Newsletter 6 2023
Principal Report
Hello to Families and all in the St Joseph's School Community,
As I write today, we move into the third week of the Lenten Season and we are provided the opportunity to reflect on all the women in our world, with the recognition of International Women’s Day. I also received many emails about this day, one of which struck a chord with me. The email posted information from Andrew Fuller (a well-known psychologist) and it spoke of empowering and nurturing our young girls. I have added parts of the article below, which I think are well worth a read.
May we all reflect on the strong, intelligent, talented, driven and wonderful women in our world.
My hope is for a world free from bias, stereotypes and discrimination for ALL people, not just women.
I hope for a world that is diverse, equitable and inclusive!
The following prayer is from Caritas Australia.
God, whose love and goodness gather us in:
we pray for women all over the world,
especially those challenged by poverty and other injustice.
Stir us to know women’s dignity.
Quieten us to listen to women’s voices.
Awaken us to see women’s realities.
Strengthen us to stand for women’s rights.
Fill us with hope to make a better future together.
Amen.
Parent Teacher Interviews
Any family who was unable to attend Parent-Teacher Interviews last week is invited to contact the School Office to arrange a time to meet with the relevant teacher.
School Nurse Visit
Kerrie McCosh, primary school nurse, visited our school on Friday March 3rd and carried out Health assessments for our Foundation students. Kerrie also completed a number of health screens for students in all grades. Results will be communicated once they become available.
Please note: You can talk to the primary school nurse at any time throughout the year. The school has her mobile phone number if required.
St Joseph’s School Hopetoun
St Joseph’s School in Hopetoun is one of the small schools in our Northern Zone of the Ballarat Diocese. Yesterday evening, we were fortunate to be able to offer our hospitality to them as they journeyed home from Melbourne. Staff and students were provided dinner and a quick break at our school on their way home from a school excursion. Thank you to the parents who worked to provide the meal and made this possible.
Structured Literacy
As mentioned previously, our school has committed to training in the Structured Literacy Program during 2023. Structured Literacy approaches emphasise highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy. I am excited for what this program means for the teaching and learning of literacy in 2024 and beyond. This Friday 10th March (tomorrow) staff will attend a professional learning day in Structured Literacy in Hopetoun. Students are not at school tomorrow as staff undertake this valuable learning.
Foundation Students
Foundation students are welcome to commence full time schooling from now on. If at any time you feel your child needs a rest, please communicate this to the school to organise a day for them.
DOBCEL Consultants
We continue to be actively supported by consultants from The Catholic Education Office. This week we have had:
Shay King, Curriculum Consultant, completing phonics assessments as pre-data for The Structured Literacy Program.
Maria Richards from the Learning Diversity field working with Mrs Armstrong in her role at St Joseph’s School.
Penny Irish, Properties and Facilities, auditing our school property and providing feedback on what may be required in the future.
Grade 5 & 6 Leadership Morning
On Tuesday 14th March I will provide a Leadership morning for the Grade 5 & 6 students. Some things to be explored include characteristics of a good leader; the difference between being bossy and leading; how we can lead in our school community; personal characteristics and attributes and the challenge of not ‘sitting on the fence’. Students will be challenged to identify some community projects they can work on as leaders in their school and wider community.
Students may wear casual clothing and morning tea will be provided.
NAPLAN
NAPLAN Assessments begin next Wednesday 15th March and the testing window ends on 27th March. Students in Grade 3 and 5 complete these assessments. A reminder, that while these assessments provide valuable information to schools and families, they are one test on one given day. NAPLAN assessments are not designed to cause stress for children and should be undertaken as another task in a usual working week. NAPLAN proficiency standards have been updated this year and can be found on the acara website for your information. https://www.acara.edu.au/docs/default-source/media-releases/naplan-proficiency-standards-media-release-2023-02-10.pdf
Digital Devices and Technology
Student iPads are used to enhance and reinforce student learning and exploration each day. Children enjoy working and interacting digitally and need to develop skill in this area of the curriculum. A reminder to make sure devices are charged and ready for use each day. Students are very capable with technology and our internet safety guidelines remind us to connect, reflect and protect and always be aware of the online activity of our children.
Connect safely and with purpose – by keeping apps and devices secure and using the internet in positive ways.
Reflect before we act – by taking a moment to consider how what we do and say online may affect others.
Protect ourselves and others by taking action – by telling family, friends or colleagues about eSafety.
Important Dates
Please note the following dates which are on the Term Calendar.
