have completed our beginning of year assessments. Students are developing a morning routine, using Google Classroom and the shared screen to assist with digital visual displays. We have introduced our first weekly spelling list and continue to revise sentence punctuation and word parts (prefix-base-suffix). Students are working on their first narrative creative writing piece, being encouraged to use adjectives to paint a visual in the reader’s mind!
MATHEMATICS
In Mathematics this week we continue to begin each lesson with counting, times table facts and mental math work. We are looking for ways to work quicker and smarter mentally, by making connections and using what we know to help us with what we don’t know yet! We revised what square and triangular numbers are and explored the patterns they make. Students are exploring place value from small to very large numbers! A simple home activity is to practise adding 10, 100 or 1 000 or subtracting 10, 100 or 1 000 from a given number! Numbers and patterns are amazing – have fun exploring them!
Another fantastic week in the Senior Classroom – well done Class!
Swimming Program
Our swimming program is underway for the 2023 school year. We have had Mrs Smyth and Mrs Byrne organising the program with all of the other staff members helping out. The children are enjoying their lessons and improvements are being seen every day.
Community News
The Charlton Football Club invites all community members to attend the first of two mental health education sessions on Thursday 16th February at 7:00pm. Outside The Locker Room will be presenting the program. They are an organistaion that provide mental health education and welfare support to organisations across Australia. The program will include: how to start conversations on mental health/signs and symptoms/how to support someone/how to seek help/wellbeing/resilience/inclusion and respect. It is ok not to be ok and it is ok to ask for help.
The Buloke Shire and Bendigo Bank have both sponsored this program to enable it to happen.
