St Joseph's Parish School Weipa eNewsletter

Dear families and friends of St Joseph’s,

Welcome to the last week of the Semester. With so many events happening around the school over these last two weeks, we have held off our last edition for the term till today.

It has been an action-packed term and I know students and teachers are ready for the holidays. They have worked extremely hard over the term engaging in learning, undertaking excursions, participating in our school review, learning about feedback strategies, showing pride at many sporting events and much, much more. Each term, I become even more proud of the people that our students are growing into and the type of learners they are becoming. A number of school visitors regularly comment on the high levels of student engagement in learning across all classrooms and manners and courtesy they experience from our students. Fabulous work!

This Semester we have faced the continued challenge of managing interruptions due to sickness throughout the school and wider community. I thank and congratulate our amazing school staff for their continued hard work and dedication not only this week but every week. We have a very capable leadership Team and staff who go above and beyond to ensure the events and activities we have enrich the lives of our school community.

Last Friday we welcomed over 500 children to St Joseph’s, when we hosted Under 8’s Day for 2022. It was great to have so many different services and groups from our community come to share in the fun and a wonderful time was had by all. Events like this don’t just happen; they require considerable planning.

A huge thanks to Mrs O’Brien who spent many hours coordinating the day and to all our dedicated staff for making the event such a success. Thank you to the parents who were able to help out with the activities the children have such a great experience. I’m sure they will all enjoy some down time over the break & return to school refreshed for a new Semester.

We were fortunate to have a visit from Fr Dariusz for both Under 8’s Day and Monday’s NAIDOC Mass before he takes a few months leave. We wish him safe travels as he visits his family back in Poland and look forward to sharing in his holiday news upon his return in Term 4.

With National NAIDOC Week celebrations being held across Australia in the first week of July each year which is in school holidays, we have chosen to make the last week of term 2 as our NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week is an important opportunity for our school community to learn more about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. Our school has enjoyed the many activities, excursions and visitors who have joined with us to celebrate to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Congratulations to everyone on a very successful Athletics Carnival this week. Perfect weather, wonderful crowd atmosphere and well-prepared competition surface. Thanks again to all of our staff, parents, PCYC and AFL teachers for your assistance throughout the day. Although I was away attending Professional development on the day I was extremely pleased to hear from staff of the impressive level of sportsmanship and persistence students displayed. Thanks to Libby Lang, who with the support of all staff, created an event that provided a positive experience for our students. The cooperation of the students enabled the day to run extremely smoothly. Thanks to all of the parents who were able to attend the carnival, especially those who offered their assistance.

As we finish off this semester, I’d like to congratulate our students on all of their great work. There has been some tremendous work produced as well as some fantastic growth in our Key Learning Areas. You can all rest up and feel proud of your work this semester. I’d like to thank our hard working teachers for all of their time and dedication over the semester. You should be proud of what you and your students have achieved. I’m looking forward to Term 3 and building on these successes.

At reporting time it is good to stop and reflect on what the meaning of the judgements provided means for us and our children.

I know that when I was attending school and even when I first began my teaching career, the ultimate goal was to achieve that ever-inspiring A. This would often mean that we had completed a task to an exceptional standard with no criteria to tell us how or why we received such a good mark. The Australian Curriculum provides a detailed explanation of what content understanding and application of skills are required to be successful in each Key Learning Area (KLA) or subject in each year level. This expected standard of success is what we will see on the report cards as a C.

School reports will be issued this afternoon and will be available via the Parent Portal and will also be sent home in hard copy. If you need any assistance at all accessing the portal, feel free to contact our wonderful staff in the office and they will be more than happy to help you however they can.

Over the course of this semester, teachers have been gathering evidence of learning for each learning area for each of our students. This process involves gathering, analysing and reflecting on multiple sources of evidence to make an informed judgment about what students know, understand and can do.

Assessment in the classroom can come in many forms. It can either be …

Diagnostic (assessing prior learning) - pre-tests and work samples.
Formative (assessing for learning) - observations, group work, individual conferencing, ongoing work samples.
Summative (assessing of learning) - tasks, assignments, presentations.

This Report Card is a culmination of your child’s academic achievement throughout the semester, as well as a snapshot of their spiritual and social development. It is just one way of communicating information about student achievement, effort and behaviour.

The Australian Curriculum is written in such a way, that there is an ‘Achievement Standard’ for each year level for each subject area. It is this Achievement Standard that we report against. The standards are written as a statement of what a student is aiming to achieve by the end of the school year for their year level. A student receiving a ‘C’ standard indicates that they have met this standard, that is, that their work demonstrates a conceptual understanding of the concepts covered and that they can apply this knowledge and skill in familiar situations. Simply speaking, a ‘C’ standard indicates that your child is able to do what is expected of them for their year level.

