Newsletter Term 2 Week 6

Principal's Report

Dear Community,

Welcome to our Week 6 Newsletter. School has certainly gone through a very busy and disrupted few weeks with rain, flooding and a number of staff off with COVID. Thank you all for your patience and understanding during this time.

Due to staff absences and not being able to get the newsletter out, we will be moving back to our fortnightly newsletter being distributed in even school weeks.

Staffing Update

Roberta Richter has resigned from her Workplace Health and Safety position here at St Joseph’s after 6 years in the role. Bert and her husband Andrew have purchased Sizeco and she will be dedicating her time to this new venture. We would like to wish Bert and Andrew all the very best for their new endeavour!

The WHS position has been advertised, and more information can be found by following the link below. https://www.seek.com.au/job/57061966?type=standard

Parent Communication / Sentral Parent Portal

To help streamline communication and ensure that there is 1 clear point of information, we will be utilising the Parent Portal to disseminate information to families. Some families would have signed up for the parent portal last year during our trial of the portal. If you have already signed up, there is no need to sign up again, you can use the same log on information.

For new families to St Joseph’s, last Friday you should have received an email with information on how to create a portal account, and a student/family key to grant you access to the portal and your child’s information.

If for any reason you have trouble with the signing up to the parent portal, please do not hesitate to contact the school office for assistance.

Benefits and Uses of the Parent Portal

• 1 true and correct source of information.
• Permission slips will be sent via the portal and can be signed off electronically- no more lost notes!
• Parent Teacher interviews can be booked via the portal.
• Student absences can be reported to school via the portal.
• All notes and information are easily accessible in 1 centralised location.
• Report Cards will be available digitally online.
• Reduce the number of emails and therefore emails getting lost/not received.
• Keeping the school’s social media free from unnecessary communication and use it more to promote the great things school does.

Once families have signed up to the parent portal, they can then download the Sentral for Parents app to receive push notifications etc.

https://www.sentral.com.au/parents

https://www.sentral.com.au/portal-app-help#faq

We understand that during the transition to moving fully to the portal for communication parents may experience some difficulty setting up the portal and app etc, so will be providing information both in the portal and through normal methods. After this transition however, information will only be provided via the portal, so please ensure you have yours up and running, and have downloaded the app and set up push notifications. If you have any problems, questions, or queries, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Today a letter will be sent home to all families with instructions on how to use the portal, set up accounts and your unique student access key. If you have already signed up to the portal, you can disregard this letter but please destroy it so the unique access key contained within the letter cannot be used.

Again, if you have any questions around this, please reach out.

Have a wonderful week.

God Bless,

Mr Lawson Short

From the APRE

What a lovely liturgy was prepared and presented by our Prep/1 students for our Mother's on Friday 6th May.  It was wonderful to see so many people attending and we hope that all the mother's had a wonderful day.

This month the Mary MacKillop value we are focussing on is 'Be kind'. There are many examples of this being shown every day in the playground the classroom and it is definitely going to be hard to choose one student for this award.

Catholic Education Week is coming up next term and this year, Toowoomba will host the state launch.  We will be sending a few students to the state launch mass and our school will also be creating a sculpture depicting the theme of 'love' to be used in this mass.  We are busily thinking of ideas of how we can showcase the values of St Joseph's along with the local community in this sculpture.

This week we celebrate the feast of Mary, Help of Christians.  This is a title for Mary, mother of Jesus. The church focuses on Our Lady as one who assists Christians as a community, through her intercession.  

Prayer to Mary, Help of Christians

O Mary Help of Christians, in our need we turn to you with eyes of love, with empty hands and longing hearts.
We look to you that we may see your Son, our Lord.
We lift our heads that we may have the bread of life.
We open wide our hearts to receive the Prince of Peace.
Mother of the Church, your sons and daughters thank you for your trusting word that echoes through the ages, rising from an empty soul made full of grace, prepared by God to welcome the Word to the world, that the world itself might be reborn.
In you, the reign of God has dawned, a reign of grace and peace, love and justice, born from the depths of the Word made flesh.
Pray that we will never fail on our life journey, that in heart and mind in word and deed, in days of turmoil and in days of calm, we will always look to Christ.
O Help of Christians, protect us!
Bright Star of the sea, guide us!
Our Lady of Peace, pray for us!

