2022 Newsletter Term 2 Week 5

Dear Parents, 

It is nice to get back to a "normal" week and routine. The children, I feel, appreciate the "safety net" of a week of regularity and the teachers can implement knowledge content in a way that ensures impact. Teaching is hard at the best of times, so to have the time to do our job is an important aspect in success for students.

NAPLAN has been held over the last two week. The Year 3 and 5 children have come with a positive attitude and the environment has been calm and organised. I thank Amanda O’Brien and the teachers of Year 3 and 5 for preparing the children well and getting them ready for these mandatory tests. It makes a huge difference when the experience is treated just like any other day without undue stress and anxiety being created.

Notably, NAPLAN is only one aspect of how St Joseph’s measures our students’ literacy and numeracy skills. It does not serve to replace ongoing assessments made by teachers about each student’s performance, but it does complement internal assessment items in identifying opportunities for growth for each individual student.

It is worth noting that our Year 5 students have never participated in NAPLAN due to the cancellation of NAPLAN in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this will be the fourth year that St Joseph’s has participated in online testing as we successfully facilitated online testing for NAPLAN in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. 

A key benefit of NAPLAN Online is ‘tailored testing’ which gives students questions that are suited to their ability, enabling more precise results. Our experience over the last five years also suggests that it improves the engagement of our students. 

Next week I will gather with all CES Principals at the Leadership Forum in Cairns. Various topics will be discussed including: Cairns Catholic Schools Strategic Plan; The Principal as Strategic Leader; Parent engagement models, hybrid learning, critical incident training to name a few. These days are always jammed packed and a great opportunity to discuss our continued support of each other's strategic directions for our schools. 

Wishing you all a great week ahead.

God Bless,

URGENT!

Calling all Parents and Friends of St Joseph’s to join our Parents & Friends Association

AGM on Tuesday 31st May @ 7pm in Library

The P&F is an integral part of our school community, but it might surprise you to learn that we are not a fundraising group, as all families pay a P&F levy as part of their school fees. Our primary focus is to foster family engagement in school life and contribute in a number of ways.

We urgently need to get an executive committee formed so that we can begin allocating these funds towards some school projects and resources that help us achieve our goal of encouraging better family engagement in learning and wellbeing.  

All parents are invited to attend. This forum is where ideas can be shared, make decisions as to how the P&F levy money will be spent, find out what is happening in our school community and ways in which you may be able to contribute.

Stay and Play

This week we are beginning Stay and Play for our families with younger children. This will be from after assembly till 10:30 in the multipurpose room. Amanda will share further details during the week.

School Board

Last Monday we held an information session for parents about what a school board is etc and have had a number of nominations. We will hold another meeting later in the term to establish our first school board. If you are wanting to nominate please contact the office for a nomination form.

"Smart" Watches or similar devices 

We have noticed lately that many children coming to school with "smart" watches or similar devices. We prefer these to be left at home please. The reasons behind this decision are many, but the main concerns for me lie with the ability these devices represent. Messaging can occur, which contravenes our acceptable use policy for devices. This can include messages to home when we don't have any idea of what is going on. Some devices have cameras which invades privacy and media consents. Finally, some have the capacity to video content which once again erodes privacy and media consents. Starting next week, all "smart" watches should stay at home. If any student is found with ones of these devices, they will be taken to the office to be collected at 3pm. I thank you for your support and understanding on this matter.

Lost property 

Please check the lost property box. There are a number of jackets with no names in our lost property bins. Please check if you are missing any. 

Tuckshop Position 

We are seeking to appoint a successful applicant to the Tuckshop position. The role is 30 hours per week, term time over five days. As it is a paid role, Blue Card and proof of double COVID-19 vaccination is required. If you would like to find out more about the role and express your interest, please contact me at principal.weipa@cns.catholic.edu.au

CROSSING SUPERVISOR We urgently need someone to take on this important role to safe guard our children. Please contact the office if you can help.

Look out! Look out, there are children about!

KISS’n GO ZONE A reminder to all of our community, that this zone is set up to maximise traffic flow and safety for students, parents, visitors and staff who use the area. 

When driving through a school zone or dropping-off or picking-up your children:

• reduce your speed to or below the signed speed limit,
• take care, slow down and look out for unpredictable pedestrians and children and
• importantly obey instructions from the supervisors operating the school crossings.

Queensland Ballet is Coming to Weipa 

We are excited to announce that Queensland Ballet is returning to Weipa and offering workshops for the St Joseph's students. Student will be participating in the following workshops on Monday 6th June

12:30-1:15pm- Prep-Year 2 Peter and The Wolf Workshop @ the WASP

2:10-2:55pm- Year 3-6 The Nutcracker Repertoire @ the WASP

More information to come next week along with parent permission slips.