Newsletter 6 2024

Principal's Report

Hello to Families and all in the St Joseph's School Community,

A warm welcome to Term Two! I hope families enjoyed some time together over the holidays and are feeling rejuvenated and ready to tackle the term ahead. We began on Monday morning with an Easter celebration, continuing the story from where we left it in Holy Week. Persisting with the use of our Easter egg wrappers, students created a bright Easter cross in recognition of the reflection, hope and transformation the Easter season brings. The Easter season is a fitting time for grade 3 & 4 students participating in the Sacramental Program to prepare for Confirmation and Eucharist. Please note the information below.

The students were excited to see the new football goal posts which were installed over the holiday break. We were fortunate to secure funding from the Coonooer Bridge Wind Farm Community Grants Program in 2023, towards the purchase of the footy goals – we are very grateful for this and hope the students continue to enjoy them for years to come. Some future goal kickers for The Navies in the making from what I’ve seen this week!

There are a number of events and activities on the term calendar with ANZAC Day, Cross Country, Catholic Education Week, the Winter Sports and Mother’s Day being some of the most significant. We always love your company on these days, so please note the dates on your calendar, and join us if you are able.

Sacramental Program
The Parish Sacramental Program will be facilitated by Mrs Bernadette Zagame again in 2024. Eligible students in Grade 3 & 4 are invited to prepare for the Sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist. These sacraments are received on the same day and complete the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation & Eucharist).

 These sacraments will take place on SUNDAY 26^th May at 10:30am Mass.
Preparation will be on Monday afternoons from 3:15pm – 4:00pm in the school’s Multi-Purpose Room. The first session is next Monday 22^nd April.
Parents/carers are welcome to join in the sessions.

Please note that each child requires a sponsor as part of the ritual of Confirmation. If Godparents are available, they are often a great choice for a sponsor. Students may have one or two sponsors, who are Catholic and of adult age.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have about the Sacramental Program. We thank Mrs Zagame in advance for her willingness to provide this program to our young parishioners.

Cross Country
Students will be participating in Primary Cross Country next Friday the 26th of April at Charlton College between 1.30pm and 3.15pm.
We have been training each day at school- teachers too- and it’s been great seeing the students have a go and work out their distances. Our motto is to encourage participation and personal best efforts and it has been pleasing to see students planning for personal improvement.
Students may wear their runners for daily running practice tomorrow and next week, and then return to correct uniform in Week 3.  Sports uniform will need to be worn for Cross Country next Friday.

ANZAC Day
ANZAC Day Public Holiday is on Thursday 25^th April and students are not required at school on this day.
All 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, Henry and Willow, will lay a wreath on the school’s behalf. All students are to wear full  uniform if in attendance please, and join in the parade.  Assemble at the Cenotaph in High Street at 8:30am. 

Mother’s Day
A special Mother’s Day morning will take place on Friday 10^th May commencing at 10:30am. A Liturgy, some entertainment and morning tea will be provided for our special visitors. Mothers, grandmothers and other very special females in our students’ lives are warmly invited to join us for this occasion.

Catholic Education Week
St Joseph’s will play host to our cluster schools, St Patrick’s St Arnaud and St Mary’s Donald, this Catholic Education Week. We will gather for Mass on Wednesday 1^st May at 10:00am in the Parish Church. A special Olympics themed sports session has been planned to entertain the students between Mass and lunchtime. Students need to wear their school sports uniform on this day and bring along their usual fruit and snacks for recess. Lunch will be provided for the students. 

Catholic Education Week is an annual opportunity for Catholic schools in the Diocese of Ballarat to celebrate their distinctive ethos and mission with their school and wider communities. In 2024, 52 primary schools and 11 secondary Colleges educate more than 18,500 students and employ over 2,500 teachers and staff across the diocese from Mildura in the north, Portland in the south, and west to Edenhope and Nhill. Catholic Education Week takes on special significance this year as our community of schools recognises the 150th Anniversary of the formation of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat with the theme:  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer. (Romans 12:12)

During this week we will also take the opportunity to share what is special about  St Joseph's School with our local community.

Mary Hogan
Principal

Child Safety - digital images

Taking Photos/Video Footage
As we begin a new year a reminder to parents and family members to please ensure, when at school events, to take photos or video footage of your child/ren only. Please do NOT post photos of children, other than your own, at school events or wearing school uniform, on personal social media pages other than your own. Thank you for your cooperation in using social media respectfully helping to keep everyone in our school community safe online.  

