St Joseph’s School, Millmerran eNewsletter

Principal's Report

Dear Community,

Last week at the Opening Mass, we announced our theme for this year which was "Nothing is too little to be noticed." This is a wonderful quote by Mary MacKillop as it highlights that every little bit counts. Every small amount of effort, every day that your child comes to school when they don't feel like it, every time they try something new, every time they offer a helping hand to someone, every time they treat someone with kindness. While these small things in isolation may not seem like they matter much, they certainly do. I talked about how we can be inspired by Mary MacKillop and rise up to the everyday challenges that may face us. I also mentioned how Mary MacKillop lived a life of servanthood, always looking out for the needs of others and never seeing a need without doing something about it.

Our first learning behaviour, 'Welcoming Wagtail' is accompanied by the Mary MacKillop quote, "Serving others is the best sacrifice we can make." As I have been in and out of classrooms and around the playground the last few weeks, I have seen many examples of students being 'servants' to one another and showing kindness and compassion to their fellow classmates and how fitting that our awards have celebrated students over the past two weeks who have been 'caring classmates' and 'handy helpers'. Over the course of the year, we will continue to focus on how our learning behaviours were inspired by the work of Mary MacKillop and how, we too, can make a difference to the lives of others, no matter how small that difference is.

On Sunday I had the privilege of accompanying some Year 6 leaders to Toowoomba to attend the launch of Project Compassion for this season of Lent. It was a wonderful mass that reiterated the message of servanthood and how the work that we do fundraising in our school makes a big difference to the lives of some very disadvantaged communities in our world. This again connects to our theme for this year, that 'nothing is too little to be noticed.'

A big thank you to the PPF for their organisation of our Welcome BBQ. It was a great opportunity to meet new families, reconnect with existing families and share information between school and home. Thank you to everyone who attended and we look forward to fostering great relationships between school and home for the remainder of the year.

God Bless,

Michelle

SSPCPoster4Photos_002_.pdf

From the APRE

Last Wednesday we celebrated our Opening Mass and Induction of student leaders. The Year 6 students recited the pledge, honouring their commitment to serve the school over the next year. I know that our leaders this year are going to do a fantastic job in being wonderful role models for our younger students.
Today, Ash Wednesday, marks the beginning of Lent, which lasts for six weeks. We call it Ash Wednesday because today many Christians around the world will receive a cross of ashes on their foreheads. This cross of ashes tells friends and neighbours that we are not perfect, and that we know we are not perfect. It also reminds us that we are followers of Jesus and our main job is to serve others just as he did. We can try to reach out to others with more love and kindness especially in our own families, our school and in our world and think about how we can be servants to God’s people.

Our Mini Vinnies Club is up and running again and this year, we have a very enthusiastic group of students with some very good ideas. They will be running an activity every Friday for the remainder of the term to help raise funds for Project Compassion. We look forward to hearing from them over the course of the year about social justice issues that affect our world and in particular, our community.

Week/Date	Activity
Week 4 – Tuesday 13^th February	Pancake Flip competition = $2 to participate
Week 5 – Friday 23^rd February	Free Dress Day = $2 to participate
Week 6 – Friday 1^st March	Water Play/Games = $2 to participate
Week 7 – Friday 8^th March	Ice Cream Stall (Form to preorder coming soon)
Week 8 – Friday 15^th March	Oreo/Fun Food Challenges = $2 to participate
Week 9 – Friday 22^nd March	Treasure Hunt = $2 to participate
Week 10 – Thursday 28^th March	Easter raffle = Tickets 50c each or 3 for $1 Colouring Competition = $2 to participate

Pancake Flip

Hello family and friends!

I hope you are having an excellent start to 2024.

We have had a great start to the year in 3/4 with a bigger class and an even bigger room! We are so grateful for this classroom and the students have been using it to their advantage. The students have gotten straight into our hard work and routines. They have almost finished all of their work for the Show, which is impressive as we have been doing this alongside our learning area units for the term.

