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Happy World Teacher’s Day Teachers help shape the future through the young people we work with every day. We are truly blessed at St Joseph’s to have such a dedicated, hardworking and collaborative group of teachers. On behalf of our community, I wish to commend our teachers on their commitment to continued professional learning, their support of our children’s families and their support of all the members of our team to get the very best learning progress for each and every child.
2023 Classroom Teachers – As part of our planning for 2023, we are very happy to announce the appointment of a new teacher Rory Harrington to our team. We look forward to meeting Rory at our bump up day on Monday 14th November. Kathy Mitten will also be joining our staff as School Officer. We are fortunate to have Kathy start with us on Monday 7th November. Although we still have another Teaching and School Officer position to fill, we hope to be able to make further announcements by the end of this week.
We still are in need of a Tuckshop Coordinator and grounds person. If you are interested or know someone who would be suitable please encourage them to apply or make enquires at our office.
As we enter our the final few weeks of school for 2022, many of our year 6 students will be looking forward and looking back. I have already heard the phrase, “This will be the last time we..” Memories are precious and they form us.
With such a short time left in the year, our thoughts turn toward end of year events. Graduations, end of year farewells and Christmas. But while this school year is coming to an end, our journey of learning is not over. Over these next few weeks teachers will be finalising teaching and assessment tasks in preparation for end of year reporting. I ask that parents work with the school to try to have children in attendance as much as possible during this term so that students can be fully engaged in the tasks that are being undertaken.
We are super excited to be sending our playground design and quote off to the Diocesan Finance and Development Committee for approval! We are hoping this will be completed by the end of next week and construction will be able to begin in January. Thank you all in advance for your patience with this project - it will definitely been worth the wait!
I will be away at the end of this week to attend the Principal conference that is held each term. We all have similar challenges in our role and it is a it is a great time to link with other principals that offer a wealth of knowledge and advice. Cairns Catholic Education Services keep us up to date with what is happening and the direction that they would like the schools to move in. At this time of the year, we focus on Strategic Directions and how these relate to our Annual School Improvement Plans.
Cent Auction Hampers To minimise confusion for families we have decided to change back to having a theme for each class instead of a theme each week. If you have already sent in an item or have purchase a donation that doesn’t match with your class theme do not worry. We are happy to accept all donations and will ensure your child gets acknowledge for contributing.
Class Allocations are as follows:
Prep - Christmas
One - Games and Toys
Two -Arts and Crafts
Three/Four - Homewares, gardening and pets
Five/Six - Camping, BBQ and Fishing
SJW 2022 Awards Night We are now entering the celebration season of the school year. This is a time where we are able to acknowledge all the good work and effort that students have done throughout the year. On Monday 21st November, our Annual Awards Night will acknowledge those students who have performed to a high standard academically, as well as those who have demonstrated their gifts and talents through Service and Christian Leadership. We hope as many family members to be present to witness these events.
NAPLAN 2022 Our Year 3 and Year 5 individual student reports were sent home in Week 2.
You may have heard on the news recently that NAPLAN Literacy results have not improved, particularly in Grammar/Punctuation across Australia from Years 3 to Year 9. I am happy to report that our school data is not supportive of this trend, and I can proudly report that our results are overwhelmingly positive in both Year 3 and Year 5.
Our staff will spend considerable time analysing our school and individual results, comparing them to our Diocesan scores to see where we can improve, and when available to our State and National scores. Our individual student results are also examined to determine how each student can be supported either via intervention, or extension with a particular focus in ensuring growth.
I congratulate not only our students on their achievement, dedication and hard work, but in particular I thank our staff for their overwhelming commitment to quality teaching and learning in ALL year levels.
Year 5 Leadership Retreat
On Thursday the Year 5 students participated in Session One of the Leadership Retreat. Led by Rachel McLean from Cairns Catholic Education Services and myself, the students were able to look at the qualities that they hold and learn about their leadership personality. Time was spent looking at Church and contemporary leaders who inspire us and have proven to be great leaders.
The students came up with one word to define what being a leader means and the type of leaders they hope to be in 2023.
The Year 5 students had a shared lunch together which was thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you to the Year 5 parents for organising a plate of food. The students are very much looking forward to continuing their retreat tonight with the Year 5 Sleepover.
