Term3 Week 3 2024

Principal's Message

Dear Parents, Carers, and friends of St Joseph's

As we continue to strive for excellence in our school, one of our core values remains at the forefront: respect. Building a respectful community is not just about adhering to rules; it’s about creating an environment where every individual feels valued, heard, and supported. This month, I’d like to share some insights and initiatives aimed at fostering respect within our school community.

1. Promoting Kindness and Empathy

Respect begins with understanding and valuing each other’s differences. At St Joseph's we are a community where students and staff are encouraged to perform acts of kindness and show respect to each other in everything we do. 

2. Inclusive Practices

Inclusion is a key component of respect. We are committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of their background or abilities, feels included and valued. Our teachers are dedicated to treating each student as an individual providing a diverse educational experience to best accommodate a variety of learning styles and abilities. 

3. Conflict Resolution Skills

Conflicts are a natural part of any community, but how we handle them makes all the difference. Our THRIVE program and newly introduced Rock and Water Program is teaching students how to manage disagreements constructively. These skills will help them navigate challenges not only in school but throughout their lives.

4. Open Communication

Effective communication is the cornerstone of respect. We encourage open dialogues between students, parents, and staff.  Our Parent Community Group is a great way to share your ideas and have a voice in what you'd like to see happen in our school.  Our next meeting is next Monday 5th August @ 5 pm.  We are looking at alternating the days we hold this meeting as many parents are finding Mondays a difficult day to attend, so please note our Week 7 meeting will be held on a Wednesday night September 4 @ 5 pm to see if that day can accommodate more parents.  Please send through any agenda items and know that open communication with the school is always encouraged. 

5. Role of Parents and Guardians

RESPECT

Parents and guardians play a vital role in reinforcing the values of respect at home. We encourage you to engage in conversations with your children about what respect means and how they can practice it in their daily lives. Your support is invaluable in helping us build a cohesive and respectful community.  Reinforcing our RESPECT model at home will help promote a consistent approach to your child's well-being. Ask your child what strategies they are learning each week to help them Thrive.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Part of responsible parenting is understanding the significant impact social media has on your Primary school-aged child. Social media influences their social, emotional, and cognitive development. While it offers opportunities for connection and creativity, it also presents challenges such as exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and the pressure to conform to unrealistic standards. Young children, who are still developing their self-esteem and social skills, may struggle with the constant comparisons and social validation that social media platforms often encourage. Additionally, excessive screen time can affect their academic performance and reduce face-to-face interactions, which are crucial for developing empathy and communication skills. It's essential for parents to guide their child in navigating social media responsibly, fostering a balanced approach that maximises its benefits while minimising potential harms.  Considering no primary school aged child should have a social media account (all being under 13) I would strongly encourage parents and guardians to remove these apps from any devices and allow your child to be exactly that - a child. 

Together, we can create an environment where respect is the norm and everyone feels valued. Let’s work collaboratively to ensure that our school is a place where kindness, inclusivity, and understanding thrive. Thank you for your continued support and dedication to making our school community strong and respectful.

Here are some questions you can ask your child to help engage with them and their learning.  We will send these cards home for you to keep on the fridge.

Farewell Mrs McCarron

It is with great sadness, we say farewell to Mrs Maree McCarron this term after 32 years of teaching. Maree commenced teaching at St Joseph's Primary in 1992 only leaving us once in her career to teach at St James Primary School in 1996, during their beginning years where our senior classes of Years 4 -6 were all sent out to St James. (In those early days St James was given Years 4-6 from our school and we  became K-3). The following year Maree returned to St Joseph's and both schools began to build up their numbers in the missing grades.

Maree, we thank you for your commitment, passion, and dedication to our students and your support and friendship to the staff. We will miss your passion for literacy and art and we thank you for your promotion of the very competitive maths 50 club.

Retirement is a time to explore new interests, to rest and recharge, and to spend more time with family and friends, we hope you enjoy every minute of it! We will miss you greatly and wish you well.

