Dear Parents and Carers 

This week I have spent a fair amount of time reflecting on the year that has come and gone so very quickly. This year we have again faced many challenges as a school community including COVID and severe staff shortages. Our teachers have continued to ensure that the continuity of learning for students has been consistent, and the academic success of our students is something that I have been proud to witness.

Advent is a time of preparing the way for the birth of Jesus and in many ways, we have started preparing ourselves for the busy time of Christmas where we spend time with family and loved ones and share a meal together. There are many people who do not have this opportunity and our school community has banded together to help others less fortunate than ourselves, with food donations to the Taree Community Kitchen for their kitchen hampers and filled fifty pencil cases with school supplies to donate to St Vincent de Paul for those children at the beginning of next year who don’t have what they need.  Thankyou to our entire community who supported these important social justice causes.

Year 6 Graduation Mass and Dinner

On Tuesday the 6^th of December we gathered with our Year 6 students and their families to celebrate their Graduation Mass and Dinner. This is such a special time for our Year 6 students as they prepare to move on to high school and the preparation they put into their special evening paid off. Their participation in the mass and the awards ceremony demonstrated just how amazing they are as a group; I am so immensely proud of their achievements this year. I would like to thank Mrs Cleaver for all her hard work in helping Year 6 to have such a special last year at St Joseph’s.

Awards and Advent Liturgy

On Monday the 12^th of December we celebrated our annual awards and Advent liturgy.  It was fabulous to welcome all of our families to the school to celebrate with us.  Congratulations to all of our award winners and thankyou to the teachers for preparing their classes for our special liturgy.

CWA Educational Award 2022 - Harry MacMillan

Sisters of St Joseph’s Educational Award –Destiny Mastop

Mary MacKillop Award - Term 4 - Penny Van Vliet

Growth In Unity Awards

Touchstone Award

The Touchstone award is an award given to a Year Six student who demonstrates Christian leadership and the qualities we consider our Touchstone values of Respect, Justice, Well – Being, Quality, Excellence and Sustainability.  These touchstones symbolise the Gospel Values which we live out here at St Joseph’s. This year we present the Touchstones award to Lewis Downie.

The ICAS Assessments Principals Awards – these awards are presented to our highest achieving student in each Assessment. Congratulations to the following students; 

 Sienna Lapi–an for Spelling

 Harry MacMillan for English

 Riley Knoke for Writing, Science and Mathematics

The Newcastle Permanent Primary Schools Mathematics Competition Awards  these awards are presented to students in Years 5 and 6 who achieved Merit and Distinction awards in the Newcastle Permanent Primary Schools Mathematics Competition.

Distinction Awards 

Sam Raison, Cooper Nowlan, Lewis Downie, Riley Knoke and Scarlet Sheather.

Merit Awards;  

Adena Campbell, Nic Pereira, Zac Wall, Destiny Mastop, Lara Prior, Bryson Blanch, Charlie Crittenden, Parker Hargarty, Ella Housen-Helmer, Lilly Mateer, Kohen Mortensen, Jaxon Osgood, William Robinson and Sienna White.

The Year 6 Religious Literacy Test Diocesan Awards - these awards are presented to students in Years 6 who have achieved high results in the Year 6 Religious Literacy Test. Congratulations to Lewis Downie and Caitlin Watters.

First Holy Communion and Baptism Congratulations

Congratulations to Sienna, Monique and Lilly who recently made their First Holy Communion and congratulations to Olivia and Sophie who recently made their Baptism. Making your sacraments is a special occasion for many children and we are proud of you.

Intensive Swimming

During week nine our school participated in our week long intensive swimming program. Water safety and swimming is such an important skill for our students to have. Thank you to Mr Knoke for organising a fantastic opportunity for our students, and to Natasha for helping with the instructing.

