Last week we had one of our staff members Stacey Edmonds attend The APRE Encounter Retreat held on Fitzroy Island.  The three day retreat has a strong focus on the Pope’s Encyclical Evangelli Gaudium, which calls every baptised member of the Catholic faith to evangalise and be a missionary disciple. Stacey’s thoughts on the retreat included  “ This was a time to connect and embrace what we know is true to our head, hearts and inner being. Dadirri time was sacred and important to fully reflect on creation at its finest”  

Simultaneous Story Time  

Next Wednesday 25th May the school will participate in Simultaneous Story Time . Every year a picture book written and illustrated by an Australian author is read simultaneously in schools, libraries, homes, and child facilities. This year the story is Family Tree by Josh Pyke and illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh. Parents with younger children are welcome to join in at St Joseph’s from 11:15am. Alternatively, Hibberd Library are also participating from 10:30am.  

A Prayer for the Election

God of this land and of every people,

who shape all things according to your own design

and write your law in every human heart:

we thank you for this country we call home,

from the First Nations people to others born here

and those you have gathered from across the earth.

We pray for the citizens of our land in this troubled time,

that we may be committed to justice,

to the dignity of each human life,

and to solidarity with all Australians and with the world.

Guide all who seek election to serve the nation;

may the Holy Spirit inspire them to pursue a better politics

that is wise and courageous and governs for the good of all.

May all of us see and hear you in the most vulnerable,

that we may respond to the cry of the earth

and the cry of the poor,

that we may respond to you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

NAPLAN 

Congratulations to our Year 3 and Year 5 students who have completed their NAPLAN tests over the past 2 weeks. Our students showed great determination and resilience throughout the tests and celebrated with a small gesture from their teachers.  

STAY & PLAY 

This Friday 20th May we will hold our first Stay and Play session. The session will start after our weekly assembly and be held in the Prep classroom. We invite all our families with younger children 0-4 years to stay and enjoy the range of activities we have set out. Although we will have our staff present, all parents will be required to stay and join in the activities with their children. Play and Stay will finish at 10:30am before 1st break.  

Dear Parents and Guardians,   

Welcome to Week 5 and it has been another busy 2 weeks and the children have been working hard during this time. Some of the activities that the students are participating in are training for Athletics Carnival, AFL classes and St. Joey’s Service Club. 

Social Emotional Learning   

This Semester in SEL in the Seconds Steps Program we will be focusing on Emotional Management.   

Second Step      

Second Step SEL is research-based, teacher-informed, and classroom-tested to promote the social-emotional development, safety, and well-being of children from Early Learning through Grade 8. Children learn and practice vital skills for listening and paying attention, having empathy, managing emotions, building friendships, and solving problems with others. The 25-minute interactive lessons and discussion-based activities with distinct grade-level experiences. The lessons focus on Social-Emotional Learning:   

• Mindsets & Goals   
•  Recognising Bullying & Harassment   
• Thoughts, Emotions, & Decisions   
• Managing Relationships & Social Conflict   

Positive Behaviour for Learning    

Our school community has identified the following school wide expectations to teach and promote our high standards of responsible behaviour:    

• Be Respectful   
• Be Responsible   
• Be Resilient   
• Be Ready for Learning   

PB4L assemblies take place on Monday’s at 2pm followed by Second Step lessons.   

NCCD - Nationally Consistent Collection of Data   

The NCCD is an annual collection of information from all Australian schools on the numbers of students with disability and the adjustments they receive. All Teachers at St. Joseph’s School will be expected to understand their obligations to students with disability under the DDA and the Disability Standards for Education 2005 and consistently collect and provide evidence which is recorded on ENGAGE. 

Visitors  

Next week we welcome back Tosca Grainger - Dee our School Counsellor and she will continue to provide her service to St. Joseph's School throughout the week. 

If you have any questions please feel free to make contact with myself at a convenient time that suits. My email address is   mturner@cns.catholic.edu.au     
     

Kind Regards,     

Melanie Turner.     

We brought home the Crusader Cup! 

Congratulations to our Yr 5/6 students who played in the WASP team, overall winners of the day.  Super achievement to win this trophy against Arukun, Mapoon and WCC. 

Each team played 5 games.  WASP won the first 4, then lost to Mapoon in a very exciting and close game, only 1 goal the difference.  

Our students shone on and off the field, displaying 100% respect and effort, great sportsmanship and encouragement.   

They are so proud of themselves, as are Mrs Turner and I.  Many kids started the day fairly timid, but towards the end, every single student went in there for every ball.  Special mention to the 4 students who volunteered to play in the BULLDOGS (Arukun) team to make the teams even. 

I had a fabulous day and I think this will be echoed by everyone else.   

Thanks to Matt and Kieran from AFL, PCYC crew for being so supportive.  Great to see the other schools again too. 

Thanks students for making our school and staff so proud! 

Yours In Sport, 

Libby Lange 

Penisula Cross Country trials.

Our library has been buzzing along nicely with plenty of new books for our students to borrow. Our amazing School Officers have been covering new books and are often struggling to keep up demand. We receive new books through our Literacy Pro Subscription and our school rewards from our Book Club orders. Every time you order book club, our school receives points that convert into money for us to buy books.  

Week 5, Term 2, 2022 

English: The Prep students have continued to develop their letter formation skills through writing, tracing and fine motor activities. We are encouraging all students to have a go at spelling 3 letter consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words using the sound/letters that they know. We have also begun to learn about the structure of a sentence and are encouraging them to write recounts independently that include the use of finger spaces and ending punctuation. Exciting times! 

