"Sometimes we only experience a virtual form of communication with one another. Instead, we should discover a new closeness. More concrete relationships made of attention and patience...We must rediscover the concreteness of little things, small gestures of attention we can offer those close to us, our family, our friends. We must understand that in small things lies our treasure," Spoken by Pope Francis in an interview:    Pandemic can be time to rediscover love, kindness

This Week Let us include in our prayers…..

• Tawonga who we meet in Week 5 of Project Compassion, a 10-year-old girl, living with a disability. In northern Malawi. In the story this week we hear of the challenges of food shortages and discriminaton as a result of disability. These challenges will be compounded by Covid-19, so we pray particularly for those in developing worlds who are dealing with cramped living conditons and limited health care. .
• All ‘front-line’ workers who are supporting those who are critically ill, those who are isolated and alone, those who help bring food and daily supplies to the shops to feed us all.

Lenten events

This Sunday coming is Palm Sunday.  Palm Sunday is the final Sunday of Lent, the beginning of Holy Week, and commemorates the triumph arrival of Christ in Jerusalem, days before he was crucified.  Palm Sunday is known as such because the faithful will often receive palm fronds which they use to participate in the reenactment of Christ’s arrival in Jerusalem. Palm branches are widely recognised as symbol of peace and victory, hence their preferred use on Palm Sunday. The use of the donkey is symbolic of a humble entry.

#Pray for the World

Pope Francis’ special video to pray for an end to the pandemic #PrayForTheWorld

• In a special edition of “The Pope Video“, the Holy Father asks us to pray for the sick and the suffering, while thanking all those who, united and regardless of their religious tradition or convictions, pray for those affected

Masses and Church Bases activities

Per the latest advisory from the PM, all our Churches across the Diocese have been shut as part of being responsible members of the community. This means all Church-based actvites have been cancelled (including Mass, Stations of the Cross, Holy Hour) until further advice. 

• Liturgy of the Hours and Masses, live and recorded -- Diocese of Cairns

This is a great resource where you can join Bishop James as he prayer the Office of the Hours and celebrates Daily Mass in the Chapel (5:30pm) at the Bishops Hours in Cairns. Bishop James Foley is also live-streaming the Eucharist for adoration 24/7. You can access these live streams through Cairns Diocese Webpage.  At the top left is a link to the life streams and the Bishop’s Sunday mass starts at 10am, or you can view the other masses by Subscribing to their youtube page.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

• In Malawi, 18% of the population are undernourished.

Tawonga is a 10-year-old girl, living with a disability. She lives in a village in northern Malawi in a region plagued by food insecurity and poverty. For most of her life, her parents have struggled to provide for the family.

Since participating in a Caritas Australia Supported program, Tawonga’s life has transformed. Her family now grows enough food to provide three meals a dal, ending the struggle of malnutrition, and helping her thrive at school.

With your help, this transformation program can continue to empower vulnerable women, men and children, and strengthen the communities around them.

Let’s Go Further, Together! Lent.caritas.org.au

Curriculum News

Continuity of Learning

End of Term 1

We have created a site called Continuity of Learning at St Joseph’s, that provides some learning activities in English and Maths for you to complete at home. These lessons have been provided by Education Queensland, we have included the digital learning resources and recorded these in videos which are easier for viewing.

Term 2

Our amazing staff have been hard at work preparing more lessons which will commence in Term 2. The delivery of curriculum will be through a combination of on-screen and off-screen learning tasks in all learning areas. Teachers will use the current digital platforms (SeeSaw or Google Classroom) and other Google Suite products (Google Meet) to directly interact with students.

We have established Live Lessons via Google Meets. The link to this meet is available on your child's Seesaw Account (Prep to Year 3) or Google Classroom (Year 4 to Year 6). We have established some norms for students when engaging in online lessons. These include having your microphone muted and your camera on when joining, raise your hand when asking a question and the teacher will call on you to respond, and also to ensure you are appropriately dressed for the lesson.

Teachers will be in daily communication via Seesaw/Google Classroom and may be available for some individual support if required. It is important for parents to understand that staff will also be in the situation where they have families of their own to attend to and it would be unreasonable to expect them to be available 24/7. Regular school hours of 8.30am to 3.00pm will be the only times where staff may be available. Your support for our staff is greatly appreciated.

Hard Packs of resources will be available for collection or delivery by midweek. We are in the final stages of preparations now. Thankyou for your ongoing patience.

Preparing for Home Learning

To assist your child whilst learning from home there are a few things you can do to support their learning.

• Establish a daily routine (wake up at the same time, set time for learning,)
• Identify a comfortable work space
• Check communication regularly
• Take breaks, encourage fun and play
• Not all learning is academic and we would encourage you to do other things as well such as cooking, gardening, etc

Copyright

Due to copyright policy all material and resources provided to students from St Joseph's are only to be used by those students. Please do not

• store or post files or links to these files in publicly available or non-secure electronic environments
• share, sell or hire out the electronic files or copies of the electronic files with a third party individual or school
• or alter, edit or reformat any of the files
• provide passwords to any other individual

Communication

All communication from the class teachers to parents will be delivered and received via email. Please use emails to ask any questions or send messages to class teachers. Any official whole school communication will be via email through the principal. The staff at St Joseph's Weipa thank you for your continued support during this turbulent time, with the ever- changing situation and uncharted territory.

May St Joseph smile on you,

Meg Newell