To move beyond a ‘C’ standard, a student must demonstrate that they are developing sophistication of conceptual understanding, with a strong application of skills, and that they are beginning to transfer their knowledge and skills to new situations (B standard). For an A standard, students must demonstrate the excellent application of skills and be readily applying the knowledge and skills to new situations.

Similarly, a ‘D’ standard does not constitute a fail but indicates that a student is continuing to develop their understanding of the expected curriculum, and may be able to demonstrate some of the elements within it, whether with support or inconsistently. A rough outline of these standards is provided below.

In each KLA, students also receive an effort achievement level. This level is derived by the level of application and study habits during that particular KLA. Please see the table below for the effort achievement scale.

If you have any concerns around your child’s/children’s learning journey please contact your classroom teacher. Positive Family-School Partnerships are very important. The partnerships are centred around the young person, include the voice of the young person, connect learning at home and at school, build community and identity, recognise the role of the family, use collaborative decision making, collaborate beyond school and ensure that all people participate in the planning.

WALKING ADVERTISEMENTS

As a school, we do what we can in getting the ‘good word’ out about what we do from day to day. Social media platforms, local publications and signage are some of the ways that we try to achieve this. Yet remarkably, for all the resources invested in this worthwhile endeavour, this type of advertising is not the most effective.

When interviews are conducted, we ask our families how they came to hear about us. 95% of the time they tell us it’s you—our parents. Their reasoning for choosing St Joseph’s School is mostly to do with the fact that they have spoken to a member of our community that has told them about their good experiences. You play the main part in building good experiences with your school. Thank you for:

Seeing us when you’ve got a concern— Good experiences aren’t always about the ’warm and fuzzies’. Good experiences can be about how the school responded to a concern of yours regarding your child’s progress.
Being engaged in your child’s learning— When you involve yourself by simply asking; “How is my child going?”; you help create relationships that ensure the progress of your child;
Supporting a ‘solutions focused’ way of thinking— any problem involves all parties working together towards a solution. When we support each other, great things can be achieved for your children.

As a part of our community, you are a ‘walking advertisement’. On behalf of our school community, I thank you for your ongoing support of your children and, in turn, our school.

Wishing you all a happy and safe holiday break.

God Bless,

Megan

God of Holy Dreaming

God of holy Dreaming

Great Creator Spirit

From the dawn of creation you have given your children

The good things of Mother Earth

You spoke and the gum tree grew

In the vast deserts and dense forests, in the cities,

At the water’s edge, creation sings your praise.

Your presence endures as the rock at the heart of our land.

When Jesus hung on the tree

You heard the cries of all Your people

And became one with Your wounded ones

The convicts, the hunted and the dispossessed.

The sunrise of Your Son

Coloured the earth anew

And bathed it in glorious hope.

In Jesus we have been reconciled to You,

To each other and to Your whole creation.

Lead us on Great Spirit

As we gather at this special place

Located on land where ancestors of long ago

Gathered for work, play and praise.

Enable us to walk together in trust from the hurt of the past

Into the full day which has dawned in Jesus Christ.

Amen

NAIDOC Week 2022

This week we gathered together for NAIDOC Week to celebrate the contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and individuals. This year the theme for NAIDOC is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! We are all called to continue to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! for systemic change and keep rallying around the youth, Elders, our communities.

This week St Joseph’s participated in various activities across the week. Here are some highlights;

NAIDOC Week Mass led by Father Dariusz a celebration of the week ahead and the Indigenous cultures which are a part of our school.

Yumi Cultural Experiences

A wonderful experience learning about traditional songs, dances and ceremonious attire. The students enjoyed learning greetings in different languages and having their face painted in traditional Indigenous colours. Workshops were held in class where the students learnt about the different hunting tools used for survival and viewed other artefacts.

Year 2,3 and 4 WCCCA Cultural Centre Excursion

The students explored the various displays at the centre learning about the long history of Weipa and what like was like here before mining. Linda and Patricia from WCCCA were happy to share their knowledge of bush tucker and medicine as the children got to know and understand how particular plants can be used in many ways. The centre is an informative place to visit and is highly recommended for families these school holidays.

Semester 1 Student Report Cards

This week students in all grades will receive their Semester 1 report cards. Reports cards will come home in a sealed envelope for parents & carers to open. Report cards will also be uploaded to the Parent Portal. Parents are encouraged to make a time to meet with their child’s teacher in week 1 Term 3 if they wish to discuss the report.

Under 8s Day

What a wonderful morning we had celebrating Under 8s Day last Friday. This year the theme for the morning was Play in a Changing World!. It was a fantastic opportunity to host this event and showcase what our school has to offer. With the support of Western Cape College and a range of community organisations and businesses the morning has a huge success. Thank you to everyone involved in this event.

