Newsletter 7 2023

Principal's Report

Hello to Families and all in the St Joseph's School Community, 
I hope families enjoyed the extra-long, long weekend, and I’m thrilled to report the school closure day on Friday was worth every moment! All Staff, including our Learning Support Officers, travelled to St Joseph’s in Hopetoun for Professional Learning in The Structured Literacy Program. We were introduced to the structure and characteristics of the program which is very explicit in nature and involves constant reviewing and checking of understanding before progressing further. The program builds progressively from sounds to words, phrases, sentences and finally, comprehension. During the day we also explored key research materials and evidence-based findings that support the program. I am excited to continue the journey of The Structured Literacy Program and for what it will mean for the literacy learning and teaching of all students at St Joseph’s School.

St Joseph’s School Feast Day
St Joseph’s Feast Day is on Sunday 19^th March this year so we will be celebrating this important occasion at school on Monday 20^th March. All are welcome to join us for Mass at 9:30am in the Parish Church. Staff are busy preparing a day full of fun and activity following the Mass! Further information to follow.

Grade 5 & 6 Leadership Morning
On Tuesday, I worked with the Senior Class students in a very different way. Students came dressed in casual clothes and worked in the multi-purpose room, exploring the concept of LEADERSHIP.
The students proved they had some prior understanding of what it means to be a leader, but certainly added to their ideas by the end of the day! Entertaining YouTube clips, co-operative games and plenty of discussion engaged students easily. The Grade 5 & 6 students even enjoyed morning tea with the staff, which was a highlight. The following are just some of the characteristics the students decided a leader needs:

More information can be seen in our class report.

NAPLAN
NAPLAN Assessments began yesterday with the students in Grades 3 & 5 completing the Writing Assessment.  Students will complete the Reading Task on Thursday, Language Conventions on Friday and Mathematics on Tuesday of next week.
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 any other task in a usual working week.
NAPLAN tests have been held earlier this year, in Term 1, allowing results to be returned to systems, schools and parents/carers earlier in the year. NAPLAN proficiency standards have been updated this year to make outcomes clearer for families. The standards will be replaced by the following 4 levels of achievement:

• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs Additional Support
  

The descriptors for each category will make it clear to parents what their child’s literacy and numeracy skills are at the time of NAPLAN testing, and support discussions with their school on their child’s progress.

DOBCEL Consultants
We continue to be actively supported by consultants from The Catholic Education Office. This week we have been visited by:
Joe Ewing, Leader of Learning and Teaching, called in for a visit and a tour of our wonderful little school.
Dean Pidgeon, School Finance Business Manager, working with Cate in the Office in preparation for our annual audit.
Sam Meerbach, Education Consultant, working with staff to develop a scope and sequence of inquiry learning for teachers and students.
Patrice Rickard, northern-zone Psychologist, visiting to complete some assessments with children.

Office Hours
A reminder that Mrs Olive can be contacted at the School Office between 8:00am – 3:00pm each day from Monday to Thursday. If you need to make contact outside of these hours, please phone Mrs Hogan on 0419 137 966.

 Looking Ahead – Term 2
Term Two for students will commence on WEDNESDAY 26^TH APRIL.
ANZAC Day Public Holiday is on Tuesday 25^th April and as Charlton College is closed and buses are not running, staff will undertake professional learning on Monday 24^th April.
All Grade 6 students are invited to represent St Joseph’s School at the ANZAC Day Service in Charlton on April 25^th. The service begins at 8:40am and concludes by 10:30am. The Term Two school leaders, Charlie and Liam, will lay a wreath on the school’s behalf. Students to wear full Winter uniform, please.

Important Dates
Please note the following dates which are on the Term Calendar.
Thursday 16^th March – NAPLAN Reading
Friday 17^th March – NAPLAN Language Conventions
                                      - Hockey Roadshow
Monday 20^th March – St Joseph’s School Feast Day Mass at 9:30am and activities to follow
Tuesday 21^st March -  NAPLAN Numeracy
Friday 24^th March – Author Visit Phil Kettle
Monday 27^th March – Child Safety Session - Senior students
Friday 31^st March - Hot Shots Tennis in Boort – Grade 5 & 6
Monday 3^rd April – Excursion to Swan Hill to see “The Alphabet of Awesome Science” F-6 students
Thursday 6^th April – END OF TERM ONE
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.
Mary Hogan
Principal

Foundation/1/2 Class Report

A short week in the junior classroom with the staff off to a training day for literacy last Friday and then a long weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed the extra few days of a break.

