Newsletter Term 2 Week 4

Principal's Report

Dear Community,

We are fast approaching the halfway mark of Term 2 which seems very hard to believe. Our classroom teachers have been very busy in their classrooms and students will be undergoing testing and assessment in the coming weeks as we prepare for the Semester One report cards to be delivered at the end of the term.

This term our report cards will take on a different look as we move to reporting within our Sentral program, the same program that incorporates the Sentral Parent Portal.

We hope that these new look report cards will provide a clearer depiction of student achievement, and how students are tracking in relation to our St Joseph’s Learning Behaviours.

These report cards will be available within the Sentral for Parents App, as well as in hard copy.

This week I have spent three days in Toowoomba, at St Saviour’s Primary School as a part of the panel for the school’s review through the ‘School Renewal and Improvement Process.’ This has been a wonderful chance to see another school in operation and the different approaches to teaching and learning occurring. These school reviews are designed to highlight current successes and give strategic direction to the school moving onto the future.

With school improvement and renewal in mind, I would love to hear from the St Joseph’s community around what our community identifies as areas of strengths within the school, and areas for growth and development. This will greatly assist in planning for the success of St Joseph’s into the future, and take our school from good to great, and great to excellent! If you would like to have a say, please feel free to email myself or call the school office!

Thank you to Mrs Sanders for stepping into the Acting Principal Position during my absence this week, and again next week as I attend the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Leadership Forum in Charleville. This week sees all principals in the Toowoomba diocese meet for a series of intensive meetings and professional development. It also provides opportunity to analyse school data, to ensure that our schools are performing well and that our teaching and learning is of a very high standard.

Until next time,

God Bless,

Mr Lawson Short.

Date Claimers

Student Awards

Student of the week

Week 2

Elsie Willett - Being so respectful when marching, sitting and singing at the ANZAC day Service.

Eli Hollis- For always holding the door open for others!

Benji Wise – for making good choices in class time 

Bella Sese – for her infectious happiness.  You always put a smile on your classmates faces.

Week 3

Colin Pink -  For being so thoughtful in the classroom and following directions straight away.

Jose Lehuede- For doing some amazing reading during reading groups this week!

Grace Giddy - for bringing a bright and positive energy to the class and always keeping the classroom clean!

Charlie French – for asking great questions in class discussions.

Learning Behaviours - Persistent Parakeet

Week 2

Bonnie Fitzgerald - Trying so hard to read and write long sentences.

Isabella Collier- For trying to be a persistent parakeet role model!

Layla Stoker – for striving to finish her homework every week and never giving up on hard tasks.

Levi Bryce– for his considerable effort in all class activities this week, not rushing and giving up.

Week 3

Clancy Willet - : For persisting with her reading and sentence writing.

Fletcher French- For always giving things a go even if they are hard!

Brad Stower - for always striving to finish tasks even when finding them difficult

Cooper Klein – for showing dedication to his work and accepting feedback.

Prep/One News

Hi everyone! 

I can’t believe it is Week 3 already – the weeks have gone quickly considering they have been a short 4 days! 

I’d just like to first mention that I was so proud of all the students efforts at ANZAC Day. They marched, sat and sang so beautifully! You should be so proud of them all 😊 

In Maths, the Preps have been learning the numbers 6 to 10, and the Grade Ones have been working with the Numbers 1 to 100 by skip counting, counting forwards and backwards, and doing place value. The Prep/Ones have also been learning to identify and compare different shapes in their environment. The students will begin learning about patterns in the next few weeks. 

In English, the students have been learning about the building blocks of sentences. The Preps have been beginning to sound out and write words, and the Grade Ones have been writing sentences, ensuring they are using a capital letter, full stop and other punctuation correctly. The students have also been practicing sounding out words through using slinkies - a video of this was uploaded on the Prep/One Facebook page.

In Design Technologies, the students are learning about where their food comes from. They have been exploring what happens on farms. I am hoping to allow a guest speaker to come in during the term to talk to the students about their experience as a farmer but I will inform you about this later in the term. 