Friday 10th March – SCHOOL CLOSURE as staff attend Professional Learning in Structured Literacy
Tuesday 14th – Leadership Morning for Grade 5&6 students (casual clothes)
Wednesday 15th March – NAPLAN commences
Monday 20th March – St Joseph’s School Feast Day Mass at 9:30am
Friday 24th March – Author Visit Phil Kettle
Monday 27th March – Child Safety Session - Senior students
Friday 31st March Hot Shots Tennis in Boort – Grade 5 & 6
Monday 3rd April – Excursion to Swan Hill to see “The Alphabet of Awesome Science” F-6 students
Please keep on the dates as they continue to populate in each weekly newsletter and aim to avoid appointments on these days so all students can participate.
Students are not at school this FRIDAY or next MONDAY.
Enjoy the extra-long, long weekend!
Mary Hogan
Principal
Mary Hogan
Principal
Student of The Week
Helping Girls Regain Their Confidence and Motivation
While the pandemic years have challenged us all, the effects have been especially severe for girls and young women. They are the most likely to experience the ‘disorders of distress’- anxiety and depression and for some, self- harm, and body insecurity.
Of course, these issues can also affect boys and do not apply to all girls or to all young women. Nevertheless, discussing ways to help our girls and young women recover after a tough time is needed.
What the Internet Steals From Us
If we consider the way most girls and young women calm and manage stress, it seems these are the very things that social media does not offer:
Shared decision making
Deepening & enrichment of conversations
Collaboration
Kindness
Effective support.
GIRL POWER
Teach self–reliance.
We need to help our girls and young women to shift from narrow perfectionism to developing strong identities and create great lives.
Being timid or oblique about their capacities and strengths does them no favours. Let them know you think they are smart and can get even smarter. Everyone makes mistakes.
Great people use their mistakes to get smarter and stronger.
You don’t overcome perfectionism by not making mistakes. You overcome perfectionism by making mistakes and learning how to use that knowledge to create different outcomes in the future. All great undertakings require overcoming adversity and setbacks.
Once girls know that you believe in them and like them, it is useful to move them from pleasing others to self-reliance. This is the development of courageous resilience. This is best done by coaching them towards strengthening a positive sense of their identity and extending their skills in an area of their choosing.
The way we do this, is called CARE coaching-
Connect
Ask
Reassure
Empower
Create a non-judgemental environment in which they can take risks, make mistakes, and improve on their performance over time.
The desire that many girls and young women have to ‘get it right’ can quickly topple into anxiety and perfectionism. Perfectionist girls may constantly seek reassurance from you that they are doing the right thing. Discuss options with them and then teach them to trust their instincts and do what they think is right.
Most girls will do what is asked of them, but they may be less likely to realise that they have acquired a transferable skill. Instead of focusing on having pleased an adult, we want them to attribute their successes to their own skills and capabilities. This builds self-efficacy, self-awareness, and meta-cognition.
Help them to develop a resume of acquired skills. Teach them that everyone can get smarter and has learning strengths they can develop. Support them in trying out and learning new things. Encourage having a go and living by your wits.
Our girls and young women need us to be bold and to act as positive antidotes to the dreadful effects of the past few years.
Andrew’s websites
Books for Parents
Tricky Behaviours
The A to Z of Feelings
Unlocking Your Child’s Genius (Bad Apple Press)
Foundation/1/2 Class Report
This week in the junior learning classroom, the students have been working really hard in both their reading and writing sessions to work on individual letter sounds, scooping letters together to make new sounds, i.e. ‘er’, ‘th’, ‘sh’ and transferring the learnt knowledge explored in our Shared Reading block into our Writing block. I’ve been really impressed with the student’s enthusiasm to share what they’ve learnt with educators, other students and our new principal – showing that the students are excited to learn, they want to share what they’ve learnt and that they are developing a good enough understanding of what’s being explored in class to be able to restate their learning to others. So far the Foundation students have learnt 8 letters in depth – p, s, m, i, b, o, a & c and it’s been great to see the connections being made by the students as they learn their sounds and start recognising them in readers and print media around the classroom and school.
This last week we’ve been reading the book ‘Shopping’, which followed the story of the King from our ‘Clinker Castle’ book series as he went about doing his weekly shopping for the royal family. The students have enjoyed sounding out the vocabulary in the book, talking about the pictures and using them to help with decoding unfamiliar words. It’s been encouraging to see the students doing so well with their oral language sessions – we see the importance of being able to ‘say words’ properly through clear articulation and then exploring the breakdown of words in the English language, as this ensures that the students are sounding words out correctly which helps with both reading and writing as they transfer their knowledge across multiple literacy skill areas.