Technology: This term the students have examined various ways that humans, toys and modes of transport can move. We are continuing our learning journey, but so far, we have explored what parts help them move and introduced vocabulary such as push, pull, bounce, slide, roll and spin. The students enjoyed the hands-on experiences of building ramps and using push forces to move their car as far as possible (for the record, the best distance covered was 135cm!) 

Maths: Students have engaged in sorting and classifying activities using a variety of materials and explained the basis for these classifications. We have sorted numbers and nonsense symbols and grouped materials according to attributes such as colour and shape. Copying, continuing and creating patterns with objects and drawings has also been lots of fun. 

Science: We are keeping a watchful eye on the weather this term and practising our weather prediction skills.  We are working towards being a weather report presenter in the coming weeks.  We have learnt lots of interesting things including new words like overcast, partly cloudy, extreme weather and gale winds – ask your child about ‘raining cats and dogs’! 

Hello Families! 

As always, 1A have been working hard over the last couple of weeks. 

In English, we are focusing on the story “Amy and Louis” and innovating the text to change the characters and story. The students came up with lots of amazing settings their story could take place such as Africa, the water park, Uluru, the beach or a jungle. In English we are also learning about nouns, adjectives and verbs and are working hard to practise our reading strategies to become more fluent readers and comprehend the texts we read. 

In Maths we have been working on subtraction strategies and identifying half and quarters. We practise our skip counting daily through songs and actions. Students had fun going bowling and taking away the pins that fell over! 

We have been learning about Jesus and what type of person he was in Religion. In Science we are learning about clouds and what is in the sky during the day and night. In HASS we are learning about places and their features and describing our favourite place in Weipa. We will also be planting some herbs and flowers this week in Technology. 

Some gentle reminders for this term: 

• Homework will go home on Tuesdays, please bring folders back to school the following Tuesday 
• Library is on Tuesdays, please bring in library bags and any borrowed books to return 
• PE Wednesdays, sports uniform is to be worn 

Kind Regards, 

Mrs Tash Tapper. 

Congratulations Parents and Families! 

We’ve made it half was through Term 2.  

Lately we have been learning about Life Cycles in Science this Term and it has been seeing our little Grass heads grow. As well as plant life cycles we have been learning lots and lots about Frogs! Ask your children about them, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you a fact or two.  

Lately we have been working on our wonderful handwriting with correct posture and pencil grip too.  

Look at them go! 

We have been using cards and having lots of fun in Maths to revise our Place Value understanding. 

We will soon be working on designing and constructing our own toys. Look out for some more Photos. 

What is happening in Year 3 

In Year 3 the students have started their new Mathematics Unit – Fractions. They have been investigating what halves, quarters, thirds, and fifths look like. We are learning to write fractions as numbers, words and as a diagram. Students are really looking forward to their assessment as the whole assessment is online. 

Hello families of Year 4, 

What a fantastic, fun-filled term we are having so far! Over the last few weeks, the students have been investigating the force called gravity. We completed an investigation to find the amount of time taken for different objects to fall to the centre of the Earth. We also designed a parachute for a Lego man to measure the effects of gravity on different objects.  

In Geography, the students created a presentation on sustainability and how we can be more sustainable around the school. Students researched their ideas and compiled the information onto google slides with matching images to finally finish with an engaging presentation.  

Year 4 have been superstars and very flexible over the last 2 weeks as we have adapted to various events and changes to routine. I am very proud of their resilience and each one is to be commended on their approach to every challenge. Wishing you all a fabulous weekend!  

Kind Regards, 

Emily 

In the past these past two weeks our Seniors have been busy during our Maths lessons. They have constructed 3D robots and are working on understanding chance events. Students showed that they can build their robots after careful planning of what shapes would work best together. Some students chose card while others chose Lego. So many creative ideas.

Our Year 5 students worked incredibly hard and show grit during our naplan testing this past fortnight. Everyone gave their tests a red hot go and walked out with a smile on their face. It might have had something to do with their wellbeing treats. ‘Do-nut worry about this test. You’ve got this.’

During our religion lessons we have been comparing the gospel writers of Matthew and Luke. Students were able to identify similarities and differences and even justify why these could be. Understanding the history of our bible and the writers allows the students to understand scripture through different lenses.

We also have two of our Seniors representing our school this weekend in Yungaburra for Peninsula Trials in Cross Country. We wish Luke Wright and Tremaine Tapim all the best. We will be cheering you on from afar.

Important Days

PE, Library and Homework Day- Wednesday

Athletics Training Starts Week 6

Cricket Gala Day- Friday June 17th

THE ARTS – DANCE 

Each class has been learning set moves for a dance over the last few weeks.  Prep-Yr 3 have learnt the dance called “Green Fingernails” and we certainly have some very energetic dancers!   

Last week in small groups, the students innovated the dance moves to make it their own and finished with their own dance stance. It was lots of fun, at the same time learning how the different elements of dance are important.  The students now move onto doing some choreography for their own dance moves and making it all fit to music.    

SLH have been looking at the genre of disco, learning specific moves and innovating their own moves to a set piece of music “You should be Dancing”.  They will move onto choreograph a set of repetitive dance moves now in groups, exploring the elements of tempo, travel sequences, levels and relationships in a dance.  

It is wonderful to see the students so enthusiastic!