We respectfully acknowledge the past and present traditional owners of this land on which we are meeting – the Algnith people. We also acknowledge the contributions of First Nations peoples to the education of all children and people in our country Australia, in which we all live and share together.

Dear Families and friends of St Joseph’s.

As we end week 6 it is hard to believe that we are already past the halfway point in Term Two. Students are busy completing schoolwork and teachers are busy getting prepared to write report cards, ready to be sent out in week 10.

Last week I travelled to Cairns for Principal meetings and then participated in the Senior Leadership Retreat at Port Douglas. This has been an excellent opportunity to reflect on the Catholic School difference. Being distinctively a Catholic school boils down to how we treat people and each other. The mission of Catholic Education is that “Being created in the image and likeness of God” which accords everyone an equal and inherent dignity. We believe in an innate original goodness and a universally shared dignity. This belief shapes a hope-filled and life-giving outlook on life for self, others and the created world. 

Our School community is committed to providing a culturally safe environment where all children belong and an experience respect, justice, equity, and dignity. At our Reconciliation Liturgy today, we gathered to unite our hearts with First Nations communities as we recognised and reflected on the wrongs that have been done in the past and take actions towards healing for the future.

Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and importantly as a nation. The theme for this year’s Reconciliation week is “Be a voice for Generations”. Reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all of us so we can move forward, creating a nation strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider Australian community and First Nations peoples.
Staffing Update - Congratulations to Mrs Amanda O’Brien and her husband Ben! Baby Cooper O’Brien arrived in the early hours of Thursday morning. Maggie is excited to have a little brother. We look forward to meeting Cooper in the weeks to come.

Next week we are excited to welcome our new teacher Mrs Julie Dore. After many years of teaching in Cairns, Julie and her two children are moving to Weipa to join her husband who is working here. Julie will be working across all classes as internal relief and noncontact teacher. I’m sure Julie and her family will feel welcomed and part of the school community in no time.

Playground After many months of patiently waiting for our new playground to go in, I’m pleased to report that it is finally about to happen within the next few weeks. All going well, earth works and installation is due to begin at some point next week.

Health & Wellbeing - As we head into week 7, we have noticed an increase in the number of illnesses among our students and staff. While we do our best to maintain a healthy and clean environment within the school, it is important that we work together to prevent the spread of sickness.

Here are some tips to help keep your child healthy:

1. Encourage frequent hand washing: Washing hands regularly with soap and warm water is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs.
2. Cover coughs and sneezes: Teach your child to cover their mouth and nose with a tissue or their elbow when they cough or sneeze.
3. Stay home when sick: If your child is feeling unwell, it is important that they stay at home to prevent spreading their illness to others.
4. Stay up to date on vaccinations: Vaccinations are an important part of keeping your child healthy and preventing the spread of illness.

We also ask that you keep us informed of any illness your child may be experiencing, as this helps us to monitor and prevent the spread of illnesses within the school. If your child is experiencing symptoms such as fever, vomiting, or diarrhea, please keep them at home until they are feeling better.

The QLD Health Time Out poster states any child who has vomited once must stay home for a minimum of 24 hours, more than once 48 hours after their last vomit/visit to the toilet. Please see the Time Out poster below for further information. Thank you for your cooperation in keeping our school community healthy and safe.

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

God Bless,

Megan

Thank you, Kim Woods! 

Our prayers were answered, and we were sent an angel. Kim Woods has been in our Tuckshop for the past three weeks providing food service for our community. The lasagna was a hit and you went above and beyond. We can’t thank you enough Kim, you will be missed.  

Please be aware there will be no Tuckshop Service next week.

This week the focus for MTSSE was to Be Respectful – keeping our hands and feet to ourselves and respectful use of school’s property/equipment. This focus for Week 6 is important as everyone has a right to feel safe at school. This means using play equipment correctly, using our words to solve problems and finding a calm, quiet place when students need to regulate their emotions. Teachers handed out extra Joey’s tokens to students who were demonstrating this behaviour.  

What wonderful weeks of learning we have had for weeks five and six. Can you believe we are halfway through the term already?  

We had a great time coming together as a school for National Simultaneous Storytime to read the story ‘The Speedy Sloth’. There were over 2 million people joining a livestream together throughout the whole of Australia which we thought was pretty amazing.  

In Religion we have been learning all about the way that Jesus lived as a boy and how this compares to our lives now. We had a great time venturing out to the oval to collect sticks, rocks and leaves to make toys that we think Jesus would’ve played with. On our own, we came up with the ideas of marbles out of rocks, musical instruments and drawing tools out of sticks and tree nuts we found on the ground to be used as bouncy balls. We were surprised to learn Jesus didn’t get to buy toys from Target and Kmart like we can and loved coming up with our own toy ideas.  

In English we have been practising new sounds to help us with our writing and reading and some new tricky words too. In Maths we have been learning all about duration and time. In Technologies, we’ve been learning about the design process of planning and creating and are excited to be planning our own aquatic transport vehicles.  

We’ve had a fabulous fortnight of learning and can’t wait to share more with you next fortnight.  

Many thanks,  

The Prep Team.  

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to the Year 1 Newsletter and what an amazing 2 weeks we have had ‘Bringing Faith and Learning to Life’.

This morning we presented the year 1 Liturgy to the school community at Assembly. They did such a beautiful job reading, singing and re-enacting the Gospel reading. We shared information about the upcoming Reconciliation Week and how we as a school can move towards Reconciliation.

On Wednesday we celebrated National Simultaneous Storytime. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by Australians is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, homes and children's facilities all over the country and the world! This year the book for National Simultaneous Storytime 2023 is ‘The Speedy Sloth’.

