Term 1 Week 4 2023

PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE

Dear Parents 

As many of you are aware our longstanding Outside School Hours Care provider, Creative Care will cease providing their service at St Joseph’s in early March. We are thankful to Violet and her team for their care and service to our children.

Where to from here:

We have entered into discussion with Tabatinga Outside of School Hours Care with the intent that they will continue the service at St Joseph’s.

Tabatinga are familiar to some families already via their existing service at Seagulls Leagues Club. They are well known for the activities they offer and committment to providing quality Outside School Hours Care program and supervision on-site here at St Joseph’s.

More information about Tabatinga can be found via their website tabatinga.com.au

Does this mean that the service will definitely continue?

We are hopeful that this will be the case, however, we will need the approval of the Department of Education in order for the service to transfer to Tabatinga. We are working with Tabatinga and the Department to enact the transfer. As soon as this is achieved we will let you know. Until it is approved we cannot say with certainty that the service will continue without interruption.    

I would like to thank you for your patience and understanding throughout the uncertainty.  Hopefully, we will be able to confirm by the end of the week. 

Uniform Requirements

At assembly this week I went over some of the uniform requirements that need to be followed. These can also be found on the St Joseph's website and are not new this year.  It would be greatly appreciated if you could support our staff in ensuring your child is adhering to the following

• Boys must have their hair short.
• Girls must have their hair tied back if it is long enough to put back.
• No highlights or streaks in hair - natural hair only
• Only one earring in each ear can be worn. Stud or sleepers only.
• No Makeup.
• No nail polish or false nails
• School Socks only and plain black shoes without coloured markings (including sports shoes).
  

Thank you to all those who come to our Wednesday Assemblies.  Please feel free to join us to celebrate the achievements of our students as they receive their class awards. These are held at 8.40 am every Wednesday. 

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL - Learning & Teaching

PARENT AND TEACHER MEETINGS

What an excellent turn up of parents we had to meet with their child's new teacher over the past few weeks. Thank you for making time to continue to build a partnership between school and home.  Communication and trust between home and school are essential in your child's learning journey to reach their full potential. We know you were given valuable information about how you can help your child this year. Thank you for your continued support. Remember you can contact your child's teacher for further consultation before school (8:15 - 8:45) or after school(3:00 -3:30).

CLEANING UP OUR ENVIRONMENT

We are doing a big clean-up around the school and removing disused materials and furniture. We have ample extra school desks, and we would like to offer these to families first before we take them to the dump. Please come in after school if you want to take some of these desks. 

If you know of any local gardeners please let us know, as we need to organise a couple of days to tidy up our gardens.

SOUNDS-WRITE
Over the next four weeks, teachers in K-2 are undergoing 35 hours of rigorous training in the Sounds-Write reading program. Some of this training will be done in school time but the majority of planning to implement this program will be done in the teacher's own time. This is a major commitment of the school and its teachers to implement best teaching practices to enhance student outcomes.

This program is a synthetic linguistic phonics program which is what the new English syllabus is based on. From Kindergarten to Year 6, students learn the concepts necessary for proficient reading and writing. They master the 175 most common spellings of the 44 sounds in English through reading and writing polysyllabic words, as well as following our two codes:

• the Initial Code (Kinder)
• the Extended Code (Year 1 onwards).

Sounds- Write is based on the latest research into cognitive load theory and the principles of direct instruction, the programme has been specially designed to accelerate learning—no matter the student’s level.

What’s more, Sounds-Write also enhances teachers’ knowledge of phonics, giving them the guidance, knowledge, and resources to teach children how to read and write to the best of their abilities. The programme has been acknowledged by the CSO and the NSW Dept Education as having met all their criteria for exceptional linguistic phonics teaching.

Our teachers are very excited to participate in this learning.

Cheers

Chris

(Assistant Principal)

NO DOGS ON THE PLAYGROUND

Dear Parents,

Under Section 14 of the Companion Animals Act (1998) and in accordance with NSW Department of Education Rules, this is a reminder that NO dogs are allowed on school grounds.

Thank you for your understanding.

PUPIL FREE DAY TERM 2

Please note that Term 2, Monday the 24th April will be a PUPIL FREE DAY. Children will return to school on Wednesday 26th of April.

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL - Mission

Yesterday, our school gathered with parishioners to celebrate Mass to mark Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  Father Michael spoke to us about the importance of prayer, fasting and almsgiving as our way of showing our love for God and drawing ever closer to Him.  He spoke about habits and how we can use this time to really determine what is important.  If we give up chocolate or ice-cream, we might get to the end of Lent and realise it wasn’t as hard as we thought it would be; we can also use the few dollars we would have spent on chocolates to put into our Project Compassion Box.  Likewise our prayer; by committing ourselves to saying Grace before family meals or starting our morning with a gratitude prayer, we might get to Easter and reflect on the benefits of praying together or the improvement in our wellbeing when we regularly focus on the gifts we have been given.  I encourage you to spend time with your family discussing what positive habits you can begin this Lent to draw closer to God together.

I have been very heartened by the spirit and generosity of our students already as we raise money for poor communities throughout the world via Project Compassion.  Our pancakes were incredibly popular with our staff and Mini Vinnies members all chipping in to give everyone a treat for a good cause.  You may have heard your child talking about chickens.  One of the programs Caritas Australia runs is supplying chickens to communities in Zimbabwe as a means of sustainable food and income.  Each chicken there costs $7 so instead of talking about raising money - we’re setting our targets to buy as many chickens as possible.  Some of our students got a bit excited thinking we were getting chickens here, but we are definitely sticking to the charity.  Our guinea pigs, birds and resident curlews are enough for now.

