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Dear Parents and Carers,
As we enter the mid-way point of Term 3, I wish to commend staff and students on their continued enthusiasm and effort noted in their approach to learning and social interactions. The continued vibe of happiness is testament to the strong school culture that exists here at St Joseph’s. Each time I am on duty around our school, it is wonderful to see the joy on the faces of our students in their play and interactions with their peers. Parents, we don’t do this alone and know that your support, understanding and acknowledgment of our school approach to student and staff well-being is appreciated. Let’s keep this going for the remainder of the term everyone!
There is nothing more powerful for a child’s learning than a parent who is genuinely interested and invested in their progress. We call this ‘parent engagement’ in learning. Engaged parents partner positively with teachers to know their child’s goals and know how they can support their progress. When a child knows that you care and knows that you are aware of what they need, they come to understand how important learning is.
The way teachers teach has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. When we were at school, the teacher taught the curriculum. Teachers today, teach the child and meet them where they are in their individual journeys. Teachers do this most effectively when they partner with the people that know them best; you.
Parent/Teacher Interviews
During Week 9 (week beginning 5 September), parent/teacher interviews will take place at St Joseph's Parish School.
These interviews provide an opportunity for teachers to communicate information to parents and/or carers on what their child knows, understands and can do at this point in time. This feedback may also include recommendations for future learning.
Additionally, reporting via parent/teacher interviews allows opportunities for parents and teachers to engage about the learning journey of the child and opportunities to report on the education of the whole child. Attending an interview also indicates to your child that you are interested in their learning needs and what's happening to them at school.
Bookings for interviews will take place via the PTO and will be made live in the coming days.
School Photo Day this MONDAY!
School Photo Day on Monday. Please wear full school uniform and a big smile.
School Fees
In the absence of a school-based finance officer, Genelle Santos from CES, has been supporting us. Genelle will be visiting us later in the term and will be available to meet with any families who would like to discuss their fees etc. We will share dates for her visit once it has been finalised. In the meantime, if you have any concerns or confusions with fee statements send out, please call the office and Genelle will give you a call.
Enrolment Intentions - Are your child/children’s circumstances changing in 2023?
To help us with the 2023 class structure and enrolment numbers, it would be appreciated if you would please let the office know if your child/ren are NOT returning in 2023. Thank you for your attention into this matter.
Book Fair
Our annual Book Fair started on Wednesday 17th August 2022. There are a large variety of books for sale at prices to suit everyone. This is a wonderful opportunity to buy some great books and help the library gain new resources as the school receives 30% of the total sales as our Commission.
Outside School Hours Care (OSHC)
In the Cairns Catholic Diocese, all childcare including Outside of School Hours Care is run by the Catholic Early Learning and Care not by schools themselves. I have been partitioning for our school to have Outside of school hours care and holiday at St Joseph’s. For this to become a reality we need to find out how many families in our school community who would used this service if it was available. Next week we will be sending out a very brief survey to collect this information.
Pizza Party!
Thanks you to all our families who filled out the School Satisfaction Survey. As promised, we will be holding a School Pizza Party next Wednesday before we have our Book/Science Week ‘Amazing Race’ around the School. We will be getting requests for topping preferences and pizza alternatives on Monday.
Every blessing to you all and thanks for reading.
PB4L This Week
This week our focus for PB4L has been; We speak respectfully to our peers and staff. The students have spent time in class looking at how using a calm and friendly tone can be a way to show someone respect when they are speaking to them. There has also been a focus on the importance of body language and the messages we give to peers and staff when being spoken to. Facing a person and having eye contact can be a way to also show that we are being respectful.
Next weeks focus will be: We are respectful by allowing everyone to learn.
St Joseph’s Colour Run
We have one of our biggest events coming up on Thursday 1st September, the St Joseph's Father's Day Colour Run. A fun filled afternoon to celebrate our wonderful Dads. Please read the flyer and save the date.
