St Joseph's Parish School Weipa eNewsletter

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.

Please continue to keep Megan and her parents in your prayers.

Term 3 resumes Monday 10th July 2023, we hope you all have a lovely break.

Welcome to week 10 and our final week for the term.

What a wonderful term it has been! Some changes along the way, saying hello to new friends and goodbye to old friends but we’ve had a great adventure as we’ve gone along.

This week has been filled with lots of consolidation activities practising all the new skills and applying our knowledge through a range of different activities. We also got to take part in our NAIDOC celebrations morning and enjoyed a visit from Miss Sheridan who taught us songs and stories from her culture. We loved the activities that were on offer which included puzzles, symbol creating with playdough, colouring, weaving and necklace making.

We hope you all have a restful break and get to spend some family time doing the things you enjoy.

Look forward to seeing you all again for Term 3,

Mrs Backhouse and Miss Rachael.

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to the Year 1 Newsletter and what an amazing 2 weeks we have shared together and the children have worked really hard during this time with lessons and the end of Term Assessment. We were very excited to celebrate NAIDOC this week and have been busy practicing ball games in preparation for the Athletics Carnival.

This week we welcomed back Ms. Lillian Miller - Consultant First Nations Education from Cairns Catholic Education to our School. Lillian spent some time in the year teaching us all about this year's theme “For Our Elders”, thank you for visiting Year 1.

We began NAIDOC Week with a Smoking Ceremony where we assembled before walking out through the smoke and to the Church to celebrate a whole School Mass with our School Community and Father Dariusz. What a wonderful celebration it was.

On Tuesday, the Kindy/ Prep/ Year 1 and Year 5 students completed NAIDOC activities on the Basketball Court and on Thursday we participated in the 2023 Athletics Carnival and then the Prep to Year 2 students returned to school to end off a fabulous day with Water Play.

On Friday the children presented their Assembly item to the whole school community. They did such a beautiful job reading and singing. We shared information about the different ways to pray. We have been saying a prayer in the morning, afternoon and praying before meals. One of our favourite ways to pray is through song. We shared one of our favourite songs “This Little Light of Mine”.

This week we also started the process of moving to the old Prep A classroom and are very excited to start Term 3 in our new Year 1 Classroom. Parents you are always welcome to come and see our new learning space.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very relaxing holiday with their family and friends and we look forward to seeing you all in Term 3.   

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.

Wow! We can’t believe we are halfway through the year already!

This week has been a busy one! On Thursday we participated in our Athletics Carnival at Andoom Oval. A big thank-you to our parent helpers and those who came to watch and cheer us on. Year 2 were also lucky enough to have some water play in the afternoon when we returned. On Wednesday we participated in ball games on the basketball court and all displayed great sportsmanship. We spent a couple of afternoons practising our ball skills and even had races against the Year 1’s to make sure we were prepared!

As part of our Second Step and Health lessons, Year 2 have been learning about empathy and compassion. We created some collaborative posters to display in our classroom and refer to.

On Tuesday, Year 2 and 3 participated in an excursion to the Cultural Centre. We completed a booklet and learnt all about the communities around Weipa, how bauxite is formed, and the different animals found in the Western Cape. We listened to First Nation Stories on the grass outside of the Cultural Centre.

As part of our NAIDOC Week celebrations, we listened to the story “How the bird got their colours” and created some scratch artwork. Aren’t they amazing little artists!

Wishing you all a safe, enjoyable, restful and relaxing holidays! Looking forward to seeing you all again for Term 3.

Kind Regards,

Year 2 Team,

Mrs Tiffany Barber and Mrs Tash Tapper

Hello families and friends of Year 3,

Thank you for such a great term. The students have demonstrated growth across various areas of the Australian Curriculum. Year 3 did a fantastic job on the excursion to the cultural centre of Tuesday. It was wonderful to hear firsthand how some of nature and the environment can be used in different ways, such as medicine.

During our writing lessons this week, the students have looked at adverbs and adjectives, and finding these within sentences and writing our own. It is great to see multiple adverbs and adjectives added to a sentence to enhance the meaning.

Our athletics carnival yesterday was a great success, thank you to all our parent helpers. The students showed great sportsmanship as they cheered on their peers and teammates.

Next term there will be a shuffle with some of our specialist teachers and lessons. Keep an eye out for any notices over the holidays leading up to the first day of school.

Wishing you and all your family a safe school holiday. See you for term 3!

Kind Regards,

Emily

What a fantastic finish to our school term. With NAIDOC week celebrations the students learnt a little more about the First Nation people of Australia. We started our week off with our school mass and smoking ceremony conducted by Sheridan Doyle our external consultant. Students got to experience an on country excursion where they listened deeply to some local stories about the area and created shell necklaces or keyrings. The students loved being out and about and showed great respect for the land we were experiencing. Our Athletics Carnival was a hit with many students achieving success. Well done to each and every one of them for putting in their best efforts. There will definitely be some tired students who will be thankful for a well deserved break. Next term we have many wonderful opportunities for our students to continue their academic, emotional and social growth. One of these is our school dance. We are in preparation mode, and we can’t wait to show the school community our dance.

Hi families!

The Senior Learning Hub has had an amazing Semester as a community working together to achieve success in their learning.

We’ve explored the world around us, through varying countries and their culture and presented a video. Year 5 and 6 explored the variety of animals living in Weipa and their specifications creating our own new animals to live in our ever-changing environment. Recently, we have been exploring Science and the legacy that many scientists and inventor are leaving for us today.

What an amazing and jam-packed Semester, we can’t wait for the next one.

Miss. McLeish and Mr. Harrington.