New Technology

Next year all classrooms will begin the year with updated technology. All teachers will have COMM boxes installed in their classroom which provides an interactive teaching tool for classrooms. Thank you to all families for paying your school fees, we use school fees to benefit our children directly through purchasing technology and other resources.

Fundraising Update

As you are aware we have started fundraising for new playground equipment for both our infants and primary classes. Playground equipment is an expensive purchase so it will take us another 12 months to raise the funds necessary to be able to purchase what we would like.

I would like to thank all families who have helped us to fundraise this year including our Easter Raffle, Mother’s Day Raffle, Father’s Day Raffle, Spring Fling and School Disco.

Year 6 have asked me to pass on a special message from them for the support of their fundraising efforts. “A huge thank you to everyone for your support of our fundraising this year. We are proud to leave a legacy to our school and put our fundraising money towards the new playground equipment. Thank you again and we leave St Joey’s with many special memories. A very merry Christmas to everyone in our school community.”  Year 6 2022.

2023 Staffing

I am incredibly pleased to announce our staff for 2023. We are so blessed to have such excellent staff working at St Joseph’s who are focused on helping our students to achieve their absolute best. We are looking forward to 2023.

2023 Start Dates

Please join me in saying a prayer for all our families over Christmas. That they can find the joy of Christmas in the little things. I pray that our school community remains safe and healthy during the Christmas break.

God Bless

Prime Minister Award

‘ Being a steward of creation’, ‘trying your best’, ‘speaking with kindness’ and ‘ being a responsible learner’ are some of the qualities that teachers consider when awarding ‘Prime Minister’ at our weekly assembly. It is an acknowledgement of the student’s efforts and they have the privilege of wearing the badge with honour, of suggesting a focus the school can work on, award Gotchas to other students at lunch time as well as earning Gotchas for themselves.  Congratulations to Ben Butchmann (Week 9).  

MJR Awards

As part of our MJR system, we acknowledge that the following students, Aurora Minns, Sierra Burton and Zedd Dine have reached 50 Gotchas, and Eleanor Healy has reached 300 Gotchas. Well Done!

Behaviour Management at St. Josephs – PBS and MJR Term 4 Update

Joey’s Wingham is committed to creating a positive environment where all students are able to learn. We are using the Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) and Making Jesus Real (MJR) systems because they involve a range of positive behaviour supports for all students within the school, implemented in both classroom and non-classroom settings. 

Introducing, modelling and reinforcing positive social behaviour is an important part of a student’s educational experience. Teaching behavioural expectations, linking them to the real example that was Jesus and rewarding students for following them is both proactive and positive. 

Over the course of each term student behaviour is monitored and problem behaviour (ranging from minor to major incidents) is referred to the Executive staff via a 'yellow form'. This data is recorded, analysed and shared with staff to determine focus areas for the following term. 

 Our Term 4 Data was extremely positive and shows 79% of students are always displaying positive behaviour. 93% of students had one minor incident or none at all.

We are very proud of our students and the way they work towards being safe, respectful learners at St. Joseph's!

Shae Lapi-an
Assistant Principal

Intensive Swimming Program

Australia is blessed with thousands of beaches, lakes, dams, rivers and pools. So, it is essential that students are aware of the dangers and safety responsibilities around water. In Week 9 students from K-6 attended Wingham memorial swimming pool for a weeklong intensive swim program. The weather was kind for most of the week and the students learned about water safety, emergency situations, fitness and stroke correction. Student confidence in the water soared as the week went by however it is important to keep reinforcing the lessons behind water safety. Thank you to parents, carers and teachers for supporting this essential experience. 

Mr Knoke
Sports Coordinator 

Year 6 Graduation 

Graduation 2022. It was a proud night for family, friends and staff to attend the Graduation Mass and presentation dinner. Father Kevin celebrated a special Mass and spoke beautifully about the future of our students. It is always a night of mixed emotions- happy to celebrate the students’ achievements as well a sense of sadness to have such a wonderful group of young people leave us. The students have been wonderful school leaders, always being positive role models for the rest of the school. They have conducted themselves with grace and dignity and we wish them all the best for the next chapter of their education at high school. Take care, Mrs Cleaver.