In Art over the last few weeks, Mrs Johnston has been exploring ‘Todd Parr’ inspired cut and collage artworks. The students have read ‘It’s okay to be different’ and ‘Be who you are’, both texts written by Todd, and have looked at his style of illustrations which are largely made in the style of collages and often very colourful and unique. The students have had quite a few discussions about being special, belonging and celebrating our unique attributes. Using these concepts as inspiration, the students have begun to create their own colourful and unique self-portrait styled collages. It’s also been really good to see the students practising their hand/eye coordination and tracking skills with cutting, gluing and tracing. Great job everyone!
In P.E this week, we’ve started to work on throwing, aiming and catching skills. The students have been practising their throwing and catching with one hand and two hands, aiming for a target and throwing both underarm and overarm. It’s been enjoyable to see the students enthusiastically participating in our daily P.E sessions, promoting healthy bodies and healthy minds alike!
Grade 3/4 Class Report
In our third week of Lent and students are reflecting on what Lent means to them and how they can be a good neighbour to others. Students were prompted with an animation called Frantelli Tutti after reading the parable ‘The Good Samaritan’ on what it means to be a ‘Good Samaritan’ to others. How does this look, sound and feel? Students had some great discussion and ideas upon reflection.
Students are continuing daily with their OLSEL strategies using words from their Shared Reading to support their decoding skills in reading and spelling. Students are continuing with the text ‘The Painted Ponies’ by Alison Lester and exploring the theme of friendships and what makes a positive friendship. Students are exploring different vocabulary from this text and are looking at definitions, synonyms and antonyms for these words- building their vocabulary knowledge. Students are continuing their work on narrative writing skills. They have written a story about a positive friendships using a narrative planner to organise their deals and drafting their stories. Year 3 students have had some NAPLAN practice this week in preparation for NAPLAN assessment next week.
This week students have begun a new unit in Maths on addition. Students completed a pre assessment on their current knowledge of addition, identifying areas of strength and areas where additional support is needed. Students have looked at vocabulary of addition, including in addition, plus and more than to name a few. Year 3 and 4 students have focused on vertical algorithms/sums and using place value of numbers when adding. Year 3 have been exposed to carrying in addition and addition number sentences. Year 4 students have worked on carrying over in addition sums once using 3 digit numbers. Students have been consolidating addition strategies such as building to ten, splitting numbers when adding and rounding to nearest 10 or 100 to make the addition sums easier to complete mentally.
Homework contract 6 is stuck in the students new homework books. Could students please complete contract 6 homework and their spelling words for the week and return either Thursday this week or Tuesday next week. Thank you.
Grade 5/6 Class Report
Grade 5 & 6
This week sees us reach the middle of Term One and head on the downward slope towards the Easter holidays - how time flies! I feel I am getting to know the students more and more each day and they are slowly beginning to share more of their unique personalities with me as well. The Senior students are really getting used to the class routine and expectations now and I have been thrilled with their efforts and work ethic this week. Super effort Grade 5&6! Enjoy your extra-long weekend!
ENGLISH
The students’ handwriting continues to improve with daily practise and a special mention to Isaac this week for his super effort in this area. This week we conclude our unit of work on the narrative genre and students are in the process of publishing their final narrative writing piece. We will begin to explore persuasive writing by the end of the week and I’m sure we will produce some very persuasive pieces, so stay tuned! Each day, we continue to focus on punctuation and grammar, and this week we have aimed to perfect the correct use of quotation marks. We have also determined the difference between direct speech and indirect speech (or reported speech). See if your child can suggest two or three words which are big clues that speech is indirect! During reading time we have been focusing on fluency, accuracy and comprehension. Students have completed some NAPLAN style reading work so they are familiar with the format for this assessment which begins next week.
MATHEMATICS
In Mathematics this week our focus topic has been Addition and Subtraction. As well as explicit teaching of the process for adding with large numbers with carrying, we have explored quick mental facts and enjoyed some focus learning games. Knowing quick addition and subtraction facts and strategies helps immensely and I encourage time spent at home to improve. A great site is https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button which students will have on their i-pads.
It is also helpful to explore mathematical vocabulary so students understand what is being asked. For example, addition can mean – in total, sum, altogether & subtraction might mean – take away, difference between, how many more, minus, etc.
A reminder that students need their satchel, reader, diary and Homework Book at school each day, please. Reader diaries are to be filled in each day with the number of pages read and signed, please.
Community News