Student Attendance

All children are expected to be at school ready to begin by 8:55am. Arriving on time for school is important. The first 10 minutes of school is a vital time of the day when the day's routine and structure is established. It is a time for ‘tuning in’ and focusing on the learning intentions for the day. It is very difficult for children arriving late to ‘catch up on this missed information.

Parents are required to phone through to the office the child’s absence on the day, or enter it through our school Parent Access Module (PAM). If there has been no contact from the family before 9:30am on the morning of the absence, you will receive a call or sms from the office to confirm the child’s absence from school. This is a legislated requirement. 

No Buses

There will be no buses on Monday 22nd April due to a closure at Charlton College.  Please organise alternate transport.

Australian Early Development Census

Foundation/1/2 Class Report

Welcome back P/1/2 families. 

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break with your families. 

We have had a great start back for Term 2. 

Our focus for Numeracy is Counting On, Rearranging and Regrouping numbers and to Read, Write and Compare Numerals and Number Names. 

Today the students challenged each other with a Counting On activity - there was a little bit of competition happening which was a lot of fun! 

In Inquiry, students are going to be given opportunities to discuss their family history and origins. If possible, we would love to have a family photo brought in to display in the classroom so we can talk about all the different types of families we have at St Joseph’s. 

Grade 3/4 Class Report

Welcome back to Term 2!

Literacy: In Literacy we have been revising our learning from Term 1 in our daily reviews, including vocabulary that we learnt over Term 1. We have been learning about plurals and the rules of these, with a particular focus on words ending in ‘f’ and ‘fe’ to ‘ves’. Students have also been learning about quotation marks and how to punctuate these correctly. Our writing has been a reflection of this learning with focus on short paragraphs involving quotation marks. We have also written an Easter holiday recount using paragraphs, narrative sequence, spelling and punctuation. These are uploaded onto SeeSaw for you to read at your leisure. 

Maths: We are continuing to revise our learning from Term 1 in our daily mental maths workbook activities, counting and multiplication practice. We are focusing on x4 this week. Students are focusing on learning, understanding and applying multiplication facts and strategies. We have been revising arrays, groups of, multiplication vocabulary and repeated addition. Students have been working on long multiplication where they have to multiply 2 digit by 1 digit numbers. 

Grade 5/6 Class Report

Class News
It was lovely to welcome a full-house of students back after the Easter holiday break and we are looking forward to the term ahead.
Willow and Henry are looking forward to being the Term two leaders and we hope they have a great time in this role. I’m certain we are in safe hands.
We are running each day, at fruit break,  in preparation for Cross Country next Friday. Students have also ranked the sports they would like to play at the Winter Sports next month and will start practising all sports in preparation.

In Literacy we have started the term by reviewing Term One content; reading fluency, comprehension, spelling and sentence /paragraph structure. We have hopefully nailed the use of their/there and they’re. In Mathematics we have started the term exploring number sequences and patterns, which has given our brains a real jump-start for Term Two!

See below the beautiful Easter crosses created by the students on the first day of Term!

Home Tasks
Students have a home reader, a weekly spelling list and a mathematics or literacy sheet, on alternate weeks. Homework is handed out each Monday and to be returned each Friday.
Reading diaries should be filled in by students each day, noting the pages read. We are aiming to use our class Seesaw app more effectively this term – we love it when you respond to our posts!

Mary Hogan
(Class Teacher – Monday-Wednesday)

Maths

We are surrounded by mathematical concepts in our world, each and every day! Some of us notice these and some of us don’t! Mathematical thinking – the ability to break down problems into smaller parts and to ‘think outside the box’ – is a valued skill in everyday learning and in many careers. It is important to remember that we don’t need to instantly be good at maths – it’s a normal part of skill progression to make mistakes and learn from them. My dream is for all students to love mathematics! Over the next few newsletters I will share information about numeracy at each level of the curriculum. This week, check out the Grade Two information.

Child Safety

The care, safety and wellbeing of children and young people is a central and fundamental responsibility of Catholic Education. St Joseph’s School is committed to strengthened practice for the protection of children in line with the Victorian Government child safety reforms.

Community News

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Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge the Dja Dja Wurrung people as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land.  We pay respect to Elders past, present and emerging. We thank them for sharing their cultures, spiritualities and ways of living with the land, in this place we all now call home.