Week 8 - Term 3 Newsletter 2022

Principal's Message

Dear Families & friends,
I trust that last weekend was a wonderful Father's Day celebration for our families & that you were able to celebrate all our dads, step-dads, grandfathers and other significant men in your children's lives. Thank you to all of these males and the incredible role models you are and the guiding presence you play in our children's lives. We are very thankful. Also, a huge thank you to Mrs Louise Senz, Mrs Deb Bailey & Miss Juana Mead, who made our Father's Day Liturgy & Burger lunch such a memorable and wonderful experience for our dads & students.

Primary Public Speaking Finalists

This week we also had our Primary Public Speaking Finals, in which students from Years 3-6  competed to be selected to participate in the Clarence Schools Public Speaking Competition at St John Paul College on Thursday, 22nd September. Congratulations to Marina Barretti (Year 3), Hailen Capp (Year 4), Harrison Cook (Year 5) & Josie Chapman (Year 6), who took out our finals and who will now represent our school in Week 10 against students from 12 other Clarence Catholic Primary Schools. We wish them luck and trust they will do a wonderful job showcasing their speaking skills.

School Photos - MONDAY 12th September

Just a reminder that we will have our School Photos next Monday, 12th September. All students must be in the correct uniform, including hair and jewellery. You should have received an email from MSP Photography, our current School Photos provider, with instructions regarding ordering school photos through our Compass App.

I have attached a LINK giving you further instructions on the ordering process. If you are having any issues, please don't hesitate to make contact with the School Front Office, or please feel free to contact MSP directly (northcoast@msp.com.au)

Staff Development Day - MONDAY 10TH OCTOBER

On Monday 10th October, staff will engage with Aboriginal Elders to learn about our local history and sites of significance. This experience will better equip us to acknowledge and support our local Indigenous community and incorporate an Indigenous perspective in all we do. Students return to school on TUESDAY 11TH OCTOBER. 

School Spelling Bee 

Congratulations to all the students who competed in our School Spelling Bee; it was wonderful to see the immense talent in our students regarding spelling. The finals were held yesterday in front of parents and the whole school, with the following students being crowned our Spelling Bee Champions for 2022:

• Kindy Champion: Alex Trethowan
• Stage 1 Champion: Max Anderson
• Stage 2 Champion: Shiloh Grivins
• Stage 3 Champion: Emily Upston

Well done to all our finalists who competed on the day: Tanesha Anderson, Hailen Capp, Harry Cook, Roo Coulson, Zion Coulson, Alice Davies, Nathaniel Frame, Claire George, Georgia Salter, Kingston Thoms, Elyse Upston and Oliver Ward.

Kind regards

Dale

Leaders of Learning

Teachers often talk about student engagement and how to improve it, but what exactly is it? Student engagement can be defined as “the amount of attention, interest, curiosity, and positive emotional connections that students have when they are learning, whether in the classroom or on their own”.

Student engagement can be seen as the glue that holds together all aspects of student learning and growth and has been shown to have critical impacts on students. When students display high levels of engagement, they are more likely to excel academically, form a stronger sense of connection with their school, and have a more positive sense of social-emotional well-being.

Teachers use many different ways to engage students, including 

• Friendly competition (like the Spelling Bee)
• Considering student interests when planning learning sequences
• Providing student choice in what tasks they complete and how they demonstrate what they know (must do, can do choice boards)
• Variety in groupings (individual, pair, small group, whole group)
• Interactive tasks (stomp out your spelling words)
• Games (Buzz, Maths Tiggy)
• Randomised ways of getting student ideas (paddle pop sticks, online name generators)

In the gallery below, you can see some evidence of teachers at St Joey's deliberating, tailoring their teaching to actively engage students so that student outcomes improve.

Mrs Bailey & Mrs Mullins

Student Engagement

Mission & Values

Mercy Value - Respect

Respect is the treatment of each person with dignity and the recognition of their value and worth.

Now and again, bestow some praise. (Catherine McAuley)

So always treat others as you would like them to treat you.  (Matthew 7:12)

Respect calls us to treat each person with dignity, knowing we are all valued and loved by God.

Thank you to Reece Marchant, who brightened my day on Monday when he showed respect by calling me by name, speaking politely to me and asking how my weekend was. Well done, Reece! Other simple ways we can show respect are by keeping promises that we make, not interrupting while others are talking, and following school and family rules.