Socktober
In support of World Mission Month in October, the students were invited to wear crazy socks and make a gold coin donation on Wednesday. It was great to see so many students get behind this great cause which aims to provide relief to those communities who need it most. Thank you Year Four for leading this initiative.
Country Bank Colouring-in Competition Reminder
This Wednesday Queensland Country Bank Weipa Branch will be collecting the entries for the Crackles Colouring-in Competition. If your child has not submitted an entry, please do so by Wednesday morning.
Queensland Country Bank are kindly offering the following prizes
1st Place $25 Visa Gift Card
2nd Place $15 Visa Gift Card
3rd Place $10 Visa Gift Card
Good luck to all the students entering the competition.
Dates for Term 4 2022
There are many exciting events taking place this term. Please make note of the following dates which have been set for Term 4 2022. You are welcome to attend.
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Week 5 |
Friday 4th November- Year 2 Assembly 8:45am |
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Week 6 |
Friday 11th November- Remembrance Day Liturgy, Year 1 Assembly |
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Week 7 |
Monday 14th November Bump Up Day- Meet 2023 teachers 2023 Prep’s are invited to attend. Friday 18th November- Starry Starry Night |
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Week 8 |
Monday 21st November Awards Night-5:45pm Tuesday 22nd November End of Year Mass 9am Thursday 24th November- Year 6 Graduation Dinner Friday 25th November- Farewell Assembly/ Guard of Honour |
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Last day of school Friday 25th November |
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Dear Parents and Guardians,
Welcome to Week4. The weeks are certainly flying by and the students are working extremely hard to complete all their tasks. This week In PB4L we focused on Being Respectful – Everybody Plays at St. Joseph’s.
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
This Semester in SEL in the Seconds Steps Program we will be focusing on Problem Solving. These lessons will continue throughout the Year for Prep to Year 6.
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 at 1.45pm followed by Second Step lessons.
Visitors
This week the Rachel Mc Lean from the RE Team is visiting us again in Weipa. Rachel will be providing her service to St. Joseph's School from Tuesday 25th October – Friday 29h October. We also have Charles Di Bella - CES I.T Consultant from Catholic Education is visiting this week.
Next week Tosca Grainger - Dee our School Counsellor will be visiting us again in Weipa providing her service to St. Joseph's School from Monday 31st October – Friday 4th November.
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.
Prep students have delighted in counting forwards and backwards, finding one more and one less, joining groups together, identifying numbers, words and quantities as well as exploring groups of equal or unequal numbers in our Maths curriculum this fortnight.
In science we have been investigating how things move – in particular how things roll, slide, spin and bounce and how the properties of an object affects how it moves. This week we got to describe and discuss how objects move down a ramp. There were lots of hands-on learning using different size balls and recording observations just like real scientists!
The most fun and learning has been during our English narrative retell of Wombat Stew by Marcia K Vaughan. In the story, a dingo is intent on making wombat stew and receives cooking suggestions from the other animals, unaware that they are protecting their fellow creature. Everyone really enjoyed using the Australian animal puppets to retell the events and adding ingredients to the wombat stew! They really loved when poor dingo tastes the stew and thinks he has been poisoned!
Welcome to week 4!
Year One have been busy bees this week learning all about measuring. We have been learning about measuring using informal units and have enjoyed experimenting with measurement using blocks, pencils, paperclips and other objects too.
In English, we have been learning all about different types of poetry and have been putting our ‘acrostic’ and ‘cinquain’ poem writing skills to the test. Lots of creative ideas being shared and used to write many interesting poems. In HASS, we have been exploring our environment and ways we can care for it, and in Science, learning all about animals and their features and habitats. Technologies this term is all about data and how we can collect and display data using different digital programs safely. Religion has seen us learning all about Mary and while we have loved this unit, we are now looking forward to moving onto learning all about the Nativity as we gear up for the festive season.
It has been such a busy time of learning this year in Year One but we sure have had fun along the way too. We look forward to the exciting and fun filled remaining weeks of this school year.
Many thanks,
Year One.
Year 2 have been busy writing persuasive texts this week. They have been using language of opinion to persuade people to think or do something. Some of the topics have been
- The swimming carnival is better than the Athletics Carnival
- Healthy food is better than junk food.
Have a look at some of their reasons to justify their opinion. Keep up the great work Year 2.
Schools around the world – Year 3
In year 3 we have recently been investigating what schooling is like in other countries for our Geography Project.