On the day, we will also be presenting a slideshow of images of our Dads and their children. Could you please email a photograph to Michelle Gear- mgear@cns.catholic.edu.au by Monday 29th August and it will be included in the presentation.
St Joseph's looks forward to seeing you all there to celebrate Father's Day.
Dear Parents and Guardians,
Welcome to Term 3, Week 6. The Term is certainly flying by and there are many exciting events still to come including Book Week, the Colour Run and the Schoo Dance just name a few.
Personalised Learning Plans (PLPs)
Over the next few weeks the teachers are in the process of writing Personalised Learning Plans (PLPs). Personalised learning is a process that supports a wide range of students with additional learning and support needs. This includes students who may require support in one or more of the following areas: learning (including high potential learners), behaviour, social/emotional, cultural/language (including international students, boarders and learners of English as an Additional Language or Dialect) and those who have educational support needs arising from disability.
Teachers, with the support of the Leader of Diversity, and in consultation with parents, collaboratively decide which adjustments and/or goals are to be targeted and determine appropriate strategies and supports to be implemented. It is the teacher’s responsibility to implement these planned strategies in order to support students to meet their goals.
Teachers will direct School Officer support and plan for adjustments on a weekly basis. Teachers communicate weekly with School Officers regarding student progress and make adjustments as needed.
Evidence is collected regularly and uploaded to ENGAGE. PLP meetings are set 6 monthly and will determine if current goals have been achieved before setting further goals. The teachers will meet with Parents of PLP students in Week 8, 9 and 10 of this Term.
Visitors
This week we have had the pleasure of Tosca Grainger - Dee our School Counsellor visiting us again in Weipa providing her service to St. Joseph's School from Monday 15th August - Friday 19th August and offering the Building Great Kids Program to the Parent community.
Bringing Up Great Kids is a reflective, mindful, respectful program that provides parents with an opportunity to reflect on their parenting journey
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.
Later during the Term, 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 Term 3.
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.
What a fabulous couple of weeks we have had!
In English, the students have been challenging themselves to learn even more about letters and sounds. We practice these skills daily. The challenge this week was to use all we know about letters, words and sentences to write as much as we could about a picture. Each and every one of the Preps did an outstanding job!
In Maths, we have been investigating 3D shapes and measurement – length, volume & capacity and mass. We are getting so good at counting to 100. We have also started to explore partitioning teen numbers!
We had two visits from our Kindy friends at C&K Weipa last week. The Prep students loved showing the Kindy children around - they built obstacle courses, played throwing and catching games, explained how to use our bee-bot robots, counted objects, identified rhyming words, painted, made 3D shapes using playdough, listened to stories and lots more. It was so much fun!
Upcoming events:-
Book Fair – 17th – 24th August
Book Parade (dress up) – Friday 26th August
St Joseph’s Dance – 15th September
Hello Families!
This term we are well underway in our Design and Technologies unit. Students have learnt how to take a screenshot on their iPad, save it and set it as their screen saver. They have also learnt how to upload photos to SeeSaw, they are getting very clever! Students have also been exploring the BeeBots. We have had lots of fun coding and using algorithms to move the BeeBots on the map.
In Science we are looking at the different properties of materials. We have conducted many hands-on experiments over the last few weeks such as melting chocolate, looking at how banana ripen and using uncooked pasta to constructing spaghetti towers.
Our focus for our writing unit this term is Informative Texts. Students have began to write informative texts about a range of different animals such as butterflies, crocodiles and sharks. Our friends in Year 3 even came to help us use the Book Creator App on our iPads to publish an informative text about crocodiles
A few gentle reminders of the upcoming events we have happening at St Joeys this term:
Book Fair – Wednesday 17th – Wednesday 24th August
Amazing Race – Wednesday 24th August
Book Week Parade – Friday 26th August
Father’s Day Colour Run – Thursday 1st September
Pupil Free Day – Friday 2nd September
St Joseph’s Dance – Thursday 15th September
Parent-Teacher conferences at the end of term
Kind Regards,
Mrs Tash Tapper and Mrs Kate Backhouse
1A and 1B
Happy Week 6 Families
This week St Jospehs have started book week celebrations. Book Fair is from – Wednesday 17th to Wednesday 24th August and is open in the morning before school and after school as well. Students had the opportunity to make a wish list of books and other exciting goodies they would like to purchase.