Sacraments - First Holy Communion and Reconciliation

In the past few weeks, two students, Ash Hitchings and Reece Bennett, have been preparing to receive the sacrament of First Holy Communion and Reconciliation. The sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Penance or Confession, occurs before First Holy Communion. First Holy Communion is where we remember the Last Supper, that final meal Jesus shared with his disciples. At that meal, Jesus gave us the Eucharist so we could not forget him in a special way. We congratulate both Ash and Reece on this very special occasion.

First Holy Communion will also be held in conjunction with our School Parish Mass. All families and friends are warmly invited to attend this Sunday, 11th September at 8:30 am.

The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

On Thursday, 8th September, each class celebrated the Feast of the Nativity of Mary with a special prayer. The Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the day we celebrate the birth of Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is also the mother of all who follow Jesus, so we call her our Blessed Mother. Scripture does not tell us about Mary’s birth, but we celebrate Mary’s birth each year on the 8th of September because this is exactly nine months from the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The birthday of Mary is an important feast day because we celebrate the joy she was to bring to the world by giving birth to Jesus, the Son of God.

Mrs Senz

Class Awards

Our Principal's Award winners are:

• Kindy - Phoebe Senz
• Stage 1 -  Max Anderson
• Stage 2 - Jacob McIntyre
• Year 5 - Reef Crofton
• Year 6 - Tanesha Anderson

Our Class Award winners are: 

Class News - Year 5

As we approach the tail end of Term 3, I have reflected and realised how much learning Year 5 has packed in! The students are really enjoying bringing everything together in each KLA, particularly in their English Unit about informative texts. The students have researched an Australian animal affected by climate change and are now working to present this information as a multimodal digital text. A multimodal text combines two or more ‘modes’ of communication such as written language, spoken language, audio and still or moving images. Below are some screenshots of some of their multimodal texts so far. 

The students have also really impressed me in Maths this term. At the same time, they were learning to recognise the place value in decimal numbers with up to three decimal places. They showed determination and a growth mindset that allowed all students to experience success with a very tricky concept.

We have also had heaps of fun with our science unit ‘Changing and Combining Materials’. We conducted an investigation where children identified the state of different materials, and we also tied this unit into one of our Stage 3 Science week activities where we changed the state of different ingredients to make ice cream in a bag!

We have also had the pleasure of benefiting from the expertise of Mrs Commerford in our ukelele lessons. We have already learned several chords and will soon be able to put these together to play some well-known songs. Thank you, Mrs Commerford.

I can’t believe how quickly the year is flying by, and how much I have witnessed Year 5 grow and learn so far this year. Well done for all your hard work, and thank you for making me a proud teacher Year 5!

Mrs Senz

School Sport

Stage 3 Clarence Zone Stage 3 Netball/Soccer Knockout

Some of our Stage 3 students travelled to Yamba on Tuesday, 6th September, to compete in the Clarence Zone Stage 3 Netball/Soccer Knockout. Six schools entered the event: St Joseph's Yamba, St Augustine's Coffs Harbour, Mary Help Of Christians Sawtell, St Mary's Grafton, St Joseph's Sth Grafton and St Joseph's Maclean. Despite finishing in 6th place, our soccer team was competitive in most matches and continued to improve throughout the day, which was very pleasing. The netball team performed brilliantly to win all their pool matches except one to qualify for the final, where they would take on St Augustine's Coffs Harbour for a place in the Lismore Diocesan Netball Knockout to be held in Grafton. St Augustine's Coffs Harbour played superbly and proved too strong in the final, but the team never gave up and demonstrated all of the values we encourage at St Joseph's.

Yamba Touch Gala Day

The Yamba Touch Gala Day will be held next week on Friday, 16th September. Our Stage 2 and Stage 3 students will travel to the Angourie Sports Fields to play friendly matches against other local schools in the Clarence Valley. The day is focused on fun and participation, with all teams playing several games regardless of the results. This will be a great way to wrap up our school Touch Program, which has been running for the majority of this term and provide students with the opportunity to interact and play with students from other schools in the local area.

Spring Holiday Sports Camp

Alan Jurd is offering a Spring Holiday Sports Camp again in the first week of the holidays. It will run on Monday 26th, Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th September at the Ryan Park Tennis Complex and include various activities. The cost is $120 or $50 for a day. We have attached an entry form if you are interested in this camp. Thanks.

