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.

Catholic Education Week – Communities of Faith, Hope and Love. 

We have had a successful Catholic Education Week with the highlights being the Dance Performances and community gathering on Thursday evening and our Catholic Education Week Liturgy on Friday. My observations in my time in Weipa, is that you are certainly a community of faith, hope and love!  

We are often challenged as Catholic communities to be stewards of a sustainable future, to celebrate God’s creation and to commit to protect and sustain it. In my role as Principal, I have so much faith in the future because of the qualities I witness in the students I see daily. I see faith in their eyes, love in their touch and hope in their attitude. I believe in children: the fragile dreams of yesterday, life’s radiant reality today, and vibrant substance of tomorrow. I see children at work trying to make this world a better place for everyone – wonderful stewards! 

I did want to address some information regarding funding that parents may not be aware of.  

Catholic schools have been providing a quality education for Australian children for over 190 years. There are 1800 Catholic schools in Australia, with over 750,000 students (312 schools and 160,000 students in Queensland). Roughly one in five students in Australia are educated in a Catholic school. 

However, when all forms of government funding are considered (that is, both Federal and State), Catholic school students receive substantially less funding per student than government school students. 

This means parents and parishes have to contribute more through fees and levies despite Catholic schools striving to keep fees low so that they remain accessible to all children. Even when these contributions are taken into account, on average, Catholic schools operate at about 85% of the resourcing level of government schools. 

So, when someone says that Catholic schools get more government funding than public schools, this is transparently wrong and should be challenged. 

New Playground Update 

We are just waiting on the soft edging to be installed and for the playground to be certified for use by students. We are almost there! We hope to have those actions done in the next couple of weeks (the certifier has to come from Cairns) and then ‘it’s all systems go!’ 

P and F Update 

At the meeting this week the decision was made to canvas other communities of about the size of Weipa to see what methods they use to engage parent voice and connection. It may be that the current once per month at 7pm meeting is not the optimal method. Once we have collated that information, we will communicate the results to parents and seek feedback. 

Head Lice 

All schools experience outbreaks of head lice at time to time. It has nothing to do with whether the hair is clean or not. It is more connected to weather and the current warm, moist conditions aren’t helping. We currently have a number of cases in the community. We would appreciate if all families could regularly check student hair and treat as required. Students presenting at school with head lice will be sent home for treatment as per Queensland Health guidelines as they are quite contagious.  

Parent Survey 

A reminder that the survey closes on August 4 (end of next week). Currently our survey completion rate is quite low and it would be a shame for parents not to take this opportunity to provide feedback regarding both the school and the system processes. The link for the survey was sent to individual parent email addresses. 

Dear Parents and Guardians,    

Welcome to Week 3 and what a wonderful week it has been celebrating Catholic Education Week and our annual School Dance on Thursday night. It was so wonderful to see all the students smiling and enjoying their dance productions that they have been working on and practising over the last term. 

Visitors  

This Term we welcome back Ms Heather Alison - our School Counsellor who is visiting us again in Weipa. Heather will be providing her service to St. Joseph's School from Monday 24th July – Friday 28th July 2023. 

And Week 5 we also have Lorraine Carroll - Speech Language Pathologist from Cairns Catholic Education visiting for a few days and supporting teachers and students.  

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. 

 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. 

 The children at St. Joseph’s Parish School Weipa have been invited to take part in a survey about student wellbeing and mental health from the between 31/07/2023 and Friday 18/08/2023 The survey will be completed online during school hours and contains between 25-57 questions (depending on the age of your child) and will take 10- 15 minutes to complete.  

 This annual survey is being issued to all students in the Diocese of Cairns by the Student Wellbeing and Diversity directorate of Catholic Education Services. The survey aims to gather student opinions about aspects of the school that relate to supporting student wellbeing and mental health.   

 What is the purpose of the survey? The survey will provide schools with student opinions on what the school is doing well and what they can improve to better promote and support student wellbeing and mental health. Long term this survey may be used to track student wellbeing and mental health over a period of time.  

Kind regards, 

Melanie Turner. 

Welcome to week 3! St Joseph’s is well into what is one of the busiest terms for curriculum and learning. I hope everyone enjoyed the school dance and were impressed by the students’ talents and hard work from The Arts curriculum last term. A big thank you to our teachers who taught great units and put in lots of time to bring the dance together for all to enjoy. 

As we journey further into this term, we are approaching the time in the year where Health curriculum will become a topic of conversation particularly in weeks 6 – 9 students in years Prep – 4 will be participating in the Daniel Morcombe Relationships Education program. Students in years 5 – 6 will be participating in the ‘Real Talk’ Relationships Education program. These programs have been mandated by CES and have been quality assured to ensure that students participate in a safe environment where all feel supported. Please be assured that as teachers teach this sensitive curriculum – they will communicate topics discussed via a SeeSaw postcard. These postcards give details of the lesson taught so parents are able to support students with further discussion if required. Parents would have also received an email this week with information attached for the groups of P-2, 3-4 and 5-6. In the attachments, parents are provided with a brief overview of topics discussed in class and websites to access for more information. Parents that have students of varying ages are to click on the relevant year level’s information as topics do vary according to age. 

If you have any enquires, please feel free to contact Acting Leader of Learning and Teaching on tbarber1@cns.catholic.edu.au or visit www.realtalkeducation.org. 

Parents of students that are part of the year 5/6 Senior Learning HUB are encouraged to attend the zoom session regarding the ‘Real Talk’ program on;  

Tuesday the 2nd of August, 7:30-8:30 pm. 

Zoom link: https://cnscatholic.zoom.us/j/69588077338 

Congratulations to this weeks award winners!!

This week for MTSSE we focused on 'Playground Expectations'.