God bless

PUBLIC SPEAKING

PUBLIC SPEAKING

Two representatives from each stage were chosen from our whole school Public Speaking competition to compete against 7 other Tweed Catholic schools last Thursday at South Tweed Sports Club. These were:

Noah Petersen, Teddy Brown, Charli Hynes, Charlotte Dowell, Zara Bolster, Georgia Knapp, Ruby Bocquee, Amira Kelly.

I was so proud of all of these children who presented their speeches with such flair and confidence. They were amazing! Well done all of you.

To show how spectacular they were, we won first place out of 14 students in each Early Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 sections and got a second place in the Stage 1 section.

ES1 - Kinder  1st place -Noah Petersen 

Stage 1 - Years 1 &2 - 2nd place -  Charli Hynes

Stage 2 - Years 3 & 4 - 1st place - Zara Bolster

Stage 3 - Years 5 & 6 - 1st place - Amira Kelly   

Congratulations all of you!

Chris

Assistant Principal Learning & Teaching

DIBELS ASSESSMENT

Over the past three weeks, teachers have been assessing the children's Reading progress using DIBELS assessment. The following informs you about what DIBELS is and what we do with the information.

What are DIBELS?
DIBELS are measures that help teachers and schools determine how students are performing on important
reading skills. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. These measures are designed for students in grades K-6 following extensive research done by the University of Oregon, Centre for Teaching and Learning.
What skills are measured by DIBELS and why are they important?
The critical skills necessary for successful beginning reading include: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,
vocabulary, and comprehension. The DIBELS measures assess students on four of these five critical skills, which
are often referred to as the “Big Ideas” of reading. The table overleaf, describes each Big Idea of reading and lists the corresponding DIBELS measure.
Which tests will be given to my child/children?
Each student will complete the tests depending on his or her grade and the time of year. 
How often are students assessed?
Students in Kindergarten - Year 2 are assessed on DIBELS at the end of the year to monitor their progress following implementation of their Systematic Synthetic Phonics program.
Students in Years 3-6 are benchmarked using the DIBELS testing materials three times each year; early Term 1,
early Term 3 and mid Term 4.
How much time does it take?
Each of the DIBELS tests only takes about one minute to complete. DIBELS tests are “indicators” of the student’s overall reading status, and are not intended to be in-depth or comprehensive measures of reading. Just like using a thermometer to take your child’s temperature, which provides a quick indicator of your child’s general health, these quick DIBELS tests provide teachers with information about your child’s reading health and how well he or she is progressing on a particular early reading skill. Benchmark assessments generally take 2 to 6 minutes to give, depending on the grade of the student and time of year. DIBELS measures allow teachers to get valuable information about students’ reading skills without using large amounts of instructional time.
How will the results be used?
A student’s scores on the DIBELS measure gives the school information about whether or not a student is on track for grade-level reading success. A school can quickly identify students who do not meet the goals on each DIBELS measure and provide support. For example, if your child is reading words accurately, but slowly, the teacher can provide extra practice re-reading texts to improve his or her reading rate or fluency. System staff can also study the test scores across classrooms and grade levels to make decisions about how to best use resources to make sure that every child in the school, including your child, is on track to become an accurate and fluent reader. 

I hope this information about your child's learning is beneficial to you.  It is important to remind parents that the teachers are available before and after school till 3:30 every day if you wish to book an appointment to discuss your child's learning. You certainly do not need to wait to report time to discuss your child's learning. Just email the teacher and book a time that suits both of you.

WHOLE SCHOOL CREATIVE WRITING TASK

During week 1 something very magical and special arrived on our playground. It was a sight to see, a mysterious huge egg in a nest, was spied at the end of the playground.  The children's imaginations were sparked and  discussions of what it could be ran hot. As a whole school writing task, this was a fabulous stimulus and one that featured varied narrative tales of magical lands, distant planets, dragons, dinosaurs and even giant curlews! From here the teachers moderate the children's writing from K- 6 according to the Creating text learning progressions and then analyse what they need to plan in their lessons to move each cluster forward so each child can organise their writing goals so they can improve. The stories were quite remarkable and I have added just a few examples of the stories this magical egg prompted. Please note these are unedited and produced in a 35 minute timeframe.

