News from the Principal
Welcome to our first newsletter of the year. The purpose of this newsletter is to keep you informed of the direction of the school, highlight past and future events that are happening in our school community and to share photos with you in a safe space.
Our Purpose
Research tells us, organisations that act with a sense of purpose, have a clear vision and direction, usually outperform other organisations and are more successful in what they do. Therefore, it is important that as a school we have a clear vision of what our school aims to achieve now and in the future. Our Purpose is a relatively new document for our school that I will again share with you and ask that you become familiar with it. Everyone in our school needs to know the purpose behind why we make the decisions that we make at ‘St Joeys’. Please have a read.
Last week we had our Welcome Night and had a record number of parents attend. We hope this is an indication that you are curious and confident to step into our world of education. You are very welcome in our school, and we enjoyed the conversations about educating your children.
So far this term we have had our Opening School Mass where we joined with Fr Dariusz in the church to induct our new Year 6 School Leaders and give blessings for our year ahead. Fr Dariusz joins us once a month and we always welcome his visits. In Term 1, he will fly to Weipa and can only stay usually over the weekend as he needs to get back to his other Parishes in Cairns. Term 2,3 and 4 he will drive up and we will be able to see more of him then.
The School Board met at the end of Week 3. I value this forum as an opportunity to discuss the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the school and to utilise their knowledge and wisdom to make future decisions for the benefit of our school. We are growing fast and are now at 160 students with waitlists in a few year levels. Maximum capacity would be around 190 students, so we do still have spaces available mainly in the upper year levels. Prep enrolments for 2026 are promising and we will have a full class in 2026. This then presents us with many dilemmas for space. We don’t have any extra rooms to use as a classroom. Future directions and funding of any new buildings are part of our discussions but it’s not a simple solution as finances are already stretched with the costs of existing loans and maintaining a school in the Weipa climate. I thank the board members for their constant insights and thoughts to help us navigate the future.
Our Parents and Friends met on Thursday night. They are a group of hardworking parents who assist us to keep the school functioning by organising functions such as BBQ’s, Sports Day Canteen, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day just as a few examples. They need more people to come along and help over the year. Please try and find the time to be part of this wonderful group.
Early in the Term, we ran our Volunteer Induction for parents wanting to assist at any of our school events or helping in the classroom. Thank you to those who attended. We will run another in Term 2 for those who missed it. If you are interested, can you please email secretary.weipa@cns.catholic.edu.au to register your interest. I will advertise another opportunity to participate in the Training in Term 2 for those who were unable to attend. Many hands make light work! We thank our talented ladies who helped label our sports equipment ready for use.
Student Protection Contacts
We are fortunate to have 4 trained Student Protection Contacts at our school. All our Leadership Team completed the Training last year and will continue as our school contacts for 2025.
Attendance
School is important! There are high expectations on what needs to be taught and assessed in schools, and we need to meet these requirements. Our teachers do not have spare time to catch up students who have been away, especially for long periods of time. This is a reminder to please schedule your holidays during school holidays this year. I know this can be difficult with shifts etc, but it is your child who is missing out and will become anxious and fall behind if they feel as though they don’t know what’s going on. We have great teachers who do their best to help, but when there are multiple students away at varying times it becomes a difficult job. Please be understanding that you are helping them do their job by sending your child to school every day.
Lost Items
The number of lost items is beginning to increase again, especially hats. We can return them if they have a name clearly labelled on them. With the increase in headlice we will not be handing out spare hats if your child has forgotten or lost their hat.
10-year Anniversary
Next year we turn double figures! This is a date saver to please keep Friday 1st May 2026 in your diaries as a day we celebrate 10 years operating as a school in Weipa. I have many ideas and will share them later.
One of the ideas I am working on is to produce a traditional painting to commemorate the event. I am asking if you have the name of an artist in our Weipa area who can work with our students to create this piece of art work could you please email secretary.weipa@cns.catholic.edu.au so we can reach out and see how we can work together to achieve this for our school.
That’s it for now!
Have a great weekend.