Dear Families and friends of St Joseph’s,

It has been another busy week, classrooms are humming with activity and learning.

It is timely to reflect on what extraordinary work is done here by all our staff and students. We are dedicated to continually improving the wellbeing and educational outcomes for our students. Those of you who have met with your child’s teacher earlier this term will no doubt have realised just how well our teachers know their students.

Although we live in a remote area, here at St Joseph’s we aim to provide the best quality education for your children, so it gives me great pleasure to report that overall, our students are achieving at a very high level, with some of our classes achieving the highest results in reading for our Diocese.

This excellent result is due to good quality targeted teaching, the early identification of areas of strength and areas for focussed teaching. Each term every student in the school participates in both reading and Math diagnostic assessments that identify any gaps in learning. This assessment also enables us to track progress and monitor academic growth.

At the recent Parent Teacher Consultation meetings, classroom teachers will have indicated any areas for growth that they are working on with your child but this should not be confused with the A-E marks in Report Card, which report on each students‘ skill level as set by the Australian Curriculum.

Report cards include judgements and comments on student learning, effort and behaviour for the semester. The final A-E mark that you see in the report card is the result of an assessment process that takes place in each classroom that is facilitated by the class teacher over the course of the semester.

One key principle is that assessment is ongoing.  No longer does a student's final result rely on a test at the end of the unit or term.  Students are now frequently assessed within lessons to help teachers understand where students are at in their learning and to inform what teaching they need moving forward.  All of this assessment and observation then contribute to the final mark that you see on the report card.  

As we head toward the end of Semester our students are currently working away at learning content and will continue to participate in small summative assessments throughout the next few weeks. Assessment takes on a variety of structures and report card grades are never reliant on individual test, but rather a collection of items completed over a five month period. 

Report cards are scheduled to be released online and available through the parent portal in the second last week of school. This year we are also providing parents with the added option to receive a printed reported card also. A parent slip will be sent in the next few weeks so that you can indicate if you would like to receive a printed copy.

Parent Teacher Consultations will then be held in the last week of term 2 and first week of term 4. They are a very important way of providing feedback to parents and carers and developing good working relationships between teachers and parents and carers.

It is important that schools and parents work together so that our children can achieve, thrive and learn. So that you have a clear understanding of what your child is learning, how they are assessed and what they are being taught. To ensures both parents and teachers are on the same page when having conversations about their children’s learning, we are holding a parent information session this term. This session be held on the Thursday of Week 8 this term. Invitations will be sent out early next week via parent slips.

Although we schedule Parent Teacher Consultations at the beginning and end of each term, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher and any stage of the term if you have any queries or concerns about your child’s progress.

Checking in with Students about Their Learning
Knowing learners and how they learn often involves asking powerful questions and seeing the classroom through the child's eyes.

There is also a list of questions that parents can ask their children about learning:

1. What did you learn today?
2. How are you doing?
3. What did you do if you didn't understand?
4. How can you improve on your learning?
5. What are you most proud of?

I'd encourage you to have a go at asking these questions with your child/ren - their responses may surprise you!

Australian Early Development Census

Later this term, Miss Anneka Reynolds and I will begin the Australian Early Development Census. The AEDC is a nationwide census of early childhood development that measures the progress of children as they start their first year of full-time school. The information collected helps shape the future and well-being of our children by providing evidence to support education, health, policy and community planning, at the national, state, community and local level. The survey will be completed by staff. Individual results are not published and students cannot be identified through the reports. The data collected, will be available at a later date publicly on the AEDC website. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to see me.

Visitors

This week Ann Barr the Student Protection Consultant from CES is visiting us. During Ann’s visit she will be conducting a Child Safety Audit, update training for student protection officers and staff.                                  

Volunteers

We always welcome volunteers in our library, tuckshop or at out-of-class activities. If you would like to become a volunteer please book in with the Office to undertake the Student Protection and Code of Conduct for 2021. Once completed, you be issued with a Volunteer Declaration Certificate from the school. Please note that Parents/Caregivers cannot volunteer in any capacity without the Volunteer Declaration Certificate. 

Uniform

We believe a clean, neat, uniformed appearance reflects a pride in the individual as well as reflecting well upon his/her family and school. The expectation is that all students are wearing the correct uniform and groomed as per the policy every day.

Please also ensure you print your child’s name on their school uniforms with a permanent marker. 

NAPLAN

Currently, our Years 3 and 5 classes are participating in the 2021 NAPLAN Online testing.  Our students sat the Writing test on Tuesday, the Language Conventions Wednesday and the Reading test on Thursday.  Testing concludes early next week with the Maths test on Tuesday. 

You can support your child during the testing period by ensuring that they have had a good night’s sleep, have eaten breakfast before arriving to school, are well hydrated, and by reminding them on the day to simply do their best!

Should parents have any further questions about NAPLAN they are encouraged to see their child’s teacher.

Enrolments

As we continue to take Prep Enrolments for 2022, I would like to take this opportunity to remind all current families who have siblings commencing Prep next year to secure their position by submitting an enrolment application if they have not yet done so.

Say No to Bullying Week

At St Joseph’s we take a proactive approach to bullying education and prevention. This term we are dedicating week 6 focus on the topic of Bullying and our students will be participating in many learning activities that teach how to be an “upstander not a bystander”.  On the evening of Tuesday 25th May at 6pm we will have guest speaker Hannah Chapman presenting an Information Session on “Bullying”.  Hannah is the Manager of Counselling and Psychology for CES. We look forward to seeing you there.

On Wednesday 26th May, we will have a free dress fundraiser for "Do it for Dolly Day"

Staffing Update

We welcome Kristen McLeish (Relief Teacher) and Demi Horvath (Support Officer) to our St Joseph's staff.

Indigenous Liaison Officer

Next week we welcome Joy Reimann who will join our school team as Indigenous Liaison Officer. Joy will work across all classes supporting all students with learning and wellbeing.

Tuckshop

Just before the holidays Annette O’Shea, our tuckshop convenor, resigned. After an extensive recruitment process, I am pleased to welcome Mrs Cindy Andresen as our new Tuckshop convenor. We are in the process of revamping our current menu choices and will have an exciting new menu will be available from week 6.

We value your ideas on the types of menu you would prefer so that we can be sure our tuckshop is the best it can be. Please help us out by completing a short survey that we will be sending home to each family this week. 

Capital Works

A big thank to our P and F for the donation of three shade shelters that are currently being installed in our playground. We were all so excited to see the concrete poured this morning and are looking forward to using the shelters next week.