Michele Sanders

Mother's Day

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Prep/ 1 News

What a crazy/disruptive two weeks Prep/One have had due to flooding and COVID. Hopefully we will have everyone back on board soon!

In English, we have been learning how to describe our favourite characters in stories. We have talked about features of a character on the outside but also the features inside.

In Maths, we have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes. We have been very busy going on shape hunts, describing shapes, looking at a shapes footprint and lots, lots more. Prep/One are pretty awesome at identifying and describing shapes!

In HASS, we have been looking at old and new things. It has been so interesting to learn about what things our parents/grandparents had and how they are different to what we have today.

In Health, we have started our dance unit. We started the unit by learning the Hokey Pokey. It’s great to watch them all have so much fun while dancing!

Hopefully next week, we will all be back on deck and continuing our amazing learning!

• Lauren Grant and Catherine Folker

News from 2/3

Hi parents, friends, and St Joey’s community.

We are somehow already halfway through the term! With such a busy start to the term, it has definitely gone quick. The 2/3 class, as well as the rest of the school have been very busy inside and outside the classroom.

We have been busy refining our multiplication knowledge and skills and have begun exploring the link with division which the students have enjoyed. The students have worked really hard on their persuasive writing techniques this past week. We have explored opinions for and against, how to make a convincing argument by providing examples and evidence for our reasoning, as well as exploring emotive language to enhance our point of view. The OREO structure has assisted the 2/3s to form well-constructed persuasive paragraphs, so as a reward for their hard work, they earnt OREOs for writing excellent OREO persuasive paragraphs!

The 2/3s have begun their design technology project this week. The students are tasked to design a marble ramp which can send a marble further than 2 meters along the ground. The designs are being finalized and construction will begin next week. If you have any cardboard materials that could be beneficial for their marble ramps, feel free to send it in with your kids.

The athletics carnival is not far away, and while we have struggled with all the rain to get out and practice our events, that hasn’t stopped us from trying. The students have begun event practice in the mornings at PMP, as well as during sport lessons on Fridays.

Our athletics carnival will be held on Friday 3^rd of June, hope you can all make it!

There is lots going on, and far more to come this term! Stay up to date with all happenings on the school and class Facebook pages. We post as much as we can.

Have a great couple of weeks,

Mitchell Albury

4/5/6

Well, we have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride over the past two weeks, with more flooding and a number of staff away with Covid, it has been a little bit disjointed in 4/5/6. Luckily our students are very fliexible and have taken it all in their stride.

Last week we said goodbye to Mrs Sally Coverdale. Mrs Coverdale has been a huge asset to our classroom over the past 2 years and we are very sad to see her go, but wish her well in her retirement.  In her place, we welcome Miss Sarah Burke. Miss Burke has settled in well and is already making great relationships with the students.  We look forward to working with her for the remainder of the year.

Over the past two weeks, we have been working on different strategies for mulitplication in Maths, studying up on persuassive devices in English, practicing hard for Singfest in Music and designing healthy, high energy breakfasts in Technology. 

Well done to our Year 5 students who completed NAPLAN over the past two weeks.  While this can be a stressful and worrying time for some students, they all worked to the best of their ability. We emphasise to students that this is just a test taken in a moment of time and is not always a true indication of all they are capable of.  Students are much more than just their results on a test!

Two weeks ago, Darby, Heidi and Felicity competed at Inner Downs Cross Country trials and ran so well.  It was wonderful to see their hard work pay off, with Felicity and Heidi being selected in the Inner Downs Team.

We had a wonderful trip up to the State School on Friday to rehearse our Singfest songs with mass choir conductor, Beth Wheeldon. When we returned, a number of very brave students got up in front of the class and auditioned for a solo piece.  It made me very proud to see a number of students overcoming fears and stepping out of their comfort zone to have a go. They should all be very proud of their efforts.

We have some very busy weeks coming up ahead of us but I know that the students will continue to work hard and keep working towards their goals inside and outside of the classroom.

Until next time,

Michele Sanders

From the Library

Library Reminder:

The St Joseph’s school library is bursting with great books to read, and students have the opportunity to borrow from the library every week. Students are encouraged to borrow and read widely, to foster improvement in their reading and writing.

