2022 Newsletter Term 4 Week 6

Dear St Joseph’s Families,

Welcome to the second half of Term 4.  With only 2 weeks of the 2022 school year remaining, all classrooms are striving to complete term content and looking at final assessments. It is important to have children attend school each and every day at this time. Obviously if they are sick and with the latest bout of vomiting and flu, please keep them home so as not to spread it throughout our community.

This term historically moves very quickly, and this year has been no different. In weeks 2, 3 and 4 this term, we held our Prep Transition Days. It was wonderful to see our future Preps interacting with our students, getting a taste of what school will be like at St Joseph’s. In conjunction with the Prep transition days, the leadership team facilitated parent information sessions to outline all the key things that our future Prep parents need to know in preparing their child for school next year. I’d like to thank our parents for their attendance at these sessions and I hope that you have found them valuable. Our Prep teachers have been busy putting together a special ‘Welcome to St Joseph’s’ parcel for our Preps which has been mailed out to families early this week.

We have been busy working on our staffing and class structures for 2023 and I’m happy to announce that the 2023 staffing process has now been finalised. As a result of ongoing enrolment growth into the school, we have been fortunate to retain our two Year 2 classes and add a second Prep class. Due to this growth, we have recruited an additional staff to join our amazing team.

As announced earlier this week, we will be retaining all our current staff for 2023, with the exception of Amanda O’Brien who will be taking maternity leave from term 2. We are currently in the process of recruiting to fill Amanda’s position during the time she is one leave.

I am delighted to announce the amazing new staff we have joining our team for 2023! We have managed to recruit some excellent applicants and I am greatly looking forward to working with the new staff as they integrate into our community.

We warmly welcome:

• Rory Harrington (Senior Hub Teacher
• Kathy Mitton (School Officer)
• Lucy Mills (School Officer)

Class allocations for 2023:
• Prep A -Stephanie Neil
• Prep B - Kate Backhouse
• Year 1 - Amanda O’Brien (Term 1, if position not filled by end of 2022)
• Year 2A - Tash Tapper
• Year 2B - Tiffany Barber
• Year 3 - Emily Ridgley
• Year 4 - Stacey Edmonds
• Senior Hub - Rory Harrington and Kristen McLeish
• Non-Contact and Internal Relief Teacher - Libby Lange
• Middle Leader of Diversity and Intervention Support - Melanie Turner
• APRE and Acting Middle Leader of Learning and Teaching- Michelle Gear
• Principal - Megan Pearce

School Officers:

• Kellie Davies
• Rachael Steele
• Kim Wallace
• Lucy Mills
• Kathy Mitton

On Monday 14th November, all students will participate in our annual ‘Bump Up’ morning and have the opportunity to spend a session with their 2023 teacher. In preparation for the day, we have finalised class allocations for Prep/Year 2 and notified parents via email.

We are truly blessed at St Joseph’s to have such a dedicated, hardworking and collaborative teaching team. On behalf of our community, I wish to commend our teachers and school officers on their commitment to continued professional learning, their support of our children’s families and their support of all the members of our team to get the very best learning progress for each and every child.

Please be aware of our school rules about length of hair, keeping it up, tidy and out of eyes. Our boys ‘mullets’ seem to be setting a ‘fashion’ but are not always kept tidy. Thanks to those who have been to the hairdressers for a trim. With regard to school shoes, a reminder that shoes should be black in colour except for Friday sports shoes. We have some new students who will get black shoes for 2023 and have been given permission to wear other shoes till then. Your assistance in such matters is always appreciated. Please continue to keep up standards - with such a short term we will be working right up until the last days.

Thanks for reading.

God Bless,
Megan