We have investigated:
- Class Size
- Schooling Hours
- School Uniforms
- Most popular modes of transport to school
- What is an average school lunch.
We have also made comparisons to similar topics in our school.
Next week we investigate what types of games and activities that students do at lunch time. We are also looking at what are common weekend activities for school age students. Here are some of our projects so far… We have almost finished and the students are getting excited to bring their projects home and share with their families.
Hello families and friends of Year 4,
We are full steam ahead in Year 4 and everyone has been doing some fantastic work! In English students have been comparing informative and imaginative texts. We read various texts that we found in our library and completed a comprehensive book review for each one. We looked at the structure, language features, settings, characters and how the author engages the reader.
In maths we have cover a few different topics, including measurement, maps, time and money. The students have been working their own small shop and calculating how much money to spend and how much change to give. Each day there are small challenges, for example who can buy the most amount of times for the smallest amount of money.
Over the next 4 weeks, Year 4 will have the pleasure of welcoming Miss Klae Kent to our room. Miss Kent is becoming a teacher and will complete her placement with us. We are very excited to get to know her and do all the exciting end of year activities together.
Gentle reminders:
- PE, Health, Music – Friday
- Art – Tuesday
- AUSLAN – Thursday
- Library returning and borrowing is Friday
- Assembly will return to 8:45am from week 4
- Homework given Monday and returned Friday
These past two weeks have been super busy with our Year 6 students attending transition sessions for High School at WCC and our Year 5 students participating in their leadership retreat and sleepover. Everyone showed great leadership and respect during these sessions and we know that next year will be the beginning of more amazing things at St Josephs.
All students who came to the swimming carnival swam with grit and pride for their team. Congrats to Pine on taking out the win but also congrats to our Age Champions and Runner Ups- Isabella Backhouse, Isabella Markham, Faith Chandler, Louis Argent, Oscar Argent, Levi Payne and Tre Bobongie.
In Maths students have been learning about angles and have learnt how to calculate and measure the missing angles in shapes. All students have gained a better understanding of these concepts. Next week we will be focusing on our order of operations with the Year 6 students and capactity with the Year 5’s.
Our writing lessons are coming along with the Year 6 students creating their own song. It has been challenging but it will be rewarding once it is completed. Year 5’s are gaining a better understanding of procedural texts and the word choices that can use when writing one. The focus has been around ensuring there isn’t too much repetition and use of adverbs so the reader knows how to perform the action.
Days/dates to remember:
Wednesdays will be PE day so wear sports uniform on this day.
Starry Starry Night- Friday 18th November
Awards Night- Monday 21st November
Year 6 End of Year Pool Day- Thursday 24th November
Year 6 Graduation Dinner- Thursday 24th November (please pay at the office)
Final Day of Term- Friday 25th November
Reminder
FUTSAL at the WASP - Tuesday 1st November 4-6pm
THE ARTS UPDATE
Over the last 2 weeks, students have been finalising and presenting their “focus pieces” in Yr 2-6. I have seen such a growth in confidence from so many due to the drama activities they have engaged in. So encouraging to see effort and development from every student!
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SLH delivered very impressive slideshows, using their personally designed “avatars” to show how their avatar demonstrates the 4 R’s in a particular setting. The settings ranged from fishing to the playground, to classrooms, to general respect for others. The respect each student showed for others during presentations was outstanding and is to be complemented. |
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Yr 4 have presented some of their “Fractured Fairy tale” slideshows. They are using props, voices and some dramatic effects to make these come to life. Some comedians in this class! |
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Yr 3 read out and displayed their “WEIPA” slogan to the class. Some very informative and encouraging adverts to get people to come to Weipa for a visit. We are moving onto different effects of media arts in the next few weeks. |
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Yr 2 completed their “Family” piece and should be proud of their efforts. We will be moving onto building their media skills in the next few weeks. |
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Yr 1 have completed their “Emotions Wheel” task and learnt about regulating their behaviour and different choices they can make. We did a fun activity about choosing different options for when you are sad…….angry………scared……… Really great feedback from the students. We are moving into roleplaying over the next few weeks. The focus story this week was The Three Little Pigs, next week we will be choosing a character and demonstrating dramatic effects to make them come to life. |
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PREP enjoyed retelling and acting out a character from “The Three Little Pigs”. They described and drew about different emotions these characters felt. They certainly love stories! |
