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.

Remembrance Day Liturgy 

This morning the school joined together to pause in silence to remember and pray for those who have fought and passed in the war to protect our beautiful land. Remembrance Day is held on the 11th November at the eleventh hour. This is a day we pray for peace. We know that war brings sadness to all. We also prayed for those in our world who are affected by war at this time. 

We were joined by Major Theo Hadgis, Officer Commanding Bravo Company, 51st Battalion, Far North Queensland Regiment. Who shared stories about what life would have been like for those in war. We always enjoy Major Theo visiting our school and sharing his knowledge and stories, we thank him for visiting us.  

Tomorrow Weipa RSL Sub Branch will be holding a Remembrance Day Service at Weipa Cenotaph Memorial Square. Wreaths will be available for any organisations or individuals to lay during the service. All community members are welcome at attend, please arrive at 10:45am.  

On behalf of the staff, I would like to congratulate Ms Katherine Porter on her new appointment as Principal of St Joseph’s in 2024. Kath has been Acting Principal for Term 4 and has already established great relationships with the staff and students. We are all looking forward to the future opportunities and growth 2024 will bring for our school community as we work alongside our new Principal.  

If you haven't had the chance to meet Kath , please introduce yourself at one of our upcoming events or at pick up. 

It’s been another busy and exciting week in Prep!  

We’ve been consolidating our learning for the term and finishing off final assessments and boy are we proud of how far we have come. We’ve also been excitedly preparing for our end of year performance practising our Nativity play that we will be presenting at Starry Starry Night.  

We have loved the opportunity to participate in more hands on learning experiences this week. Lots of fun games in our reading groups time practising our reading and writing, experimenting with toys and looking at the different ways they move, and playing in the water trough exploring capacity and volume.  

As the weather heats up, we ask that you help us remember to pack our hats and water bottles each day. We will also hand in our books and homework for the last time this week.  

Thanks for another amazing term and we can’t wait to celebrate through the upcoming exciting events with you all.  

Many thanks as always, 

Prep.

Dear Parents and Guardians,  

Welcome to Week 6 Term 4. The students have been working extremely hard completing assessments and beginning to practice for the end of year celebrations.  There are only 2 more weeks of school to go and many celebrations on the horizon, such as: 

• Starry Starry Night on Thursday the 16th of November 2023 at 6pm. Children in Year 1 are invited to wear clothing that are the Christmas colours - white, red and/or green.

• We also have our Cent Auction taking place in the evening. Year 1 are currently collecting items to auction off a hamper filled with games and toys. We kindly ask that students donate a toy/game to make up the hamper. A big thank you to those families who have already donated an item.

• End of Year Mass Monday, 20th November 2023 9:00am St Joseph’s Parish Church. We will be farewelling Mrs Megan Pearce, Graduating Class of 2023 and staff and students who are leaving.

• Awards Night Wednesday 22nd November 6pm Storm Shelter- if you would like to nominate your child for a Service and Citizenship Award please complete the nomination form sent by Michelle Gear or located in the School Office.  

 English 

In English the students have been working on composing poems to entertain the reader. They have been exploring haiku, limerick and shape poems. This week they had free choice over their shape poem and used descriptive language to describe a place or object. They have been superstar writer, making sure they use capital letters, full stops and attempt to spell words independently. We also worked through the draft, editing and publishing process to then share the final product with classes around the school.  

Science 

In Year 1 we have been identifying living or non-living and using the correct terminology including referring to the criteria of what makes something living or non-living. The students were able to correctly label various features of an animal and identify the purpose of the different features. 

HASS

The last fortnight the students have been looking at what natural, built and constructed features are and why it is important to protect these places. The students have also been learning about Uluru or The Great Barrier and why it is important to care for these places. 

Just a gentle reminder that: 

• All Library books and home readers need to be returned before the school holidays 
• Next week will be the last week of Homework 
• Mrs Gear teaching - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (am) 
• Mrs Turner teaching - Wednesday (pm), Thursday, Friday 

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.   

Dear Families and Caregivers of Year Two, 

It has been a busy few weeks here in Year 2 with students busy consolidating their learning and completing end of year assessments. We are super proud of the resilience students have shown when completing their assessments and final tests for the year. 

In Maths we have been learning about money and how to represent different amounts of money. Students are using multiplication and doubling strategies to help solve money problems. We have also been graphing our data and interpreting the results. 

In reading this term we have continued working on building fluency and comprehension. Students read a range of texts from fiction and non-fiction and are also exposed to multiple forms of texts including stories, information reports, recipes, poems and comic strips.  

On Friday, Year 2 led the Remembrance Day Liturgy beautifully. In the lead up to the Liturgy, students learnt about the importance of Remembrance Day, engaged in some songs and participated in some poppy and soldier art. 

This term we have also been preparing for our end of year Starry Starry Night concert (happening next week!) Year 2 have been practising our Christmas songs each day and we are super excited to share with you our performance on the night! Just a reminder students will need a Christmas hat and sunglasses for the performance and are invited to wear Christmas coloured clothing. We are very grateful to all the families who have donated to the cent raffle being held on the night. A reminder: 

2A – Homewares 

2B – Gardening and Pets 

Kind Regards, 

Mrs Tapper, Mrs Barber and Mrs Hamilton, 

Year 2 Team. 

Hello families of Year 3, 

This week the students have been busy completing their assessment and learning new and exciting things. In English we have written our final poem on our computers and designed a background to suit. The students will then present their poems to the class using emotive language.  

In maths the students have looked at designing a miniature space, for example a classroom and house. The students used grid paper to represent a birds-eye view of the plan. We then moved on to data and collecting or representing different data sets using tally marks, graphs and tables.  

Gentle reminders heading into the final 2 weeks: 

• Homework given Monday and returned Friday 
• Library Friday 
• PE Friday 
• Starry Starry Night 16th November from 6pm 
• Cent Auction – year 3 are to donate Christmas items 
• End of Year Mass – Monday Week 8 

These past two weeks Year 4 have been super busy with finishing off assessments and getting ready for our Starry Starry Night item. We have continued to explore creation stories in Religion, mass conversions in Maths, text analysis in English, healthy lifestyle choices in Health, plus so much more.  

The growth in students learning is always enjoyable at this time of the year and all that hard work is paying off. The Year 4’s are definitely ready to step into Year 5. I will miss seeing their smiling faces and adventurous stories each day.  

We still have many events that will take place before the end of term.  End of Year Mass, Awards Night, Starry Starry Night and our end of year goodbyes to our Year 6 students.  

If you see any library books at home, can you please send them in as we begin our end of year tidy up.  

Hi families, 

How exciting, two weeks left until Year 6 graduate primary school and until Year 5 step up to officially be the leaders of the school. 

It has been a busy couple of weeks completing final assessments and students have been working hard. As a class we have completed some fun experiments too, involving balloons in freezers and chocolate melting too. 

The school "Starry Starry Night" will be on soon, Thursday the 16th of November. Students have been given their song and now it's up to them to practice for our performance. It should be great! 

Thank you to those families who have donated to our class "Cent Auction", themed camping and fishing, it would be great to get some more donations into our basket before the night.  

Happy Week 7, 

The Senior Learning Hub.