Term 2 Week 2 2022
From our Leadership
Dear St Joseph's Community,
Welcome to Term 2; we hope everyone enjoyed a relaxing and enjoyable holiday break and is ready for the learning, spirituality and joy that awaits us throughout Term 2.
Our recent Easter festival reminds us of the Good News of The Resurrection of Jesus, which is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived by the Christian community and handed on to us.
Jesus is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia
Jesus is Risen indeed!
We Welcome We welcome Kevin Light and Izac Skinner and their families to our St Joseph’s community. It has been lovely to watch our students ‘make space’ in established friendship groups for these new students.
Mother’s Day Celebration Friday, 6 May at 10:00am All are invited to come and share in this event as we pay tribute to our Mums and the special people in our lives who love and care for us.
A Liturgy will be held in the Mercy Hall at 10:00am. Parents may then spend the short time before lunch visiting your child’s room, seeing their wonderful work and reading and working with the children in their classrooms.
At 10:50am, morning tea will be provided. All parents and friends are welcome to stay and share lunch with your children in our beautiful school grounds. You may even like to bring a picnic rug to sit on. Canteen orders can be made on that day following the usual process.
We hope you can come and share in this special celebration.
Thank You Families Thank you to all of our wonderful families for supporting our Staff Development Day on Tuesday 26 April. On this day we continued our CLARITY journey where we are forever improving teaching and learning. Through the support of the Catholic Schools Office we have been working with Dr Lyn Sharratt as part of the CLARITY project. Lyn is a highly accomplished practitioner, researcher, author, and presenter based in Ontario. She has a track-record of substantially increasing school performance.
ANZAC Day The sun shone brightly over head as we joined the community of South Grafton to commemorate ANZAC Day. Students and staff proudly marched through town and attended the public service. It was wonderful to see so many students and families in attendance. Thanks to Talon, Thomas and Noah for laying the wreath.
Sacrament of Confirmation Preparation In the following week, classes will commence as we prepare the children to be confirmed by Bishop Gregory Homeming on Wednesday, 29 June. Further information will be sent home with the children participating in this program soon. Please contact the school if you have any questions or require further information regarding the sacramental programs.
Drum Band
What a wonderful sight and sound it was last Friday afternoon as the Stage 3 Drum Band finished the week off with a Bang! We thank Graham McLennan for giving his time and expertise to help and share his skills and talents with the children. It was amazing to hear the progress the children made in this session.
Walker Learning Update for Kindergarten and Stage 1
After seeking family and staff feedback regarding Walker Learning the investigation time will remain in the afternoon session. As previously communicated Walker Learning was transferred to the afternoon session from the beginning of 2022. We now call this time ‘Investigations.’
The decision to have this at the end of the school day is based upon our reading and writing data and the need to place more learning time in the morning session block. Of course we are always open to feedback so if you have further ideas or suggestions please call the school office to speak with Danny, Anne or Joe. We are always striving to improve and value all of the input we receive.
NAPLAN Students in Year 3 and Year 5 will participate in the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assessments during the week of May 10. There are 4 assessments and the timeline is as follows;
- Tuesday, 10 May: WRITING ASSESSMENT
- Wednesday, 11 May: READING ASSESSMENT followed by LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS ASSESSMENT
- Thursday, 12 May: NUMERACY ASSESSMENT
NAPLAN is a point-in-time assessment that allows parents and carers to see how their child is progressing in literacy and numeracy against the national standard and compared with their peers throughout Australia. At the classroom level, NAPLAN provides additional information to support teachers’ professional judgment about student progress. Please find more information in the following link.
Writing - let’s bump it up! Teachers at St Joseph's have been working on ‘bump it up’ walls. These are visual displays of different levels of writing that show students how they can improve (bump it up). These walls show students that improvement is always possible and the writing samples show students HOW they can improve. What it takes to get to the next level is displayed on the wall and discussed and modelled often by teachers. Students can take their own piece of writing up to the wall and compare it to the samples and look for ways to improve.
Acting Principal-Danny Rankin
Assistant Principal-Anne Forwell
Leader of Mission-Joe Stewart
K-2 Instructional Leader -Brooke Donoghue
100 Days of School In the upcoming weeks, we will be celebrating 100 Days of School for our Kindergarten students. Due to the interruptions to our school year last year with Covid, we have decided to extend this celebration to our Stage 1 students as well. Families will be invited to the school one evening to share in the learning of your children.
We look forward to sharing a date with you soon.
