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Dear Parents and Carers,
Book Week is one of my favourite weeks of the year. It gives us the opportunity to celebrate the joy of reading, get dressed up, have fun dancing, and welcome many members of our community into our school. While I was reflecting on the events of last week, I could not help but think of our school’s Mission Statement and how this was so evident during our week.
St Joseph’s is an inclusive Catholic educational community. Through quality teaching centred on Jesus, our students are engaged and confident learners who make a positive impact on society.
There were so many experiences that embodied our Mission statement including:
- Being able to celebrate learning through the literacy activities organised by Ms Monkley.
- Getting dressed up for our book parade and Year 6 leading our Dance-a-thon.
- Welcoming fifty local pre-school students from our community to come and celebrate book week and experience some wonderful activities led by our Year 5 students.
- Sharing our Catholic Faith and welcoming our Grandparents for our Grandparent’s Day Liturgy hosted by Year 4.
Thank you to everyone who supported our celebrations last week and to the staff and students for their hard work in making the week an enormous success.
School Access
When entering and exiting the school during school hours, please make sure you shut the gate behind you. Parents and carers are only to enter and exit through the frontgate and the kiss and drop gate.
Bookings are now open on Compass for our Semester 2 Parent Teacher Meetings. One of our school focuses has been to increase parent and student engagement in learning. Therefore from 2025 our meetings will move to Student Led Conferences. This term our Stage 3 students will be leading their meetings with their parents and teacher. Bookings will close on Friday the 1st of September, please contact the office if you need help to book.
NAIDOC Celebrations
On the 15th of August, our school celebrated NAIDOC. Year 3 hosted our liturgy and Aunty Kylie and Mrs Wheeler coordinated a fabulous day of cultural awareness activities. Our children were able to experience some traditional Bush Tucker, Dance, stories, art, and games. We were lucky enough to welcome Aunty Isabell, Aunty Denise, Aunty Margaret, Aunty Jenny, and Aunty Linda to our school to celebrate with us and share their stories. They were also the judges of our Deadly Door Competition. Congratulations to Year 2 and 4 who were the winners.
National Child Protection Week
In 2024, the National Child Protection Week message that ‘Every child in every community needs a fair go’ will be complemented with the theme ‘Every conversation matters’.
Conversations are powerful tools to keep children and young people safe and well.
Conversations can help us understand issues, craft solutions, value community knowledge, and build the brains and social connections of children and young people.
Conversations between
…children and their caregivers matter (from the very earliest days)
…children and their peers matter
…families with teachers, doctors, and other professionals matter
…friends or neighbours matter
…decision-makers and the communities they serve matter.
And, of course, conversations in the public realm and media matter…
So this National Child Protection Week we invite you to speak up – and speak together – about what needs to change for every child in every community to have a fair go.
This theme provides a platform to:
- engage in important conversations,
- promote the value of conversations, and
- equip us to have conversations that keep kids safe.
School Public Speaking Finals
On the 16th of August we held our School Public Speaking Finals. The showcase of Public Speaking skills from Kinder to Year 6 was outstanding. Our students demonstrated confidence and conviction during their speeches and the finals were hotly contested. Well done to all finalists and to Miranda, Max, Susannah, and Tiana, who will now represent our School at the Regional Finals.
ES1 Miranda and Liam
Stage 1 Maz and Elke
Stage 2 Susannah and Aubrey
Stage 3 Tiana and Eleanor
Please join me in a prayer for our community.
God, we ask for a flourishing community, where we love each other and come to know Jesus. We pray that we can be good stewards of your love, and we can continue to be a positive influence in our community. We ask that You help us to learn from our community, and it may be a place where all are welcomed.
God Bless
Mel Hunt
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 goes to Roman Falzon (Week 5) and Nathan Campbell (Week 6).
MJR Awards
As part of our MJR system ,we acknowledge that the following students; Zedd Dine, Aria O'Neile, Evie Paris-Everingham and Paul Simon have reached 100 Gotchas; Saul Simon and Ben Buchtmann have reached 200 Gotchas and Aubrey Rees has reached 300 Gotchas. Well Done!
Year 1 Happenings
Year 1 have been coming up with ways to show that they greet, treat and speak with kindness. They created kindness flowers and chose six ways, from their brainstorming ideas, that they show kindness to others.
- Saying hello
- Smiling
- Asking if others would like to play
- Sharing
- Using kind words
- Being supportive
- Providing comfort when needed
- Telling a joke to cheer others up
- Apologising
- Being a bucket filler
- Complimenting people
- Acknowledge when our own behaviour may upset someone
BULLYING – NO WAY!
Year 1 have taken a stand together to voice their disapproval of bullying. They have identified how harmful bullying can be and noted why they don’t want bullying to be a part of their lives. Students worked vehemently on posters to display in our school and share their thoughts on a safe and friendly learning environment.
Year 1: Let’s stay bully free!