Mr Hitchings

Pastoral Care - School Chaplain

Community Connect

LAP-Learning Assistance Program 

St Joseph’s is once again offering our LAP program to students. Our LAP program is a Pastoral Care program that utilises the support & encouragement of our lovely parishioners & volunteers to foster the development of confidence and self-esteem in our students. 

The criteria for students who partake are often varied, sometimes it can be home-related circumstances, emotional regulation or friendship concerns; for others, it can just be to give them a bit of a boost in self-confidence. 

LAP is a student-centred and volunteer-based mentoring programme designed to assist schools in implementing one-to-one learning that supports, guides and enriches their students' wellbeing and learning outcomes from Reception–Year 12. It focuses on students' well-being, academic, and social needs through the powerful and positive contribution of mentors.  

Our LAP volunteers will be running one-to-one 30-minute sessions with selected students. 

Please contact your class teacher if you think your child may benefit from this program. 

If you would be interested in becoming a LAP volunteer, please contact our school office or Juana Mead. 

SRC

After liaising with staff around our Father's Day lunch organisation, the SRC once again managed to successfully serve our school community.  We hope our wonderful Dads thoroughly enjoyed their early Father's Day lunch. 

Thank you to our SRC, Melissa and all the wonderful staff for your contribution to making this lunch extra special for our amazing Dads and significant men. What a demonstration of our Mercy Value of service. 

Fundraiser - St Vinnies Christmas Appeal

St Joseph’s School Community has a proud tradition of supporting the St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal each year.   This year as we help other people in our Community have a joy-filled Christmas, we strive to live out the message of John’s Gospel:  

“I have come that they may have life and have it to the full”   John 10:10

Your family is invited to participate in the Christmas Appeal through donations of non-perishable food, new toys or money.  More information about this fundraiser will be available over the coming weeks. 

Thanking you

Mrs Juana Mead

Parent Forum

Cyber Safety Parent Night - SAVE THE DATE 

Please save Tuesday, 8th November, for an upcoming Parent Learning Night focused on Cyber Safety.

Through the assistance of Parent Assembly, we have been able to organise Simon Richardson, who works for 'Stay Safe on Social', a company that has presented to more than 300,000 students, their parents, and teachers about cyber safety issues (and to our school in 2019). You will learn vital information around: Social Media Awareness, Online Grooming, Digital Footprint, Cyber-bulling & harassment and much more. We look forward to seeing as many parents & caregivers at this event as possible.

Simon will present to our Parent Community on Tuesday 8th November from 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm. We will provide pizza and babysitting to allow as many parents as possible to attend. RSVPs will go out in Week 1 next term.

Trivia Night- Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader? 

Save the Date for Friday 4th November
The Parent Forum would like to invite parents, staff and friends to our Trivia Night: Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?
The event will be hosted by none other than our Principal, Mr Dale Layland.
Start gathering your team in tables of 8-10. More details to follow.

Thank you to Kathy Johnson

On behalf of the Parent Forum and the broader parent community, I'd like to extend a big thank you to Kathy Johnson for all her efforts in providing our school with wonderful Mother's Day and Father's Day stalls over many years. Kathy has generously devoted much time and effort to this task, we are grateful to Kathy for showing us the ropes this year so that going forward, we can continue to run these stalls.

It's a total delight to see the thought, care and love the children display when choosing a gift for their loved ones.

Lauren Kirkland

Chairperson of the Parent Forum

Pastoral Care - Family Connect

After School Care  and Vacation Care Vouchers Ending Soon

Families with children aged 4 to 13 who attend a primary school in NSW can receive a $500 voucher per child to reduce out-of-pocket before and after school care costs.  This includes children who are starting Kindergarten in 2023. 
You can apply for a voucher from 28 February to 30 September 2022 for each eligible child online or at a Service NSW Centre. A voucher can be:
* redeemed with a before and after school care provider from 28 February to 31 December 2022 (voucher credit can be used for services until 30 June 2023)
* used on any weekday during the school term or on days of the week when vacation care is provided during the redemption period.
You can contact our Family Connect worker, Skye if you want more information on how to access the vouchers or other support for families.

Skye Pullen - Family Connect Worker

0417 004 779 or skye.pullen@socialfutures.org.au

Community Notices