Unfortunately, we have had several library books returned wet or otherwise damaged over the last few weeks, which is quite disappointing.  All books borrowed, that are taken home, are required to be carried in a water-proof library bag; a practise that is reinforced at the point of borrowing in the library.

We would ask parents to encourage students to keep their library books in their library bags when not in use, to help protect them from damage. Families may be asked to replace or pay for any lost or damaged books.

We thank you for your support in this matter.

Happy reading!

Mrs Burgess & Mrs Gunning.

2022 Premier’s Reading Challenge

Dear parents/carers

I am delighted to invite all St Joseph’s students to join in the 2022 Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC).

The PRC is not a competition but a way to encourage students to develop a love of reading for life. Students are encouraged to select a range of fiction and non-fiction books suited to their reading ability and record books read during the reading period, between 9 May to 26 August.

To complete the challenge:

• Prep to Year 2 must read or experience at least 20 books
• Years 3 and 4 must read at least 20 books
• Years 5 to 9 must read at least 15 books.

Experiencing books can include shared reading, listening to stories, or reading picture books. The aim for the 2022 challenge is to engage more students to read than ever before! Last year saw more than 168,000 children from around the state participate.

For suggested books or for more information about the PRC, please visit: readingchallenge.education.qld.gov.au or contact Mrs Burgess or your class teacher.

Every student who completes the challenge will receive a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Premier. I look forward to seeing as many of our students as possible take part in the 2022 Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Short.

Photo - whole of school

To place an order for St Joseph’s Millmerran Whole School please log on to:

https://orders.academyphoto.com.au/ordering/access

Then enter the Access key: 895R6Q5W

PPF News

PPF Executive Committee:

President / Co-Chairs – Katie Battisson and Kass Clark

Secretary – Fiona Andrews

Finance Coordinator – Marg Gaske

Vice President / Events Coordinator – Kelsee Huth

Thank you to all who attended the PPF meeting last Tuesday the 17^th May.  We were unlucky enough to have a power cut just as we started, so did the majority of the meeting in the dark!  Lots of important upcoming events were discussed, as outlined in the minutes attached to the newsletter.

It has been great to see orders coming in for our Pie Drive.  With the weather cooling off it is a great time to stock up your freezer with pies and yummy treats!  Pie Drive orders are due by the 7^th of June (paper orders) or 9^th June (online), and the pies will be available for collection on Friday the 17^th of June.

Unfortunately the Millmerran Show Campdraft on the 14 / 15^th of May was cancelled due to wet weather, and will not be rescheduled.

We also had to postpone the Working Bee that was supposed to be held on Sunday.  With such a miserable weekend, we didn’t want to chop up the beautiful oval that Eddy has been working so hard on in preparation for the Athletics Canrival.  We have rescheduled this to this coming weekend, Sunday the 29^th of May at 9am, and are hoping the weather will be more forgiving!  We have lots of green waste and other rubbish to be carted to the dump, so would appreciate as much help as possible.  If you have a trailer, please bring it along to help cart the rubbish away.

Under 8’s Day will be held at St Joseph’s this Thursday the 26^th of May, with lots of great activities and fun to be had for the whole community!  The PPF will be providing a free Sausage Sizzle, and we thank the sponsors and all the wonderful community groups who will be generously donating their time and resources to this event.

The School Athletics Carnival will be held at St Joey’s on Friday the 3^rd of June.  The PPF will be providing a canteen on the day, with chips, pluto pups, baked goods and drinks available, and the Bean and Gone Coffee van will also be there.  We would love donations of baked goods that can be sold, plus will be needing helpers on the day.  Kelsee Huth and Tanya French will be coordinating the canteen for this event, so please let them know if you can help in any way.

Christmas in the Bush (that was cancelled at the end of last year due to flooding) will be held in July.  We will be helping to run the bar so will be looking for volunteers closer to the date.

We have also recently purchased a Thermomix, which we will be raffling off in Term Three – keep an eye out for more information!

Our next meeting will be held in the school hall on Tuesday the 21^st of June, all welcome!

If you have any questions or queries about the upcoming events, would like to help, or would like to know more about what the PPF does, please do not hesitate to have a chat to any of the executive.