Health

Over the past few weeks we have been learning to explain why health information about food and nutrition is important for making healthy choices. As part of the unit we are looking at what kinds of foods we have in our lunchboxes and investigating what and why we eat these foods and where do they come from? 

We are also learning how we can choose foods that will support our health and can we believe what the picture on the box tells us? All of these are important questions for making healthy food choices.

Maths

In Maths, we have been looking at the months of the year and comparing the number of days in months of the year. We have been using songs and our hands to help us remember the number of days. We also spent time creating a tally chart for the months of the year the students were born. Which month do you think was the most popular?

AFL

There is 1 more week of AFL lessons with Matt Mellahn – Development Coordinator, from AFL Cape York on Thursday 1st June, 2023. Thank you, Matt, Year 1 have thoroughly enjoyed participating in the 5 Week Course of AFL this Term.

Lunch with the Teacher

One of the incentivies we have in Year 1 for positive behaviour is to have lunch with the teacher. Last week we had the class join the teachers to eat in the classroom. We had a wonderful time singing, dancing and talking about our day. Year 1 have been working so hard and deserve to be celebrated! 

Reminders

Just a gentle reminder that:

• Homework is due in every Tuesday
• Library Books are due back on Wednesday
• E. Sports Uniform is worn on Thursday
• Assembly is held on Friday Morning

If you have any questions please feel free to make contact with us at  a convenient time that suits.

Our email addresses are:

Michelle Gear mgear@cns.catholic.edu.au

Melanie Turner mturner@cns.catholic.edu.au

Kind regards,

Michelle Gear and Melanie Turner.

Welcome to the end of Week 6 Families! 

Year Two have been busy across all learning areas as we begin and prepare for our assessments. It was wonderful to see so many of us dressed in blue last Friday for Day for Dolly and to help spread the important message. 

In Technology, students teamed up across both classes and worked amazingly in their groups to create a conveyor belt. They were allowed to be as creative as they liked and I loved how some groups delegated roles among themselves, showing off their group work skills. We then uploaded our videos to SeeSaw, showing how our conveyor belt moved some Lego pieces.  

In Literacy, students have been innovating different texts such as The Gruffalo and The Very Lazy Ladybird. They have really let their creativity shine when coming up with their own versions of the story whilst following the writing success criteria to be successful authors. 

In Maths, students have been using Maths Warm-Up games to warm their brains up before lessons or to consolidate their knowledge. They have been using calendars and clocks to plan an itinerary for the Weipa Fishing Classic and their knowledge of fractions to divide food to share with their family at the event. 

Just a few gentle reminders: 

-2A Library and Homework day is WEDNESDAY 

-2B Library and Homework day is THURSDAY 

-Please ensure readers and library books are returned on these days. 

Kind Regards, 

Year 2 Team, 

Mrs Tiffany Barber and Mrs Tash Tapper 

Hello families and friends on Year 3, 

Thank you to everyone who made donations to our Do It for Dolly fundraiser! 

Over the past few weeks, the students have been engaged in narrative story writing! We have planned out our stories, making sure we have our orientation, complication, and resolution. We are now in the process of typing up our first drafts and adding in all different adjectives and characteristics to make the stories more entertaining! 

In Maths, the students have been looking at slides, flips and turns. We investigated ½, ¼ and ¾ turns, as well as clockwise and anti-clockwise transformations. Next week, we will explore the concept of fractions, and representing halves, quarters and eighths.  

Thank you to those families who have returned any library books that are outstanding. If you do have nay books at home with the St Joseph's barcode, could they please be returned next week.  

Gentle reminders as we move towards the end of term: 

• PE is Thursday 
• Music is Wednesday 
• Spanish is Friday 

• Homework is given Monday and to be returned Friday. Every child receives this on Monday afternoon. 
• Please remember the school uniform policy, including correct shoes and hair wear – if there are any questions, please do not hesitate to ask 

Wishing you all a lovely, relaxing weekend! 

Emily 

Hi Families,

These past two weeks in Year 4 have flown by. We have had students completing wonderful representations of The Trinity for our end of unit assessment piece. Lots of artistic flair has been added and I am thankful that we changed our assessment to allow students to show a great strength of theirs in a subject other than art. This week we also started to learn about our church and how each person who works in the church has a different role.  

During Maths we have looked at estimating and rounding as well as mass. Students loved getting hands on and even stepping outside the classroom to weigh objects that are familiar to them with a variety of scaled instruments.  

Our information reports are coming along very well with many students nearing completion before week 8 presentations. There will be Google Slide presentations, posters and maybe even a movie to watch. Each of the animal choices is interesting and we are looking forward to learning a little more about each of them in the weeks to come.  

Last week we were lucky enough to support our classmate Ella from afar for Peninsula Cross Country trials that took place in Yungaburra on the Atherton Tablelands. Ella was one of seven students that flew out for the event. It was hot and hard conditions compared to Weipa but Ella did herself, and our class and our school proud. Congratulations Ella.  

Hi Parents and Families, 

In the Senior Learning Hub we have started our new unit on ‘People who change the world’. We’ve been exploring who has influenced our world through science and technology. Specifically, Thomas Edison, Dr Karl, Nikoli Tesla, Christian Huygens, Benjamin Franklin, Galileo Galeo.  

We are beginning to explore and question light and electricity through science. Students have begun to complete experiments exploring how these physical elements work and interact with the us on a daily basis. Additionally, we have begun to develop insightful questions that will further fuel our investigation and prepare us for our visit from Dr. Karl. We encourage all parents to continue to work on developing insightful questions to ask Dr Karl on the 7th of June when he joins us with a zoom. 

On the 7th of June Students in the Senior Learning hub are invited to bring along a Hawaiian t-shirt to wear when we meet him.  

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