In Maths we have been exploring place value for larger numbers (into the ten thousands!), as well as ordering and comparing them. Students have shown me their knowledge using MAB blocks and partitioning to represent numbers. Year 4s have extended this knowledge into tenths and hundredths, recognising the relationship between decimal point and fractions. The year 4s will also begin looking into odd and even numbers and how to recognise and use these. Number talks at the start of most lessons have been giving students the chance to develop their mental math skills using addition and subtraction with larger numbers.

English this term has us preparing the Year 3s for NAPLAN, learning about both narratives and persuasive texts. We have been exploring the text Flood by Jackie French as an example of a ‘text to entertain’, using the author’s choices to understand her purpose. Students are currently having a go at writing a text about ‘Fire’, using the example text to inspire their planning and writing. In the coming week, we will start exploring persuasive writing, in preparation to compare these 2 text types!

In HASS we have been looking at how communities change over time, and in Health we are recapping how to make good quality friendships. Students will start to discuss how to maintain these friendships in the coming week, and we will continue to work on our group work skills!

Science has been the class favourite this term, with the unit lining up perfectly with the kids’ current obsession with bugs and all things living! Thank you so much for supporting our exploration of these living things and bringing in students’ findings from home, they have loved this so much.

I can’t believe it is already almost halfway through the term, and I am beyond excited to continue working with this bunch of humorous, dedicated, and kind children.

Thanks

Georgia Tocknell

Year 3/4

Sporting News

In the next two weeks we have a number of students heading off to compete at Inner Downs trials for different sports. We wish the best of luck to the following students:

Bella Klein and Heidi Sanders who will compete at the Inner Downs Swimming Trials on Monday.

Felicity Clark who will compete at the Inner Downs Netball Trials on Monday 26th February.

Date Claimers

Wednesday 14th February - Ash Wednesday Mass 9:30am
Thursday 15th February - Legends of League Visit (5/6)
Friday 1st March - Clean up Australia Day
Saturday/Sunday 2nd-3rd March - Millmerran Show
Thursday 7th March - School Photos
Thursday 14th March - Prep Vision Screening
13th-25th March - NAPLAN
Tuesday 19th March - St Joseph's Day Mass 9:00am
Wednesday 20th March - Cross Country
Monday 25th March - Whole school Reconciliation
Monday-Tuesday 25ht-26th March - Parent Teacher Interviews
Thursday 28th March - Easter Liturgy/Last day Term 1

PPF News

Dear Families,

What a great start to 2024 we are having. We would like to Thank our wonderful 2023 outgoing executive team for all their hard work they put in over the last year. We appreciate all your time and dedication that you brought to the PPF.

We would like to officially welcome the new executives for 2024.

What a wonderful year we have to look forward to with lots of fundraising events coming up.

President -Kelsee Huth

Vice President-Scott Folker

Secretary- Billie-Dee Sinclair

Team Coordinator (Finance)- Catherine Folker

Events Manager- Taylah Willett

Tuckshop- Billie-Dee Sinclair

Grants- Matt Clark

Thank you to our wonderful team for stepping up for 2024.

Our first event was the Welcoming BBQ which was an amazing night, and we would like to thank all those who came along and for supporting the PPF and the Teachers.

We have the Millmerran Show coming up next month which I am sure all the kids are really looking forward to. As most of you know the school along side the Catholic Church runs the canteen over the weekend. We are so lucky to have a lot of volunteers that have offered their time to either bake or help on the roster over the weekend. We appreciate all your help, and look forward to a great weekend.

The reason why the PPF do catering, fundraising etc is so our beautiful children have more opportunities to get extra learning resources and a lot more. We love to see the kids benefit from our hard work, in the classroom and with the outdoor equipment. We always welcome new faces and we love to see families get involved with raising money to support all the children within the school. Please come along to our meetings each month to find out all the exciting things the PPF have coming up throughout the year.

The next PPF meeting is on the 14/02/2024 in the school Hall at 5.30PM.

Thank you again and we look forward to a great year of catering and fundraising.

Kind regards,

St Joseph’s PPF.