Dear St Joseph’s friends and families,

We have been blest over the last couple of weeks with many beautiful sunny days were the children can be out enjoying the sunshine and playing after being in isolation. How lovely it is to have everyone back together! Students are very quickly settling into the rhythm and routine of life back at school. Classes have been busy consolidating the learning covered during ‘Learning from Home’ and the enthusiasm across the school has been great to see.

At St Joseph’s we want every student to feel like he or she belongs. In our morning announcements and school assembly, we remind students to be welcoming, to act and speak in safe, respectful, and responsible ways. We’ve also begun teaching the Second Step program, which includes lessons that support these behaviours. Support your child at home in welcoming others, acting and speaking in safe, respectful, and responsible ways. Please tell your child’s teacher if you have questions about specific ways you can help your child with these behaviours at home.

Loneliness can make people feel empty, alone, and unwanted. Whilst people who are lonely often crave human contact, sometimes their state of mind makes it hard to form connections with other people. (https://www.verywellmind.com)

The playground at St Joseph’s is a bustling place. There are children running around, sitting together, playing games together. You can always hear laughter, chatting, and squeals. The sound that you don’t hear is the sound of a lonely child. Sometimes this can be the case because they find it hard to go up and ask others if they can play. This can often be due to self-confidence, fear of rejection or even as simple as a skill that they have not acquired.

People are happiest when they have meaningful relationships. For many of us, our relationships with our friends are vital to our wellbeing. After the time we have recently spent, we are all acutely aware of the need to maintain our relationships and the importance of friends in our lives.

This week, I was aware of a child who desperately wanted to play with others. Together we worked on skills to enable this little one to ask if they can join the game. From the outside, it all appears so simple really, yet so desperately hard from a child’s perspective. Seeing that things were going well, I left the situation. 

When I checked in with the same student the next day, she told me that she moved closer to the children that she played with on Tuesday but couldn’t bring herself to join the actual game. What was exciting was that she asked if I could help her tomorrow as she really liked playing with these children. Asking for help is hard, yet necessary. This is something that we need to teach our children now as it gets harder as we get older.

With social media emphasising how great everyone else’s life is, it may well be ‘fake’ posts that make it appear that someone’s life is everything that you’ve ever dreamed. Take the time to check in on each other and teach your children to be inclusive and look out for others. You will not just be helping someone else, you will be helping yourself. It’s a great feeling when you know that you’ve made someone feel worthwhile.

God Bless,

Megan 

National Reconciliation Week

Throughout the week we celebrated National Reconciliation Week? National Reconciliation Week (NRW) is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. The dates for NRW remain the same each year; 27 May to 3 June. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey — the successful 1967 referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision respectively. Reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all Australians as we move forward, creating a nation strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider Australian community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and importantly as a nation. At the heart of this journey are relationships between the broader Australian community and First Nations peoples. We strive towards a more just, equitable nation by championing unity and mutual respect as we come together and connect with one another. On this journey, Australians are all In This Together; every one of us has a role to play when it comes to reconciliation, and in playing our part we collectively build relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and cultures. This year we planned to have a whole school exhibition about Aboriginal Peoples and Reconciliation however due to COVID19 this was not be able to take place however all classes have been doing activities in the classroom to ensure our children have an awareness and understanding of our shared history.

Positive Behaviour For Learning -Competitive Games

Since all students have returned to school we have been mindful that after spending so much time in isolation that students are in need of additional support with friendship and social skills as they transitioning back into play, especially when put in competitive situations without an adult referee. For this reason, we have added additional play equipment, have more staff on duty during break times and set up skill and drill games for the rest of this term.

Lunch time interest Clubs will also gradually start over the next few week and into next term. Teachers running these clubs will put up posters and let students know when they are starting. We are very excited to have some new play equipment arrive.

Soccer Skill Challenge

Can you do this? https://youtu.be/FDp6MHF9NZ8 

Watch this video to learn how to juggle https://youtu.be/l8BOHYsCxAQ

To show us how well you can juggle send video to  secretary.weipa@cns.catholic.edu.au

Assembly

With Whole School Assembly's still off the table, we held our first attempt at a Virtual Assembly last Friday. Although we had some challenges, it was a great way to be able to recognise our students who were celebrating birthdays and to acknowledge the great work of our 'students of the week'. The video link has been emailed to all families. We will add more items to Assembly this Friday.