C&K Napranum Visit

This week the Prep students had the opportunity to visit C&K Napranum as part of our Prep Transition Buddy Program and NAIDOC week celebrations. The students had a wonderful morning participating in a range of hands-on learning experiences.

Prep Transition

Next term we continue with our Prep Transition Program. As part of this program our local Kindergartens will visit our school for Come & Try Days on either a Tuesday or Thursday. These days give all students attending Prep next year the opportunity to experience first hand what Prep at our school will be like. We are excited to be welcoming these children and their teachers to our school for these days. C&K Napranum, Cape Kids and C&K Weipa will all be participating in Come & Try Days.

Stay & Play

This Friday the 24th June is our final Stay & Play session for Term 2. We look forward to welcoming many members of the community to this session. Stay and Play is in the Prep room from 9:30am – 10:30am.

Next term we will continue with Stay & Play on a Friday morning at the same time

Dear Parents and Guardians,  

Welcome to Week 10 and it has been another busy 2 weeks and the children have been working hard during this time with lessons and end of Term 2 Assessment. Some of the activities that the students are participating in are training for Athletics Carnival, AFL classes and the Year 5 and 6 students participated in a Cricket Gala Day.

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. (Please insert Fact Sheet here).  

Visitors 

This week we welcomed back Ms. Lillian Miller - Consultant First Nations Education from Cairns Catholic Education to our School. Lillian will continue to provide her service to St. Joseph's School during NAIDOC Week. 

A message from Ms Tosca

Dear Parents

It is my pleasure to offer a crafted program for parents called Bringing Up Great Kids.

Bringing Up Great Kids is a reflective, mindful, respectful program that provides parents with an opportunity to reflect on their parenting journey.

Bringing Up Great Kids provides a friendly and safe environment for parents to learn from each other as they continue their parenting journey.

As a school community we would like to offer this group program.

This program will be offered in two half workshops. One workshop from 12- 13pm on the 19th July and the second session will be on the 16th August from 12 – 3pm

In each face-to-face workshop we will be doing of the program we will be doing 3 chapters so that we will complete the entire program.

The program content is detailed below.

Program Content

The Bringing Up Great Kids’ program supports parents and carers to:

       learn more about the origins of their own parenting style and how it can be more effective.
       identify the important messages they want to convey to their children and how to achieve this.
       learn more about brain development in children and its influence on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
       understand the meaning behind children’s behaviours, and how to respond to children’s underlying feelings and needs.
       explore new ways of communicating with children.
       discover ways for parents to take care of themselves and to find support when they need it.

If you have any questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact me tgraingerd@cns.catholic.edu.au . If we have a group of parents who are keen, we would like to start this program in week 2 when I will be in Weipa.

I look forward to connecting with you.

Warm regards,

Tosca  

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    

I would like to wish everyone a very relaxing holiday and I look forward to seeing you all in Term 3.
  

Kind Regards,  

Melanie Turner. 

Thank you for a fabulous Term 2!

As the term wraps up, it is hard to believe that our Prep students have completed half of their first year of school. It has been wonderful to see them settled into school routines and participating confidently in classroom and specialists lessons. In the last 2 weeks, the Prep students have participated in the Under 8’s day, Athletics and NAIDOC celebrations. Students enjoyed spending a morning engaging in learning activities with Year 4 students and learnt to tie knots alongside Year 3 students under the direction of SES visitor, James Barber. This week we visited the children and staff at C&K Napranum where the Prep students played with their new Kindy buddies. Preps had the opportunity to contribute to the Kindy NAIDOC Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! banner which will be on display at Napranum PCYC during NAIDOC week (3-10 July). There was lots of paint involved and everyone enjoyed it very much!

In recent weeks, Prep students continued to develop their letter formation skills through drawing, writing, tracing and fine motor activities. They were encouraged to spell 3 letter consonant vowel consonant (CVC) words using the sounds they know have begun to structure their sentences using finger spaces and ending punctuation. In Maths, we have continued to expand our understanding of number and algebra and measurement and geometry. We have focused on connecting events and days of the week and using appropriate language to describe location.

Next term will be filled with new and exciting learning opportunities and students will continue to develop their knowledge, understanding and skills.

Safe and happy holidays!

Stephanie

Hello again families,

The end of term is fast approaching as we come to the end of week 10!

For our Technologies unit we got to plant some seeds. We are exploring gardening and uses for plants and trees in our design and technologies unit and loved being able to plant our own. Each of us got a different plant and are very excited to document its growth. In Science, we learnt last term about all the things living things need to survive so we are going to ensure our plants get enough light, shelter, water and air to help them make their own food and stay alive.