The past few weeks Year 2 have been growing their knowledge of 2d and 3d shapes and their differing features. We had the chance to make a cube which was a bit tricky too.
Our focus for our writing unit this term is Informative Texts. Instead of handwriting we have started using our chromebooks to publish our writing. Students had the opportunity to choose their own animals and we have a broad range including, Bees, Tasmanian Devils, some dinosaurs and foxes.
UPCOMING DATES
Book Fair – Wednesday 17th – Wednesday 24th August
Amazing Race – Wednesday 24th August
Book Week Parade – Friday 26th August
Father’s Day Colour Run – Thursday 1st September
Pupil Free Day – Friday 2nd September
St Joseph’s Dance – Thursday 15th September
Parent-Teacher conferences at the end of term
Kind Regards,
Miss Mcleish
Religion – Year 3 – Welcome to the Church
There are lots of ways to feel welcome in a church. Invite people, join in praise through singing and join a bible study group. The students have been investigating the Sacraments of Initiation within the Catholic church. They are learning about the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and The Eucharist. They are exploring the promise made at baptism and how they can confirm the promise through confirmation. They are also thinking about how the sacraments if initiation make stronger Christians and a stronger church.
Hello Families of Year 4,
We have steamed ahead with the middle of term and are well on our way to consolidating our ideas in all our subject areas. In English, the students have been gathering data to use as evidence in their persuasive arguments. The students had a great debate about the need for more lunch time activities in the school.
In maths we have moved from angles and are now revisiting equivalent fractions. Students are representing these fractions as images and with numerals, as we recognise what we change to the numerator, we must change to the denominator.
We have had some exciting events over the past few days. Year 4, 5 and 6 went to visit Troy Dunn on Wednesday ahead of the Weipa Rodeo. It was great to learning some new information get amongst this weekend’s event nice and early.
Gentle Reminders for the remainder of the term:
- Homework and Library Friday
- Book Fair Parade Friday 26th August
- Parent-teacher conferences end of term
- Father’s Day Colour Run 1st September
- Pupil Free Day 2nd September
- School Dance 15th September
Wishing you all a great weekend,
Emily
Our Seniors have been busy plugging away at their writing assessments these past two weeks. We have been focusing on how to construct well informed sentences that respond to subheadings or questions. In doing so, we know the reader will be able to use this information to guide them in making factual judgements on when to grow certain vegetables, fruit and herbs or spices.
In Maths we have had a focus on volume and capacity. Students have been able to calculate large amounts of volume or capacity and are getting better at making sure they answer using cubic centimetres and metres or millilitres and litres. We have been given the opportunity to create our own words problems and let the class answer these.
We are looking forward to heading to Mitre 10 soon as we now have a good understanding of the items we need and want for our garden design. Students will use this knowledge to apply this into real life shopping experiences. Having created a list prior to shopping will allow them to stay on track and buy only what they need.
On Wednesday the Seniors and Year 4 were lucky enough to go to Andoom Oval to visit the Weipa Rodeo Committee and join in on a few activities. We were lucky enough to meet Troy Dunn, PBR champion too. Some students were confident enough to give the manual operated bull ago while others had a go at roping. All great experiences that may come in handy for some students in the future.
Dates to remember:
Monday 22nd & Wednesday 24th August- Parent Teacher Conferences
Wednesday 24th- Amazing Race
Friday 26th August- Book Week Dress-Up (students to wear their chosen characters from Wizard of Oz or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
JUMP ROPE FOR HEART
Our little school in Weipa is smashing our goal fundraising for the Heart Foundation! Over $3200 as I write this.