Staffing

We are pleased to welcome Ryan Rutherford to St Joseph’s as our part time grounds person. We are looking forward to having the grounds ship shape in no time.

Aimee Robinson will be taking 12 months maternity leave from the end of this term. After receiving many quality applications for this short-term contract position, Susan Lesic has been the successful candidate. Susan’s prior experience in school administration, and knowledge of the school community will make for a smooth transition in Aimee’s absence.

Due to complications with her pregnancy, Amanda Rowe has had to fly out earlier than expected. We keep Amanda and her family in our prayers and look forward to hearing her happy news in a few months. 

COVID-19 Protocols

We can all help to restrict the spread of COVID-19 by adhering to these protocols.

Thank you to the parents and carers who are not entering our school to help limit the amount of adult-to-adult contact in and around our school.

You are helping us by:

• minimising the need to enter the school
• not gathering inside or outside the school
• working with school staff and new protocols on ways of working in and around the school

Part of these school guidelines remain the inability to hold one-on-one meetings with classroom teachers. If you need to communicate with your child’s teacher, please contact them via email or leave a message at the office and they will return your call asap. We are hopeful that we will be able to hold face to face Parent/Teacher interviews early in Term 3.

Thank you so very much for your support with the school guidelines regarding parents on school grounds. These guidelines will remain in place for at least the remainder of the school term.

Signing In

For the safety and wellbeing of all students, a friendly reminder that it is mandatory for all students who arrive late to school, to come to the office upon arrival. Similarly, students who need to be collected from school earlier than 3:00 p.m., are required to be signed-out by their parent or carer. Your co-operation with this process will be greatly appreciated. 

Report Cards

All students at St Joseph’s will receive their Semester One report card on Friday 17^th July and will be followed by Parent teacher interviews in Week 3. These reports are designed to inform you how your child is performing based on the Australian Curriculum Standards which define what students should know and are able to achieve at each grade level. This semester the structure of the report will look different to previous years, due to covid-19. All students will receive a grade for all subject areas, however there will only be one general comment.

All teachers at St Joseph’s use a range of different quality assessment strategies and tools to gather evidence of student achievement with reference to the Australian Curriculum and the Achievement Standards. Based on the evidence, teachers, make an on-balance judgement to assess student achievement in awarding a grade. The student learning outcomes on school-based reports reflect the learning from units of work and major assessment items taught.

When reading your child’s report, it is important that you remember that as the grade level increases the higher the expectations are from the curriculum and this may result in your child receiving a different mark from the previous year. Although this is not ideal it occurs because teachers are making professional judgements on what your child can do now, based on expectations that need to be achieved by the end of the year.

Please remember that report cards are designed to be one form of communication between parents, teachers and students to acknowledge your child’s achievements and provide supportive and constructive feedback to ensure student success.  

Please if you have any questions or concerns about your child’s report card please feel free to make an appointment to see your child’s teacher.

Uniform

At St Joseph’s we pride ourselves on ensuring the students come to school dressed according to the uniform requirements. It is an expectation, that all students wear the full correct school uniform on the designated days and to do so in a respectful way. If you child is unable to wear a part of the uniform for a specific reason, please send your child to school with a note of explanation to their teacher. If uniform requirements are not adhered to, families will be contacted to rectify the situation via a Uniform Notification Slip. This slip will be used by the class teacher if your child presents to school in the incorrect uniform, shoes, socks, hair styles, jewellery, nail polish etc. You will, however, not receive one of these if you have sent a note of explanation in with your child if they are out of uniform.

Catholic Identity

The Catholic Identity of our school is the fabric of who we are at St Joseph’s, the glue that holds us together and as such it is so important that we continuously strive to improve in this important area of school life. This year at St Joseph’s we have a number of goals we are working towards achieving. One of our Catholic Identity goals is to focus on the spiritual formation of both staff and students. A formation plan will be developed, containing details of professional learning for staff and activities for students aimed at developing the faith dimension of our lives as members of a Catholic school community. I look forward to when this plan is complete so it can be shared with our school community and begin its implementation.