This week in Maths, the students have been consolidating their counting skills – working on counting forwards and then backwards from any number up to 100. We’ve also explored patterns with counting, i.e. by 2s, 5s, 10s, etc. When counting as a group, each student has their own ‘Hundreds Chart’ to follow along with, pointing to the numbers we are saying, circling the numbers that make the pattern we are following and we discuss this a group. The students have been improving everyday with their confidence around counting and now we are also focusing on making the connections between the oral language (using the number name), the written form (the numeral) and the model of the number (using hands on manipulatives to create the numbers we are exploring. We’ve taken particular care when recording the numerals, ensuring we place the digits in the right position – ones, tens and hundreds. Great work everyone!

I’ve been super impressed with the students in the junior room as they continuously work hard on their goals in literacy. In the last week there has been noticeable growth across the board with all of our students and their ability with decoding books, recognising letter names and sounds and reading these in their home readers. Well done to everyone for working so hard and for the commitment our families are putting in at home too – it’s a team effort and with us all working together for the greater benefit of the child, the outcomes in learning will always be positive. Thank-you to all our families for attending parent teacher meetings in the last few weeks. It’s been nice to catch up with everyone and set some mutual goals that we can all work on to support the student’s development and growth.

In writing over the last few days, we’ve been using picture prompts to inspire the children with ideas to write about. Some students can write quite well with just their own imagination, whereas this need to be creative on your own can stifle some young children, so having a prompt and discussing this as a class before writing has been a great tool to get students writing straight away. Each day we have a look at the picture prompt and talk about the characters, setting, place, the problem/possible solutions and a few other important elements of writing a narrative, to give the students a good head start with vocabulary and ideas to start recording themselves. It’s been great to see the Foundation students having a go at forming letters and beginning to recognise some learnt letter names and sounds as they write down their stories. It’s also been nice to see the Grade 1/2’s, working hard on their letter formation, positioning of the letters and using correct grammar as they write – full stops, capital letters, etc. Well done everyone, keep up the hard work!

Grade 3/4 Class Report

We hope that you all had a lovely long weekend. Students have come back this week with lots of wonderful stories and smiles on their faces. 

This week we are looking at 'My Dog Bigsy' by Alison Lester in our shared reading. Students are continuing with their OLSEL strategies daily and are connecting their knowledge of letter sounds and letter combinations to help read and spell familiar and unfamiliar words. Students have revised what persuasive writing is and are continuing to work in their knowledge of narrative writing. Students have completed practice NAPLAN tests in preparation for NAPLAN this week. 

We are continuing to focus on the topic of addition this week including the concept of carrying over, building to ten, split strategy and problem solving. Students are confident in explaining their thinking and sharing their ideas with their peers during class discussions and small group work. 

In Religion this week we are discussing the Sacrament of Reconciliation and what this means. We are discussing how people build and improve their relationships with one another and God through their words and actions, including apologising when actions or words hurt another. Great class discussions on this.

Homework contract 7 and spelling words are due on Friday. Thank you. 

Grade 5/6 Class Report

Grade 5 & 6
This week has been a shorter one with the students enjoying an extra-long, long weekend, having Friday and Monday free from school! It was lovely to hear students chatting about how they filled in their respective weekends.

Students in Grade 5 started their NAPLAN assessments this week with all language components being completed. The NAPLAN Mathematics task will be completed next week.

LEADERSHIP MORNING
Students in Grade 5 & 6 are often referred to as the leaders of the school and told that they are role models for the younger students. With this in mind, Mrs Hogan ran a Leader’s Morning on Tuesday and worked with the senior students to explore concepts in this area. The students showed that they already had some understanding of what a leader is and what characteristics make a ‘good’ leader. During the sessions the main concepts covered were:

• What is a leader? (Characteristics and Traits)
• What is the difference between being a leader and being a boss?
• What leadership qualities do I have? What traits are my strengths?
• Teamwork
• Leading at school and for social justice

We also discussed the concept of being a ‘fence sitter’ and how we might ‘speak up’ or ‘stand up’ for what we think is right. Students realise that it is not always easy to go against a friend, or a group, but all agreed that just following the crowd is not always cool!

Throughout the day, students watched some excellent youtube clips on leadership, working together and teamwork. We also played many games to put teamwork into action! ‘The Balloon Train’ and ‘Musical Serviettes’ were two of my favourites! Perhaps your child might like to tell you about their favourite part of the day!

A brief part of the day focused on taking care of ourselves and our emotional well-being by taking time to relax, making healthy decisions for our mind and body, and being mindful to manage stress and anxiety. A simple activity spent outdoors blowing bubbles was used to demonstrate this.

The students all participated actively and I was super impressed with their contributions which made sure the morning was worthwhile and successful!

You may enjoy these short clips which we viewed during our sessions to help generate discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxEntJiIEd0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXdrl9ch_Q 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXXcpf8ON2s

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