Week 4 - Term 3 Newsletter 2021

Principals Message

Hi everyone,

It has been a fantastic two weeks here at St Joey's. We have continued to ensure the students have a variety of experiences that enhance their learning. Celebrating our faith with the Accendere retreat and Mary of the Cross Liturgy, our environment with National Tree Day, and our community with Little Joey's beginning ensures we are building a stronger, more connected community.

Covid-19 Update

I continue to be grateful for your ongoing support in these difficult and rapidly changing times.  Transition and Orientation Days across the Diocese have been suspended, and the postponement of our Little Joey's program was incredibly disappointing. We will continue to support our new enrolments, albeit in a different way to want we had intending.  Parents and carers are defined as non-essential visitors who are not allowed on-site unless it is for an urgent or serious matter or an enrollment interview. If you have travelled to an area subject to Public Health Stay at Home orders (e.g. some LGAs in QLD), please know that education is considered one of the 4 essential reasons to leave home, and children can continue to attend school. In the Notes Sent Home section of the newsletter is information from Catholic School Office regarding the current Hunter Lockdown for your information.

Spelling Bee

Next week we will be holding our annual Spelling Bee. Students will participate in elimination rounds in the next week, with the top 4 students from each stage moving on to compete in Stage-based finals (i.e. Year 3 & 4). We invite all parents and families to watch a LIVE STREAM of our Spelling Bee Finals on Friday 20th August at 2:00 pm.

School Photos

School Photos will be taken on Wednesday 18th August. Order forms have been sent home this week, and the form should be returned by Monday, 16th August.

Parent Forum Meeting

Our next Parent Forum Meeting will be held at the TopPub at 5:30 pm on Wednesday 11th August. Please RSVP to either our Chairperson, Nicky Venn or to the Front Office.

Kind regards,

Deb

Leader of Learning

This week in our classrooms, the students are engaging in a wide variety of learning tasks. We use Learning Intentions in each lesson to ensure students are clear about WHAT they are learning, whilst Success Criteria provides students with a 'checklist' they can use to know HOW they can be successful in learning.

KINDERGARTEN

English

Kindergarten are learning to read and write informative texts together with developing their handwriting skills.  They have read lots of factual texts and focused on drawing, labelling and writing factual sentences.  Their Learning Intentions for English are;

• to write some lower case letters using correct letter formation
• to understand that authors share their ideas or messages through their texts.
• to know that we can write for different purposes
• to use strategies to read texts 
  

Maths

In maths, Kindergarten are working in the Measurement strand with a focus on Area.

Their Learning Intentions for maths are;

• to describe and compare areas using everyday language.
• to directly compare two areas by placing one item on top of the other (superimposing)
• to predict which area is bigger and explain the reasons for their prediction.
  

Kindergarten

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STAGE 1

English

Stage 1  are learning to read and write imaginative texts. Their Learning Intention for English is to compose an imaginative text.

To be successful, students need to; 

• retell the beginning, middle and end of a story,
• add some details using words or pictures.
• use editing symbols to find mistakes, and
• rewrite the passage correctly.
  

In maths, Stage 1 are working in the Number strand with a focus on Fractions and Decimals.

Their Learning Intentions for maths are;

• Year 1 - to recognise and describe half.
  
• Year 2 - to recognise and interpret common uses of halves, quarters and eighths

To be successful, students need to;

• Year 1
  • show half of a shape, and
  • describe how we know it is half.
• Year 2:
  
  • make, describe and label quarters
  • make, describe and label eighths 
    

Stage 1

STAGE 2

English

Stage 2  are learning to identify the language forms and features of an informative text.

To be successful, students need to; 

• write an informative, descriptive paragraph
• include interesting and relevant facts in your paragraph
• revise and edit my writing
  

In maths, Stage 2 are working in the Number strand with a focus on Fractions and Decimals.  They have also been using 'friendly competition' in games to build fluency when recalling multiplication facts.   One great resource they use is Hit the Button, which also can be downloaded as an app here.