Have a great day!

St Joseph's Parent Partnership Forum

General Meeting Minutes - 17.5.22

Date: 17.5.22

Meeting Opened: 5:05pm

Attendees:       Fiona Andrews, Katie Battison, Catherine Folker, Marg Gaske, Bruce Wise, Kass Clark, Tanya French, Kelc Huth, Lawson Short, Adan Sanders, Leticia Tolson.

Apologies:       Lindsay Sese.

Opening Prayer: LS

Previous Minutes:

• Moved: CF
• Seconded: KH

Issues arising from previous meeting:

• Trivia Night – Catherine has started organising some parts - Michele is happy to organise, it has been booked in with Katrina at the Camp Oven office, bus is booked with Bec Kirby. Kass just to sort out finer details with Katrina.
• Campdraft was cancelled – will not be run at a later date.

Principal’s Report: LS

PPF Principal’s Report 17/05/2022

Enrolments:

• 59!!
• 2023- 65-70 predicted.

Staffing 

• New School Officer- Welcome Sarah Burke to the position. She will start on Monday 23^rd Working Mon-Thursday in 4/5/6 for Maths and English support.

PD Undertaken /

• Lawson- Inspire Mathematics Leading Learning Day
• All Staff- First Aid training
• Paul Murphy Visit
• Paul Bryant Visit- Development of school master plan
• Lawson- Leadership Forum- Warwick
• Inspire Mathematics Visit- Working with teachers and demonstrating in classrooms.

Activities:

• ANZAC Celebrations
• Easter Liturgy
• Olympian Visit
• NAPLAN
• New Interactive Panels have been installed! Just trying to solve an issue with sound- should be fully functional by next week.

Discuss:

• Thank you for the donation towards the new screens.
• Working Bee Items (List attached) from maintenance report etc. Highlighted items are the ones that could be done this working bee?

PPF WORKING BEE

GROUNDS

1. Undercut all trees for ride-on mower clearance (Take cuttings to dump)
2. Prune branches away from shade sails
3. Prune branches away from cricket nets
4. Prune branches away from roof of undercover seating area
5. Place woodchips into garden beds
6. Trim garden plants off front wall of admin block
7. Clean drain pits to remove leaf litter etc
8. Sand and oil amphitheatre and seating

UNDERCOVER AREA

1. Gerni floor surface
2. Clean gutters- Could be a ball stuck in downpipe

MULTI-COURT

1. Gerni court surface to remove build up
2. Remove cobwebs from purlins (gerni?)
3. Repair bird netting
4. Clear out balls etc from down pipes

PLAYGROUND

1. Gerni all playground equipment
2. Rotary hoe soft fall sand, rake to remove debris and distribute evenly

INSIDE AREAS

1. Clean ceiling fans
2. Clean light diffusers (remove insects etc.)
3. Trim frayed carpet joins

HALL TOILETS

1. Clean grill of exhaust fans
2. Male toilet seat loose
   
   

TUCKSHOP

1. Flick-mixer tap loose

Classroom

1. Fans
2. Roof Trusses

Correspondence IN: 

• Camp Oven Paperwork – Fran and Aileen – just needs to be checked and passed on to Katrina at the Camp Oven Office – FA.
• Quote for Chip Cooker – Has come in from Betta Electrical. Need to follow up and see how long it will take to be ordered in – FA.  Adan to send email to Toowoomba Wholesale Distributors to ask for a second quote.
• Cultural Centre Booking – Trivia Night for Camp Oven
• Donation from IGA - $200 – need to send a thank you / certificate – KB to ask Lisa.

Correspondence OUT:

• Letter to Power Station re: Chip Cooker

Chairperson Report: Kass and Katie

• Under 8’s Day postponed, Athletics Carnival coming up, Thermomix Raffle coming up. Great communication has been happening.  Unfortunately the Campdraft was cancelled.

Team Coordinator – Finance Report:

• All true and correct.

Committee Reports:

• Maintenance:
  • Working Bee – Sunday 22^nd May at 9am. Remove all of the green waste. Need trailers etc to take it all to the dump. LS to check that the dump will be open, and check with Eddie on what needs to be cut down.

