Newsletter 3 2023
Principal Report
Hello to Families and all in the St Joseph's School Community,
Learning and growing is well under way at St Joseph’s as we are now well and truly into Term One. The saying, time flies when you’re having fun, feels appropriate to me as I settle into my role as teacher and Principal in a new community! I have certainly felt the hospitality and welcome of many in the St Joseph’s family, and as I meet each new person I am beginning to feel more a part of your special, tight-knit community. Next week, the Liturgical Season of Lent commences with Ash Wednesday on Wednesday 22nd February. Staff and students will attend Mass with Fr Gerry in the Parish Church at 2:15pm. All members of the St Joseph’s School Community are most welcome to attend.
God, we ask for a flourishing community, where neighbours learn to love each other
and come to know Jesus. We pray that we can be good stewards of Your love to each one of our neighbours. We ask that You help us to learn from our community, and that it may be a place where all are welcomed.
Bus Travellers
Please remind your children to take extreme care if they use the bus for travel each day. Students
must wait until it is safe to cross the road after they dismount the bus. The end of the school day can be very busy at school pick up time and students must be cautious and aware of their safety. This means NO RUSHING, NO RUNNING and EXTREME CARE to be taken each day.
If you have to cross in front of the bus, walk on the sidewalk way out in front of the bus, make sure that the driver sees you, then cross.
Structured Literacy
This week staff met with Education Consultants from the Mildura Catholic Education Offices. Emma and Breanna are two of the founders of the Structured Literacy Program. This program is centred around explicit teaching of all components of language and literacy. St Joseph’s is excited to be part of this language revolution, beginning our training and learning this term. 2023 will be a learning year for us, with implementation beginning later this year and into the future. More information to follow in the coming weeks.
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
A reminder that students are not required at school on the following days:
Monday 20th February - Religious Education
Friday 10th March - Structured Literacy
Swimming Program
The Swimming Program has continued with perfect weather each day. It has been rewarding to see the improvement and progress each child has made during the program. The Swimming Carnival is set for Friday 24th February between 12:30-2:30pm. All are most welcome to attend and cheer the students from the sidelines. (If anyone would like to participate in a Yr 6 vs adult race, please leave your name at the office!)
Students will be placed into two teams – Dory(BLUE) and Nemo(ORANGE). Students are encouraged to come to school dressed in their team colours. Prizes awarded for the best dressed! The teams for the Swimming Sports are attached.
School Uniform
Parents and carers are asked to maintain the correct school uniform at all times. If correct uniform cannot be worn on a particular day, or if you are having difficulties sourcing the correct uniform, please communicate this to the Office or the Principal.
Full Summer Uniform – NOT SPORTS UNIFORM – is to be worn on WEDNESDAY 1st of March 2023 for our annual school photos. Preps to attend school on this day and may have a rest day later in the week if needed.
School Nurse Visit
Kerrie McCosh, primary school nurse, will be visiting our school on March 3rd this year.
Foundation Grade Health Assessments: All parents/guardians of Foundation grade
children will be asked to complete a Health Questionnaire and return the form to the school
before her visit. If you do not wish your child to be seen by the school nurse, please sign
the non-consent section and return the form to the school.
Referrals (Grades 1-6): Parents and/or teachers may refer children from any grade for
assessments of vision, hearing, basic speech, physical abilities, medical conditions,
behavioural and parenting issues. Please collect a referral form from the school office if you need to make a referral.
Completed forms are to be handed into the school office prior to March 3rd 2023. Should
parents wish to have an interview with the School Nurse, please indicate your request on the form.
Please note: You can talk to the primary school nurse at any time throughout the year. The
school has her mobile phone number.
On Wednesday 1st March 2023, an opportunity will be provided for you to come along and meet or chat to your child’s teacher. More information next week.
Homework
Homework contracts, including spelling, and nightly reading should be a part of your weekly routine by this time of the term. Please encourage this very valuable habit and sign your child’s reader diary each evening. Please contact myself or the class teacher if you are encountering difficulties with homework.
I am heading to Horsham Thursday and Friday to attend the Diocesan Principal’s Gathering! Please remember students are not required at school on MONDAY as staff undertake professional learning in Religious Education.
Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead,
Mary Hogan
Principal
Information
Outside The Locker Room. The Outside the Locker Room Mental Health and Wellbeing team are coming to Charlton on Thursday night. They will be running their first session from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. 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 and that it is ok not to be ok and it is ok to ask for help. Anyone is welcome to attend. PLease see flyer in community events section of newsletter.
PAM - SIMON EVERYWHERE. PAM and Simon Everywhere are finally up and going again. If you don't have access yet, please delete the app and find the email that was sent in mid-January from Cate which should have the instructions on how to log in. If you can't find this email, Cate can resend it, just let her know. You also have to delete and reload SIMON Everywhere. This is the app that sends the notifications to your phone when the school sends one. Your user name for Simon Everywhere is the same as for PAM. Please come and see Cate if you are having any problems. It is extremely important that every family has access to PAM/Simon Everywhere to keep them informed of the goings on at school.
Rapid Antigen Tests. School will no longer be receiving RAT tests but we still have dozens of them here at school if you want any. Please just ask at the office.
Grade 6 Hoodies. If any families would like to purchase a second jumper for their child, they can be purchased from Donald Mensland.
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 2:15p.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.
Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement. We are now required to adopt DOBCEL's Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement. Although the Grade 3,4,5 and 6 students and parents have already signed their iPad agreements for 2023, we ask could you also please read through and sign the DOBCEL required document the children have brought home.