Their Learning Intentions for maths are;

• Year 3 - to represent, model and compare commonly used fractions and decimals
  
• Year 4 - to recognise that numbers can be represented in many ways 

To be successful, students need to;

• Year 3
  • rename whole/ complete fractions as 1
  • place halves, quarters, eights and thirds on a number line between 0 and 1
  • place halves, thirds and quarters on a number line that extends beyond one
    
  • describe how we know it is half.
• Year 4:
  
  • find equivalence in fractions and decimals
  • show your thinking in your work
  • find more than one solution

We use games in our maths Warm-ups which provide students many repeated opportunities to build fluency in a fun, engaging manner.

STAGE 3

English

Stage 3 are learning to read and write informative texts. This week they have focused on using their research notes and to write an informative text.

To be successful, students need to; 

• use notes to construct paragraphs for an informative text.
• include technical language
• include a hook sentence
  

In maths, Stage 3 are working in the Measurement strand with a focus on Angles.

Their Learning Intentions for maths are;

• Year 5 - to estimate, measure and compare angles using degrees
  
• Year 6 - to identify, name and calculate angle types formed by the intersection of straight lines and to use known angle results to find unknown angles in diagrams.
  

To be successful, students need to;

• Year 5
  • measure angles up to 360° using a protractor.
    
• Year 6:
  
  • identify angles on a straight line, including supplementary angles.
  • calculate unknown angles formed by angles on a straight line (including supplementary angles), vertically opposite angles, in diagrams.

Stage 3 are also culminating their Religious Education unit, Reign of God, by viewing group presentations about the life story of Caroline Chisholm.

Mrs Mullins

Stage 3

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Mission & Values

Accendere Retreat

Last Friday, our Year 4 students were lucky enough to take part in their Accendere Retreat. Accendere means to ‘switch on’, kindle, catch fire, light to strike, to produce/spark the flame. During the day, students participated in small group activities that focused on what good friends do and say, how to be a good friend to others and what good relationships look like. The day was all based around scripture:

 ‘And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.’  (John 13: 34-35)

The students reflected on how they could take what they had learnt back into the classroom, into the playground, onto the sports field and home. There was also the bonus of a hamburger lunch, enjoyed in each others company in the beautiful sunshine! Thank you to Ms Zietsch and Miss Pooley for facilitating the day and making it so enjoyable for all the children.

Feast of St Mary of The Cross

Today, we also celebrated the Feast Day of Saint Mary of the Cross with a whole school liturgy led by our Stage 3 students. This day celebrates the life of St. Mary Mackillop, who was canonised (declared a saint) in Vatican City, Rome, in October 2010, making her Australia’s first saint. Mary spent her life caring for the people who had no one to look after them, such as children who roamed the streets, children in the country who had no school to go to, and the old and sick. She wanted more than anything to show these people love. One of her well-known quotes is ‘Never see a need without doing something about it.’ What a beautiful thing for our students to work towards. 

Mrs Senz

Class News - Stage 3

This week in Maths, Stage 3 is learning how to use a protractor to measure angles within 2D shapes and understand how to find an angle by using other angles. Children were challenged with this question:

Rich Task 1:

Draw two different closed shapes that have exactly 6 internal right angles

Rich Task 2:

‘There are five angles on a straight line.  One of them is 44°, and the other four angles are all equal.

What is the size of each of those equal angles?’

To complete this task, children had to understand what a supplementary angle is and also be able to understand that a straight line has an angle of 180 degrees.

This term, children have also been focussing on improving their comprehension skills when reading. We have been using Literacy Directions texts within our guided groups to unpack important language, make connections, and synthesize information for new learning. The children are also loving online reading through Kidsnews and Readworks.

We have also been focused on developing and fostering relationships that enable students to be healthy, happy, engaged and successful. Last week, Stage 3 invited Kindy into our classroom for ‘wellbeing’ time to support this. We shared stories, played games to develop our communication and cooperation skills, and had a whole lot of fun in the process.

Ms Ayres & Mrs McLennan

Class Awards

Congratulations to the following students recognised at this fortnight's Awards Assembly:

Principal Awards:  Kahiah Cook,  Roman Hickling,  Tom Hourigan, Josie Chapman

Class Awards:

Pastoral Care - School Counsellor

What is HOPE?

If you have hope, you expect the best, and you work hard to achieve it. If you are growing hope, you may believe you can do things to make a situation better.  While optimism is the belief that good things will happen in the future and the sense that the glass is half full, hope is about taking that optimism, making it goal-oriented and making things happen.