Teaching and Learning: Learning Intention and Success Criteria At the start of every new learning cycle, we develop a ‘Learning Intention’ which informs the students of what they are learning to do and is directly from the syllabus. This is de-constructed with the students so they understand what it is that they are learning to do.
We then co-construct with students a set of criteria called a ‘Success Criteria’, which informs them of how they are going to achieve the learning intention and how they are going. Every set of ‘Success Criteria’ has 1 or 2 dot points that are achievable for all students to experience success.
We would like to share with you the learning intentions and success criteria in our K-2 classes, so that you can be involved in the learning process and support your child’s learning. It may also help with the, ‘what did you learn today?’ questions we might ask of an afternoon.
Kindergarten English Learning intention: We are learning to listen to and write texts that share a story to entertain an audience.
Success Criteria I can:
- Write the sounds I can hear in words
- Start my writing with a capital letter
- Finish my writing with a full stop
- Put finger spaces between each word
- Write from left to right
Kindergarten Mathematics Learning intention: We are learning to create patterns by repeating colours and shapes.
Success Criteria I can create a pattern using shapes, objects or pictures
I can continue a pattern
I can recognise an error in a pattern
Stage 1 English
Learning Intention: We are learning to create an informative poster/pamphlet to engage and inform their target audience
Success Criteria:
- I can distinguish between fact and opinion
- I can use tier 2 and tier 3 words
Stage 1 Mathematics
Week 2
Learning Intention: We are learning to investigate and describe number patterns formed by skip counting
Success Criteria:
- I can identify and describe patterns when skip counting forwards or backwards by ones, twos, fives and tens from any starting point
- I can represent number patterns on number lines and number charts
- I can recognise, copy and continue patterns with objects or symbols
- I can create, record and describe patterns with objects or symbols
- I can describe a repeating pattern of objects or symbols in terms of a 'number' pattern,
- I can model and describe 'odd' and 'even' numbers using counters paired in two rows
Week 3
Learning Intention: We are learning to recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to at least 100
Success Criteria:
- I can represent two-digit numbers using objects, pictures, words and numerals
- I can locate and place two-digit numbers on a number line
- I can apply an understanding of place value and the role of zero to read, write and order two-digit numbers
- I can use number lines and number charts to assist with counting and ordering
Sport Coordinator - Emma Davis
Polding Soccer Trials
Congratulations to Callum Tait who was selected on the Lismore Diocesan Soccer Team and attended the Polding Trials last week in Bathurst.
School Cross Country Results
Congratulations to all students who participated in the school Cross Country Carnival last term. Congratulations to the following students who were age champion at the event:
8/9 years boys: Braxton Metcalf
8/9 years girls: Chelsea Dentler
10 year boys: Hamish Dentler
10 year girls: Aleah Jeffery
11 year boys: Callum Tait
11 year girls: Pippa Fennessy
12/13 year boys: Kyle McCann and Peter Hewitt
12/13 year girls: Rachel Surawski
Clarence Zone Cross Country Carnival
Congratulations to the following students who represented our school at the Clarence Zone Cross Country Carnival on Wednesday, 4 May; Braxton Metcalf, Alexander Van der Vlist, Kruze Colby, James Awbery, David Van der Vlist, Chelsea Dentler, Maddison Hayes, Charlotte Parry-Jones, Phoenix Cummins, Hamish Dentler, Koby Hayes, William McCarthy-Copson, Nate Finlay, Aleah Jeffery, Rose Coelli, Sheba Bowman, Callum Tait, Thomas Awbery, Darcy Smith, Hugh Brotherson, Matthew Fletcher, Kyle McCann, Peter Hewitt.
Gumbaynggirr Language - Liz Hegedus
Ginnagay Ngujawiny -Hello You Mob,
This week in our lessons we learnt about Anzac Day and what the Indigenous men had to endure just to sign up for war. The First World War began in August 1914. It was directly triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on 28th June 1914 by Bosnian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip. This event was, however, simply the trigger that set off declarations of war.
Australia entered the war when Great Britian declared war on Germany in 1914. As it was believed that Australia was part of the British Empire they wanted to go to war to prove that Australia was a nation to reckon with. Indigenous men wanted to join the war effort to prove they were proud of their country and to be respected as a person not just by their skin colour.
At first there were certain rules upon signing up, the army would only take light coloured Indigenous men. But, as the war went on and there were many deaths the colour of the skin didn't matter, the amy had no choice but to sign up all Indigenous men of many colours.
It is estimated 1000 to 1500 indigenous men signed up and 250 to 300 men were killed in action.