My favourite thing about Graduation was being with my friends. Tye Galea.

Graduation was great fun. We did a dance and had a cake, we all enjoyed it so much. Lara Prior

Grad was fun, I enjoyed how the awards were personalised about us and the decorations were awesome. Caitlin Watters

Grad was fantastic, it was great fun and everything went perfectly. Our dance ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was great and so was the singing of ‘Parting of the Ways’.  Lewis Downie

Grad was fun, it was a night of joy! The Mass was good and the dinner was yummy. The presentation was nice. The whole night was fun. Adena Campbell and Molly Pattison

Grad was really fun, it was good to see all my class mates there and the food was good. Dulki Hollis

It was fun at the RSL because we got a bear and people got to sign it. Shane Clarke

I liked having the family there, the awards were good and so were the Graduation bears. Harry MacMillan

Graduation was the best time ever. Everyone had fun and enjoyed getting the rewards. Thank you to Mrs Hunt and Mrs Cleaver for making Graduation so good. Nic Pereira

Grad was amazing. It is a long time since I was at Church and the food at the RSL was really good. Zac Wall

Graduation was so much fun, I ‘m glad we came along. I had so much fun looking at the baby photos and performing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Sam Raison and Isak Van Der Merwe

Although Grad had its surprises, it was still the best night of my life. Destiny Mastop

I liked the awards, the ceremony and the photo presentation. Jakayla Minns

I loved Grad because all our families got to go, and it was well set out and planned. Cooper Nowlan.

Library News

Well thank you to our parents and Carers for your support in taking care of and returning library books this year. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some free activities available to our students… 

Microsoft Office – all students of Maitland Newcastle diocese have access to office 365 for up to 5 devices at home. Follow the instructions on our home learning website:  https://joeyswnghomelearning.weebly.com/ms-office-365.html  

Minecraft Education Edition - all students of Maitland Newcastle diocese have access to Minecraft Education Edition for free. Click on the link https://education.minecraft.net/en-us  and click the download button at the top of the page. Students will log on with their school email; first.lastname@mnstu.catholic.edu.au. They will then log on to our school cenet with the same details they log on to the school computers with. 

Midcoast libraries – access to the town library, join for free and access lots of apps. Storybox library is great for online stories read by Australian people. Borrow Box and Libby for access to e-books and audio books. Kanopy is live streaming movies and so much more…check it o

https://library.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/Home 

https://library.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/eServices 

Their summer reading club is fantastic fun with prizes! 

During the last few weeks students have been busy exploring aspects of STEM and coding. Using Minecraft EDU year 6 participated in Hour of Code, a global movement in 180 countries that explore aspects of computer science. Year 5 used Minecraft EDU to complete a Climate Warriors task and learn about Bushfire preparation as part of their geography unit. Year 4 were using Minecraft EDU designing and building an outdoor learning area to incorporate waste management systems, while year 3 had to investigate pollinators and build a pollination garden as part of their science unit. Kinder, year 1 and year 2 have been working hard to build their computer skills, learning to use MS Word, PowerPoint, Paint 3D, and tux paint. We have also been exploring aspects of coding using Scratch and robots such as Bee Bots and Spheros.  

Technology Challenge Week Video https://youtu.be/eBqOGC1TTNw

Baby Congratulations

Congratulations to Alison, Kyle, and Zaidyn Branch (K) on the birth of a beautiful little boy, Vali. All are doing well and looking forward to a wonderful Christmas with their new addition.

Serving Our Community 

Daniel Nash turned 6; Elijah Madden-Clarke, Rydah Richards and Elijah Hillenberg turn 7; Jasmine McIntyre and Alyssandra Drew turn 8; Ashlea Linehan turns 9 and Max Galea and Sophie Hook turn 10.