And while optimism is great for boosting wellbeing and can be a useful tool for inoculating people against depression, it seems hope does it better. This may be because while optimism is a positive mindset, hope is about action.

What does it look like in practice? 

•  We have made a mistake, and we think like our growth mindset tree.  “Mistakes help me learn…. Or I wonder how I do this…. Or I can do hard things".
• We have been stuck on a problem for a while but know that it will all work out in the end. We remember, “I can do hard things”. Challenges can help us grow. 
• We have a terrible playtime but know that we can do things differently next time to make it better.  
• Someone is unkind to us on the playground. Despite this, we can think of ways to deal with it in a proactive, helpful way.  
• We pick up rubbish even if it isn’t ours as we have hope for the future of the planet being healthy and the oceans not having rubbish in them.  

How can we encourage HOPE in our children? 

• Build a future focus
  Speak to your children about their possible futures. What do they want to achieve, and why? Have them imagine their potential best selves. Talk to them about what they’re looking forward to. Ask them what they want to have, do and be.
• Work with them on plans (or pathways)
  When your child or young person says, “I want to be a marine biologist”, be encouraging and then ask them, “What do you need to do to get there?” Discuss pathways, options and possibilities. Thinking about the future and making plans is central to fostering hope.
  
• Help them solve problems
  When your child or young person is stuck, instead of giving them an answer, ask them, “What do you think is the next best thing to do?” or “When have you overcome something like this before?” This type of question promotes a sense of agency or efficacy. Rather than having our children rely on us for all the answers, they can rely on themselves, their resourcefulness, and their initiative. They can recall times they’ve succeeded before and use that to build hope that they can succeed again.

More information can be found here.

Kate Naylor – School Counsellor & Art Therapist

Pastoral Care - School Chaplain

Chaplaincy

Student Voice: The SRC have been reading the Peer Communication Box and have decided to have a Camping Dramatic Play Area. The area will be located next to our wooden boat near the playground. Hopefully, this will open very soon for students to enjoy. This area will be open Thursdays/Fridays. On behalf of the SRC, I would like to say “thank you”  to Mrs Bailey. “You are the best”.

Sisters of Mercy Value: Compassion "As God's chosen ones, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience."

R U OK? Day (Thursday 9 September 2021) is our national day of action dedicated to reminding everyone that every day is the day to ask, “Are you OK?” and support those struggling with life's ups and downs. St Josephs will be participating in R U OK? Day. Students are invited to wear yellow to school—more information in the coming weeks. 

https://vimeo.com/574775905 

Community Connect-Last Friday, our Little Joeys started. The wonderful SRC baked and Parent Forum funded a morning tea for the Little Joeys Families. It was lovely to meet our new families and see new connections being formed with our existing families. Thank you, SRC and Parent Forum, for your contribution. 

National Tree Day- Thank you to all the incredible students who gave up their lunch and recess playtime to be part of our National Tree Day planting. The recent rain and dirt from our vegetable garden, full of worms, should give the plants the very best start. Well done by St Joey's students.

St Vinnies Breakfast Club - This is on every Friday from 8.30 am to 8.50 am. Last Friday, students enjoyed hot cheese toasties, yogurt and milk cups. Thank you to those students who helped serve our students. 

Juana Mead - School Chaplain

Library -Premier's Reading Challange

My favourite time of the year is approaching, and preparations have begun! Every year across Australian schools, Book Week delights children big and small. This year St Joseph’s are holding our annual book fair from the 23rd-27th August (week 7). It’s a great way to celebrate books as well as authors and illustrators. Keep your eyes peeled for more info closer to the date.   

On another note, the Premier's Reading Challenge has been extended by 2 weeks, with a new closing date of September 3rd. Furthermore, students can now include up to 10 of their own choice books on their reading record (previously, it was 5). The particulars for each stage group are as follows:

Students know which books in the library are PRC books as they are clearly marked with a:

                                     Blue star:   K-2                                             Red star: 3-4                             Green star: 5-6

We encourage children to participate in this wonderful event to build their love of reading and will be having a little celebration in the library for the students who complete it. 

A book is a magical thing that lets you travel far away without ever leaving your chair - Katrina Mayer.

Mrs Waghorn - Librarian 

Notes Sent Home

Covid Update - 6th August 2021