We have had a personal video message from Montana from JRFH about how amazing we are doing. I have shared this with the teachers for each class to listen to.
Parents, please register your child and get on board. Every little bit helps.
Every class has been recording their skipping time and learning a new trick each session. Keep it up! So excited to see the progress and each class love the long rope skipping challenges, particularly in the older grades. Great teamwork, encouragement and a sense of achievement. Great for setting class goals.
SKILLS IN P ED
In P-1, other than skipping skills we have been focusing on throwing and catching skills. Using different sized balls and different distances. In the next few weeks we will focus on how to stand when fielding or catching a ball, how our hands should look and how our bodies can best be ready. These are fundamental skills for establishing good habits with ball handling.
In Yr 2-4 the students have enjoyed Tball games each P Ed lesson. They are learning how to field balls, what base to throw to and how to bat. This encompasses a range of skills that are teachable moments for every game. Great to see many students taking on board these skills and improving each week.
Yr 5/6 have been playing Ultimate footy after our skipping drills. This is encouraging to see every student have a go at kicking a footy and/or catching one. Great skills to increase team spirit and self-confidence as well as accuracy.
Love to see students active and teambuilding.
HPE Teacher.
Libby Lange
Jump Rope for Heart kicks off this week at St Joseph’s Weipa!!!
Jump Rope for Heart is the Heart Foundation’s primary school skipping challenge that helps kids move more, have fun and raise funds for lifesaving research and programs.
This year is the 40th year of Jump Rope for Heart! To celebrate this milestone, we’ve got an audacious goal to see our student Heart Heroes at St Joseph’s to log 40 hours of skipping throughout the program!
Register your child online, so they can receive the full benefits of the program and participate in online fundraising, simply follow the link below to get started. www.jumprope.org.au/parents
Students will be skipping throughout the term in PE lessons, during lunch break and before school, during this time you can share their online fundraising page with family and friends to help raise money for this great cause.
We will hold our school Jump Off Day on 9th September , this will mark the end of the program and is a chance for everyone to come together to skip and show off their
newly learned skills.
On Tuesday 2 forms will come home with your child. One is a Parents Guide, the other a information form about sponsorship.
Thank you for supporting the Jump Rope for Heart program!
Libby Lange HPE Teacher
|
Year Level |
ARTS focus |
Unit |
|
PREP |
DRAMA |
“Feelings Are Important” |
|
YEAR 1 |
DRAMA |
“Stories Come to Life with Feelings” |
|
YEAR 2 |
DRAMA/MEDIA ARTS |
“My Family” |
|
YEAR 3 |
MEDIA ARTS |
“Why Weipa?” |
|
YEAR 4 |
DRAMA |
“A Fairytale from Me!” |
|
SLH |
DRAMA/ MEDIA ARTS |
“Growing the Mind” |
Every class is well on their way to learning about the Elements of Drama and/or the Elements of Media Arts.
Yr P-1 Students used the” feeling balls game” to express 6 different emotions and during a game act them out or tell a story and relate to their everyday life. We learnt so much about each other in this lesson. Lots of fun and stories make a lesson a happy one.
Yr 2-4 We played the “Emotion game” as a warm up. 12 different emotion cards, 3 per team to connect the emotions. Great team building game. We then learnt about some of the elements of drama and how we can use dramatic action in our classroom. We also discussed what Media Arts is and how this applies to each student. Great challenges ahead!
Yr 5-6 Students have completed designing their avatar/character and are now moving onto creating this in 3D paint. The next step will be making freeze frames to create a story board. We have been discussing the importance of making and responding in media arts and drama.
Members have the opportunity to get updated on the events and activities occurring in the school community, to provide input and suggestions on the allocation of the P&F Funds, and share any feedback or ideas.
We hope to see you there.
Kind regards
The Executive Committee
St Josephs Weipa P&F Association