When the Indigenous Soldiers returned from the war the Australian society did not recognise their service. They were treated this way because Indigenous Aboriginal Australians were not recognised as Australian citizens. This was a disgrace to all Indigenous people. If they were good enough to go to war and fight for Australia and the British Army against Germany, then how could their own country treat them like they just didn't exist.
Today we are very lucky to live in this great country Australia. We are now considered a multicultural society which enables us to enjoy and learn many different cultures through their language, food, clothing and story telling.
Darrundang Ngiinda - Thankyou
Miss Liz Hegedus
IEW Indigenous Educational Worker
School Notes
A Few Reminders
Assembly - A reminder that our school assembly takes place each Monday at 2:15pm. We warmly welcome everyone to come along and celebrate student achievements. Our Year 6 students lead the school in this assembly each week.
Students Traveling Home - Families are asked to please make sure the emergency contacts for their child/ren are up to date. Students are only to be collected by those who are on the emergency contact list. If you need to update this list or add more contacts to this list please contact the School Office as soon as possible.
Uniforms - Cooler days mean jackets and track pants and/or stockings/tights will make an appearance. Please ensure jackets are navy [no hoods] with school emblem. Hats will need to be worn. Leggings are also not desired. Clothing should be clearly labeled with a name so items can be returned if left on the playground. Already our lost clothing bin is full of jackets unlabelled.
Canteen - Thank you to those wonderful people who have volunteered for canteen duty. Canteen is now available Wednesday and Friday.
2023 Enrolments - Enrolments for Kindergarten 2023 are now open. We already have 10 applications from new families wanting to enrol in kindy 2023. We plan to cap enrolments between 16 and 20 students. We will offer a solid transition program a day a week during Term 4. If you already have a child enrolled in another stage an enrolment form must also be completed online for your kindy 2023 child.
Compass - Please ensure that you have access to the Compass app on your phone. All of our communication is streamlined through Compass. Compass offers many additional features and benefits, including a smartphone application (app) and comprises of the following features and functionalities, which make it a one-stop-shop for parents:
- Enter in explanations for absences.
- Update your family contact details.
- Download and view your child's semester reports.
- View news feeds of school announcements, alerts and updates.
- View the school calendar.
- Provide consent for events, and pay for excursions and school fees
- View and pay school fees- To view more detailed information about your account use the "Open in Browser" option from the menu, then go to Account from the Tools Cog. A breakdown of the fees billed will be shown through here.
If you need help with your Compass app, please get in touch.
Staff Development Days (Pupil Free)
Please find below our staff development days for the remainder of the year. These days are pupil free days.
- Monday 18 July (start of Term 3)
- Monday 10 October (start of Term 4)
- Monday 19th December (end of the school year)
- Tuesday 20th December (end of the school year)
As always we appreciate the support of our wonderful families as we engage in learning for the benefit of our students. Please note: the final day of the school year for students is Friday 16 December.
Bell Times
| Morning | 8.50am |
| Lunch | 10.50am-11.40am |
| Recess | 1.40pm - 2.10pm |
| Afternoon | 3.10pm |
School Events & Dates
TERM 2
WEEK 2
Monday, 2 - 6 May - Family /Teacher meetings
Friday, 6 May at 10.00am - Mother's Day Celebration in Mercy Hall
WEEK 3
Monday, 9 - 13 May - Family/ Teacher meetings
Monday, 9 May at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
WEEK 4
Monday, 16 May at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
WEEK 5
Monday, 16 May at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
WEEK 6
Monday, 30 May at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
Wednesday, 1 June - Incitare - Year 6 at MCC
WEEK 7
Monday, 6 June at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
WEEK 8
Monday, 13 June - Public Holiday
Wednesday, 15 June - Athletics Carnival
WEEK 9
Monday, 20 June at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
WEEK 10
Monday, 27 June at 2.15pm - School Assembly in Mercy Hall
Wednesday, 29 June - Confirmation
Merit Awards
Congratulations to the following students who received a Merit Award.
TERM 2 WEEK 2
Kindergarten
Emily Lacey, Reuben Ellem
Stage 2
Charlotte Parry-Jones, Jack Fuller
Stage 3
Izac Skinner, Brendan Rielly
Uniform Shop
The uniform shop is located in the BrewHouse Village.
Opening hours:
Monday - Wednesday 10.00am to 4.30pm
Thursday 10 to 3.30pm
Email: fytexptyltd@bigpond.com Ph: 0434 025 493
Canteen
CANTEEN OPEN WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY
Volunteers are always welcome, please leave your details with our School Office.