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. Envelopes have been sent home, please return even if you are not buying any photos.
Murray River Encephalitis Information. Please open link for more information. Link
EVERY DAY COUNTS. Please read the following article. School attendance is so very important for your child's education. Please remember, if your child is absent for any reason, you must fill in the absentee form on SIMON before 9:30a.m. If any parents are having trouble with this, please come in and see Cate, and she will help you get it sorted.
Foundation/1/2 Class Report
What a busy week we’ve had in the junior learning classroom! The students have settled in nicely; getting used to our daily routines, learning and exploring new and interesting concepts each day and improving their swimming skills! Well done everyone! Homework has been sent home this week in a dedicated scrapbook, so please expect this home on Mondays and do your best to return by the end of the week so I can correct it before the following week 😊 We really appreciate all your efforts with reading and practicing spelling words each night with your children and it’s already been great to see the students motivated to learn and improving day by day!
In our reading sessions this week, we’ve continued to explore the techniques and skills used to decode words in texts as we read. The students have been practicing using their pointer finger to focus on the initial sounds in words when reading, using the picture to help determine meaning and eventually reading ‘before and after a word’ to make sense of unknown vocabulary. This week we’ve been reading ‘Larkin Street Pets’ and it’s been enjoyable to talk about the students' experiences with pets and to imagine what their most desirable pet would be if they could have anything they wanted! We’ve been working in small reading groups to target the students learning goals and it’s been valuable to see the students making connections and growing in confidence with their reading.
In Numeracy, the students have been revisiting counting by 1’s, 2’s and 5’s and we’ve started to explore the place value of numbers, i.e., ones, tens, hundreds. The students have enjoyed using manipulatives to explore different ways of making numbers – bundling, grouping, trading with popsicle sticks, mini connector cubes, and MAB blocks.
It was lovely to see everyone at our opening Mass on Friday and we were excited to welcome our new Preps: Ivy Giles, Sally Armstrong and Samantha Revell, officially into the St Joseph’s School community. Each received a special certificate to commemorate the day and a set of rosary beads which were blessed by Father Gerry. The students will use these prayer beads whilst at school during Religion lessons and prayer when suited. We look forward to seeing the three girls grow in knowledge and goodness as they find their place in our school and in what we hope will be the beginning of a lifelong love of learning for each.
Grade 3/4 Class Report
Swimming continues to be an exciting part of the day. Students have listened well and have learnt different strokes, survival skills and techniques and how to signal for help. Wonderful participation and enthusiasm by all students.
We are wrapping up our testing this week. Thank you to all of the students for their concentration and participation. These tests will help sharpen our focus in the classroom and support students further in the areas that they may be less familiar with.
In class we have continued to work on our skills of reading to become accurate, fluent and expressive readers. Students have revised the comprehension skill of identifying the main idea of a text and/or paragraphs. Students have been working on the short a sound in their Sound Waves booklets and identifying, reading and writing these words with the sound at the beginning, middle and end of a word. It was harder than it looked! Students have been revising their writing skills through letter writing this week. Students were asked to write a letter to a classmate reviewing a book that they had read, using appropriate letter structure, sentence formation, punctuation and spelling strategies. They were to share their opinions on the story and evaluate how interesting they found the book and why.
In Maths, students are continually practicing their counting abilities and have focused on 900-1000 and beyond. Students have used number charts to count by 10s and 3s from a non zero starting point. Place value to tens of thousands continues to be our focus this week with students modeling, writing, expanding and showing numbers using their whiteboards and MAB blocks. Students have revised their understanding of rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000 using 3-5 digit numbers.
In Art this week students have finished their self portraits and explored an inspiration for Religion on a time of growth in their lives.
Homework contract 2 and spelling homework are due this Friday. Thank you.
Grade 5/6 Class Report
Grade 5 & 6
We nearly have everyone signed up to our class Seesaw app! Students are ready and waiting to share their learning with you. Please let me know if you need the information to connect resent to you. The highlight for this week has been the obvious improvement shown by each student during the Swimming Program lessons. We have had a lot of fun learning valuable life-saving, safety and survival techniques this week. I’m sure it felt different swimming in PDFs, treading water and completing survival sequences using breaststroke and survival backstroke. Well done everyone!
It was great to see our Grade 6 students looking very smart in their new hoodies with a couple of cooler mornings this week!
ENGLISH
In English this week we have started using “Sky, Grass, Ground’ Books for Handwriting each day. These books help with letter formation and over time can improve presentation and fluency. We are onto our second list of Spelling words and these words will be assessed on Friday. As well as working on an undersea narrative, focusing on paragraphing, students completed their first Read and Retell exercise. The story was about a very cheeky mouse and a big, black bull! Sentence punctuation continues to be revised within our daily work.
MATHEMATICS
In Mathematics students have continued to explore place value from thousands to millions and beyond! Students are working to read, say, and write numbers in expanded notation (eg 2347=2000+300+40+7). Students have worked on a variety of learning tasks from building numbers with MAB Blocks to games and written tasks. Learning has been reinforced using activities on the students’ iPads. The final component of learning this week is for students to distinguish between value and place value of a given digit (eg 375 – the 7 has a value of 70 and is in the tens column).
Next week will see our mornings return to the normal scheduling with the conclusion of the Swimming Program. A reminder to have your satchel, reader, diary and Homework Book with you at school each day, please.
It is pleasing to see students being organised of a morning as they arrive at school and generally picking up on daily routines. Well done, 5&6.
Community News
The Charlton Football Club invites one and all 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 and that 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.