• Tuckshop:
  • All going well.

Agenda Items:

1. Parent Group / Communication – to be put off till next meeting.
2. Concreting quotes – Kelc has spoken to Zac – he will do up two quotes, for two different designs. He has only looked today so will have to get a quote to us next week.  He also said that with any leftover concrete, the other gateway could be tidied up as well.
3. Under 8’s Day – Will be lots of community members involved and doing different activities. RFA Mechanical to donate the sausages – Kelc has ordered 200 sausages, and will order bread from the bakery. Bruce to cook BBQ. Big thanks to Lauren, Michele and Catherine for their organisation.
4. Athletics Carnival – Kelc and Tanya to coordinate food. Will sell chips, pluto pups, water, poppers and baked goods. Fran is bringing the Coffee Van.  Will set up food in the same spot.  Need to ask for donations of baking and get people to help so that everyone gets a chance to watch the kids. Cash or card facilities available.  Volunteers will need to be vaccinated, but parents don’t need to be to watch.
5. Camp Oven – Trivia Night – 6pm 28^th September at the Cultural Centre. Can start organising prizes and donations.  Need to do up a generic letter to ask for donations – FA. Michele to take names and bookings, Marg to coordinate food, raffles and prizes, Kelc and Catherine to help with food, Adan and Bruce to cook BBQ, Bruce to help collect people from Showgrounds with Bec, Matt / Scott to organise drinks.  Marg to organise ad and forward on to Katrina.
6. Thermomix Raffle – Marg has set up the raffle online, just need to set it to go live when we are ready. Will leave the start date until after the pie drive – Term Three.
7. Social Outing – Paint and Sip? – look into it maybe next term as a social event.
8. Bunnings BBQ – Bunnings provides BBQ’s etc, just need to provide sausages etc. Need to have a look at the website for more info – KB.
9. Pie Drive – More paper copies to be handed out, a few orders have come in but hopefully more to come.

Agenda items for next meeting:

1. Parent group – communication.
2. Concreting quotes.
3. Social event – Term Three – Wine and Cheese, Movie Night for the kids.
4. Trivia Night / Camp Oven.
5. Millmerran Campdraft – September.

Next meeting date: 21^st June at 5:30pm

Meeting Closed: 6:35pm

Empathy – Encouraging Kids to Care

Teaching children to see the world through another person’s experience and helping them
learn how to respond appropriately is not always straightforward. Some children learn to
manage their own feelings and the feelings of others with ease, whilst others may need a
little more direct instruction and practical support to develop these skills. One of the first
steps in teaching children to show emotional concern, is to support children to identify and
recognise their own emotions and develop strong self-regulation skills. Parents can become
an ‘Emotion Coach”, acknowledging their child’s feelings as they are experiencing them, and
having warm and supportive conversations about helpful ways to handle these emotions.
They can also help their child develop the skill of reading the facial expressions of others.
This may involve fun role-playing and making different facial expressions and talking with
their child about what feelings can look and feel like. Use everyday opportunities to model
empathetic feelings towards others and discuss how that person may be feeling (e.g., story
in a book, on television, or in real life). Help children recognise the things they have in
common with others and teach them the importance of being kind.

For more information on empathy, please check out the below articles:

The case for teaching empathy (parentingscience.com)
Developing Empathy in Kids Early (today.com)
5 Tips for Cultivating Empathy — Making Caring Common (harvard.edu)

Isolated Children's Parent's Association (ICPA)

ICPA's mission is to bring more equity of access to education for children living in rural and remote areas. They advocate at a state and federal level for changes/improvements in legislation, funding, etc to narrow the gap between what's available to students in metropolitan areas vs. rural areas.  

Every year there's a federal conference where ICPA members from across Australia present motions with topics they think need to be addressed to improve the learning opportunities for kids in rural areas. 

For more information, here's a link to a flyer that includes general examples of the type of needs ICPA might be able to advocate for: https://icpa.com.au/au/what-icpa

Areas of any needs/gaps you see either at the school level (staffing, teacher support and training, support for kids with behavioural differences, learning differences and disabilities, learning materials, infrastructure etc) or at home (any aspect of living in a rural area that might be a barrier to learning)?  Go to https://icpa.com.au/au/what-icpa