This term, the students are doing dance as part of the Arts. We are fortunate enough to be using the Footsteps program where the students learn through watching online videos. I have been joining in on the dancing and it is definitely a workout! But the children seem to be enjoying this different way of learning 😊 

As this term is going to be a very busy one – please read the following notices for events coming up! 

• Just a reminder that the Mother’s Day Liturgy is on Friday the 12^th of May at 9am. It is clear that the students have been practicing as they are reading very well! If you could continue to practice their speaking parts with them at home until the Liturgy, that would be fantastic 😊 
• Under 8s day is coming up on Tuesday the 16^th of May. More details on this day will be shared later in the term. 
• Testing for reading and letter sound knowledge will be coming up in Week 6 and 7 (so between the 22^nd of May and the 2^nd of June). Continue to practice sight words, alphabet and reading at home in order to prepare your children for these tests! Could you also please let me know if your children are going to be away at all during these weeks, so that I can prevent the children missing out on any tests. 

As always please never hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns! 

Kind Regards,
Grace 😊 

From the APRE

This week's gospel tells us the message Jesus said, “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you, keep my commandments”. This is such a great message and something that we try to instill into our religious life of the school with our Mary MacKillop values, justice, compassion, determination, kindness and respect.  This month our value of foucs is 'Be Kind'. Each classroom has a display outlining ways students can show kindness to others.  Our school noticeboard also has a display.

On Friday, our prep/1 students will lead us in our Mother's Day liturgy from 9:00am.  All are welcome to attend. Morning tea will be provided for our mums after the liturgy.

Thank you to the students who participated in Family Mass over the weekend.  It was great to have you part of the service.y

This week, five of our students; Liam Folker, Bella Sese, Benjamin Wise, Matilda Evans and Heidi Sanders, will commence their sacramental lessons in preparation for Confirmation and First Communion. We wish these students all the best with their preparation.

God Bless,

Michele Sanders

Dear Parents,

Thank you to those who have responded to let us know whether you are able to attend the Mother’s Day Social Evening on Friday night. We are looking forward to a great night, and a chance to chat and catch up with you all.

I just wanted to give you a little bit more information, on behalf of the PPF.

The night will begin at 6pm, and as already stated, a bar will be available, with beer, wine, spirits and soft drinks.

Please bring along a plate of food to share. This will be set up in two different areas, one for kids and one for adults.  If your child’s surname starts with the letters A-F, please bring a plate of kids food for the kids to share. We will set this up in an area where the kids can come and go and help themselves.

If your child’s surname starts with the letters G-P, please bring a plate of savoury finger food for the adults, and those with surnames Q-Z, please bring desserts. The tuckshop will be available if you need to heat up something, put something in the fridge etc.

As far as keeping the kids busy so we can enjoy ourselves, we are very lucky to have had two past students, Lachlan and Sam Folker, volunteer to entertain them! They will organise games and lots of fun things to do, and when the kids are ready to wind down, we will put a movie on in the Hall, so please bring along blankets, pillows etc so they can get comfy.

We will also set up the big screen TV outside, and will use this to put the Footy on! Hopefully that will keep a few footy fans happy.

Miss Grant in Year Two has generously offered us the use of her classroom, so if the weather is a bit chilly, we can sit in there where it is warm, and we will also have the Mother’s Day Raffle prizes set up in there.

We will draw the raffle later in the evening, and there may be some last minute tickets available for purchase. Thank you so much to all those who have generously donated items for the raffle, we have a great range of prizes, and have already sold over $1300 in tickets!

Once again, thank you to those who have replied, and we look forward to seeing you on Friday night!

In other news, we will be holding a Pie Drive later this term, with pie delivery scheduled for just before the end of term.  Keep an eye out for more information soon!

General Meeting 

Our next PPF meeting will be held at St Joseph’s on Monday the 22^nd of May, at 5.30pm in the School Hall, and all are welcome!  We realise that all our parents are busy people, so we try to make the meetings as quick and efficient as possible, and if you have children that you are unable to leave, please feel free to bring them along.  It would be lovely to see some new faces, and as the saying goes, many hands make light work!

Kind Regards,

St Joseph's PPF 

Various photos