Cheers,

Chris Mulherin

Free Webinar for Parents and Carers - Children's Mental Health

The Council of Catholic School Parents is hosting a FREE parenting webinar with parenting speaker and author, Justin Coulson. This webinar will unpack:

• The root causes behind the deteriorating state of mental health, and who (or what) is responsible.
• The tools you need to reverse this trend for your children.
• Realistic approaches for managing screen time in a way that protects your child's wellbeing.
• Creating margin in your home and family life to protect and promote mental wellness.

Cheers

Chris

Assistant Principal Mission

Dear St Joseph's Community,

We have had so much to celebrate in the previous weeks.  Last term we had 17 students celebrate the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion for the first time.  This week, our Year 3 students as well as some older students, commenced their Sacramental journey towards Confirmation.  Bishop Greg will be in town on Thursday 5th September for this.  If any families from Year 3 upwards missed our parent evening this week but would still like to be involved in the program, please get in touch with me at school as soon as possible.

First Holy Communion

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We have a range of special liturgies that we are looking forward to celebrating with our community coming up.  Firstly, thank you to Miss Rylee and Mrs Wilkinson who prepared a beautiful NAIDOC Week Liturgy and for Mr Shannon Kitchener who generously gave of his time to allow us to experience a smoking ceremony and special learnings around culture. 

Next Thursday 15th August, our school will lead the Parish Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption.  This will be held in the church at 9:10am if you are able to join us.  

We will then have our Grandparents' Day liturgy on Friday 23rd.  Open classes will be running from 9:00am and our Liturgy will be under the COLA at 10:00am.  Our Bookweek Parade will follow the liturgy.

Our Fathers' Day Liturgy will be the following Friday, 30th Auguust.  All members of our community are invited to a BBQ Breakfast from 7:30am with our liturgy to commence at 9:00am.

Next Saturday 17th, members of our community are encouraged to join in a Youth Mass, led by our friends at St Joseph's College, at 5:00pm.  Our candidates for Confirmation will be presented to the Parish at this Mass which is always a special occasion.  A Primary Youth Group will be held at 4:00pm in the Parish Hall beforehand so please consider joining in.

Finally, each of our classes will continue to join the Parish for Weekday Mass once a term.  Our Year 2s and 4s joined Fr Nicolas last week.  Our Year 1s and 3s will be at Mass this Thursday, 8th,  for the Feast of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop.  Kindergarten and Year 6 will go to Mass on Thursday 5th September and Year 5 will go the following day.  All of these masses commence at 9:10am.

We look forward to celebrating with as many members of our community as possible on these special days.

Cheers,

Ryan O'Connor

Leader of Pedagogy

Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 5 students- another successful NAPLAN year!

The NAPLAN Individual Student Reports (ISRs) have been distributed to parents of Years 3 and 5, and once again, we are pleased to announce the outstanding achievements of our students. Our teachers have carefully analysed the data to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth. Overall, the results have been excellent, with nearly all students in Years 3 and 5 achieving the top two proficiency levels, "Strong" and "Exceeding." This accomplishment is a testament to the teachers' dedication to excellence, the students' hard work, and the support of their families. Please see the graphs below for details.

Victoria Atkinson (Leader of Pedagogy) 

Late Arrivals/Leaving Early

This is a friendly reminder to please walk your child into school or provide a written explanation or a phone call if your child is late to school. If we do not receive an explanation this way, we are legally bound to record an unexplained absence. Unexplained absences are monitored by the Catholic Schools Office for further action.

Our first school bell sounds at 8.40 am for the children to line up and go to class and the second bell at 8.45 am means our students have started their school day.

Safe on Social evening @ St Anthony's

Chess Afternoons at Tweed Regional Library

Tweed Regional Library is now holding a free chess club on a Tuesday afternoon from 3 - 4.45 pm. This is a great opportunity for our students to improve their skills and make new friends.

Kingscliff Triathlon