This week we also had some of the Preps come to visit us whilst their classroom was used for “Stay and Play”. 1A was very excited to show them what we do in Year One and some of the games we play in our literacy rotations. I was also so impressed with their whole body listening on the mat!

On Monday this week we held our whole school Reconciliation Liturgy with special guest Miss Lillian. It was a beautiful liturgy where the school was seated in a yarning circle with the focus of this year being “Be Brave”.

Mrs Tash Tapper

Mrs Kate Backhouse

Hi families,

This week has been a big week for Year two.

We visited the cultural centre which was great fun. Here are some photos of us learning about some leaves that when crushed with water turn into a natural soap.

We also had a great time at the athletics carnival with lots of running. This year Year two were lucky enough to try out shot put!

We have been celebrating NAIDOC week this week. On Monday at lunch time some year two students had their face painted.

What a great Term 2 we have had! Looking forward to Term three together.

Year 3 – Week 10 Newsletter

In year 3 maths, students have been putting their laptop skills to the test. We have been writing survey questions and collecting data on a spreadsheet in Excel. Students then represent their data a graph. Year 3 have asked questions including:

What is your favourite animal?

What is your favourite ice cream?

What is your favourite sandwich filler?

Hello families of Year 4,

Thank you all for a wonderful Term 2. We have had a very busy last 2 weeks. We were able to participate in the Cricket Cup, athletics carnival, excursion to cultural centre and many other in-school events such as NAIDOC week. The students also went on a little visit to the church, where we looked at the 3 Holy Oils and the Stations of the Cross. The students had many different questions for Father Dariusz after our visit. We have also been practising our high jump and using our scissor kick to make it over the bar!

We are moving forward into next term, with our dance concert on our mind. It would be amazing if we could all practice at home during the holidays! There are some amazing dancers in Year 4.

Some gentle reminders as we move into the next term:

Library will remain on Friday
Health and PE are Wednesday
Homework is given out Monday and expected to be returned Friday

I wish you all a safe, fun and enjoyable school holiday with your families!

Warm Regards,

Emily

The end of term is now here after many busy weeks. So much has happened already this past 6 months and it is nice to see how all the students are growing. Whether this is academically or physically, they have shown they can do hard things and do it with confidence.

This past two weeks we have been confirming our understanding of the Holy Spirit through scripture references and the sacraments within the church. Students made connections between baptism and confirmation and are competent in identifying symbols of the Holy Spirit.

In our Math lessons we have been working on algebra. We recognise that the equal sign means that whatever is happening on the left side needs to equal the right side when looking a vertical equations. This is true even when we use a different operation (multiplication, division, addition and subtraction) on one side to the other side.

34 + 11 = 75- ? 3 x 8 = 4 x ? 1237 – 127 = 111 x ?

During our writing lessons we have been asked to write a narrative based on one of two picture stimulus. The students wrote some really creative stories and have shown great growth in their writing abilities since the beginning of the school year.

After so much learning, we hope you all have a fantastic break and look forward to seeing everyone back next term for another action packed term.

Cricket Cup Friday 17th June

Yr 4-6 students attended the Cricket Cup at WCC last Friday. This followed Cricket lessons on the Wednesday when they learnt skills of catching, running and batting.

Great day of round-robin games. Every student batted, bowled, and fielded in 4 games against WCC, Aurukun, and Mapoon.

It was entertaining, fun, and the students' skills and confidence improved immensely over the day. Again, great sportsmanship was displayed on the day!

HOWZAT!!!

Athletics Carnival 2022

What a fantastic day we had yesterday! Perfect weather and outstanding team spirit from all the students.

We started the events on Tuesday with Yr 4-6 ball games. There were some very close games and with double points, it was exciting to watch.

We started the day yesterday with 800m and the cheering from students for each other was so good to see. The day went smoothly and the best part was seeing every child participate and enjoy themselves.

I was particularly impressed with the older grades giving every event a go and the confidence so many of them have gained in their field events. The sportsmanship on the day was amazing and very much the St Joseph’s Way! It made us very proud.

The relays were the highlight with all the school involved and madly cheering each other on!

P-2 were involved in AFL games as well as some fun activities like Rob the Nest, Sack races and the beanbag challenge.

Huge thankyou to these people who all helped to lighten the workload!

Setting up (Brad, Hayden, Marinus, Luke, Brian, Kellie and staff)
Michelle our amazing MC and announcer

Scorers and timekeepers (Emily, Kristen, Tash, AFL Matt and Kieren)
Marshalls (Kate, Stephanie, Tiffany, Mel)
Kim on the camera, Kellie in the office
Field event staff and helpers (Josh & Kylie, Stacey & Chris, Amanda & Hayden)
Special thanks to Rachael and her band of helpers in the canteen for providing the snack packs and the sausage sizzle for lunch.