It was lovely to meet so many people at the recent parent information evenings and I look forward to continuing to build these connections with you soon.

God bless,

Ryan O’Connor

Shrove Tuesday

THE MOTLEY CREW BAND

A big shout out to our new St Joseph's "Motley Crew Band" for sharing their talents at our whole school mass for Ash Wednesday. We love your work.

PRIVATE MUSIC LESSONS

Private Music Lessons

Dear Parents/Guardians,

If anyone is interested in group lessons for guitar or voice, please email Mr. Friel at daniel.friel@lism.catholic.edu.au for more information.

LEARNING & TEACHING - Leader of Pedagogy

Last Friday, the teachers from St Joseph's participated in a professional development day run by the school's Learning Collaborative team. The Learning Collaborative is a CSO initiative guided by the 14 Parameters of educational expert Dr. Lyn Sharratt. Sharratt's work focuses on the progression of every child's learning and building every teacher's capacity. 

The core task for the day was unpacking the various levels of Sharratt's Assessment Waterfall Framework, focusing on clear Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, and Descriptive Feedback. The Assessment Waterfall Framework supports developing students capable of driving their own learning (we call this assessment-capable). 

SPORT NEWS

Zone Swimming Carnival

Children from grades 2-6 attended the Tweed Zone Swimming Carnival in Murwillumbah last week. It was great to see so many of our students participating and showing not only great skills in the pool but also exceptional sportsmanship when cheering from the stands.

Congratulations to Jack Harry, Willow Millar, Harper Pollard, and Edward Ingham who were selected in the Lismore Diocesan Team for individual events. A special mention to Willow Millar who was the runner-up junior girl age champion.

Our Junior girl relay team, consisting of Lilah Fraser, Charlotte Kirk, Neve McGee, and Willow Millar placed second and will now also represent the Tweed Zone at the Diocesan Carnival in Kempsey on the 3rd of March. We wish them all the best.

Cricket

Aiden Curtis in Year 6 attended the Polding Cricket Trials in Lismore recently. Aiden competed against students from other Catholic Schools from across NSW. Aiden performed well under very hot conditions and should be very proud of his effort. Congratulations on reaching such a high level of achievement Aiden.

SEASONS FOR GROWTH PROGRAM

SCHOOL FORUM MINUTES

A link to the School Forum minutes can now be found on our school website under the drop down menu Parents & families and then School Forum.

KINDERGARTEN 2024 ENROLMENTS

In order to streamline the enrolment process across the Lismore Diocese, the enrolment process for 2024 Kindergarten students is changing.

Student enrolment forms will need to be completed via the school website by April 6th, 2023.

Parents will be contacted when an online enrolment form has been received in order to book an interview. Interviews with our School Principal will then commence early in Term 2.

Acceptance letters for Kindergarten 2024 placements will then be issued by the 30th of July 2023.

Parents of siblings at St Joseph's Primary School wishing to enrol them for Kindergarten 2024, are urged to complete an online enrolment form as soon as possible.

Please direct any enquiries to Sue & Toni in the office (0755362519)

KINDERGARTEN 2024 SCHOOL OPEN MORNING

EASTER RAFFLES

Dear Parents

We will be holding our Easter Bonnet Parade & Giant Easter Raffle on Thursday the 6th of April 2023 (last day of term 1, detailed timeline to follow).  We are asking for donations for the Easter Raffle Baskets. Chocolates, eggs, bunnies, wine, vouchers, and anything else anyone would like to donate would be greatly appreciated! Last year we had over 50 baskets for prizes. These items can be left at the school office, to be wrapped. Raffle tickets will be sent home closer to the date.

We appreciate your generosity.

SCHOOL FEE UPDATE

Dear Parents,

We have sought some clarity regarding school fees and would like to share the following;

Your unique BPay and reference numbers will be on your next statement due to be forwarded to you in March.

Term 1 School fees consist of;

IT Levy for years Kinder to Yr 3 -$200 (only charged once in term 1)

Resource Levy for all grades -$300 (only charged once in term 1)

Term 1 Tuition Fees - $442.50 (charged per term)

Sibling discounts will still apply, however, there is no longer a discount for full yearly payment.

When you receive your unique BPay and reference details you can set up a payment plan via BPay.

BPAY IS THE PREFERRED METHOD OF PAYMENT. COMPASS PAY INCURS A FEE.

Instructions for paying school fees via Compass are attached. One set is for paying using a computer and the other is for paying via the Compass App.

We hope this helps. Please contact us in the office by phone 07 55362519 if you would like any further help.

Kind regards

Sue & Toni

BOOK CLUB

Dear Parents,

Scholastic Book Club is kindly run by a parent volunteer. All orders are to be placed via LOOP on the Scholastic website. No money is to be sent to school. If you encounter any problems with the set up of your account then please contact Scholastic directly using the contact information below;

Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd | 76 - 80 Railway Crescent, Lisarow, NSW, 2250
1800 021 233 | 02 4304 0202 | customer_service@scholastic.com.au

CENSUS DATA COLLECTION

CRICKET NSW FREE GIRL'S PROGRAM