We respectfully acknowledge the past and present traditional owners of this land on which we are meeting – the Alngith 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.

As we arrive at the mid-point of our school year let’s pause and reflect on all that has been achieved this term. From sporting events, Liturgies to celebrate and commemorate, opportunities for our community to come together and opportunities for our students to shine as individuals and groups in whatever endeavours they are passionate about. We say thank you to everyone for a wonderful term and congratulations to all our students who have achieved their personal goals this term.

A huge thank you to the dedicated staff at St Joey’s. You are all amazing people and have our students in your hearts each day as you continue to provide the care and attention to each student every day.

We welcome Sam Allen, who joins us as our new Groundskeeper. We welcome Sam to our staff and will see him around the grounds after the holiday break.

YEAR 3 REVIEW

This year our school was scheduled to undertake a Year 3 Peer Review. The Peer Review Process involves nominating a fellow principal from one of our Diocesan schools to visit and participate in conversations and view documentation linked to our School Effectiveness Framework.

We welcomed Mrs Jacqueline Jackson from St Michaels’, Gordonvale in Week 7 this term to look carefully at how we promote a culture of learning. Our focus was on how we strengthen partnerships with all our families and nurture future community opportunities that collaboratively support all students to engage in a safe and inclusive learning environment by prioritising wellbeing and engagement for students, staff and parents.

The process concluded with a follow up 2-day visit from our Director of School Effectiveness, Melissa Turner, to review the findings and recommend any improvement strategies in readiness for our Year 5 Review in 2026. Both Mrs Jackson and Mrs Turner had lots of positive feedback for our Leadership Team. We look forward to continuing to improve our practices as a school and participating in the external review by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in 2026.

BISHOP ORDINATION

Representatives from all Diocesan Schools and Parishes have been invited to attend the Ordination of the Very Reverend Joe Caddy as the 8^th Bishop of Cairns at the Cairns Cathedral at 6pm on the 15^th August. We plan to live stream the ceremony in our Flexible Learning Space on the night for our school and parish community. We will provide more details as we get closer to the event next term.

PREP ENROLMENT INTERVIEWS

Interviews will be conducted in the first few weeks next term for those parents wanting to enrol their children in Prep for 2025. Please contact the front office if you haven’t already confirmed a timeslot. More information about attendance at Transitioning to Prep Days in Term 4 will be shared next term.

TUCKSHOP

At times we require extra help in the tuckshop for only for a few hours, especially on a Friday. If you are available to lend a hand, could you contact Kathy in the front office with times and days you may be able to assist. A reminder that there will be NO tuckshop on the first day back after the holidays.

OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS CARE

CELC staff visited Weipa last week to set up the OSHC service and go through the required approval processes. They brought with them equipment and resources for the service to operate compliantly with lots of engaging activities.

They have appointed a Nominated Supervisor but need to recruit more Educators to be assured that a consistent, quality service can be provided when they do open. Do you know anyone who can help?

The opening date has been pushed back to a Week 5, Term 3 dependant on staffing.

Any assistance you can give in promoting our Educator roles would be greatly appreciated. Please contact admin@ccelc.catholic.org.au if you would like to know more.

CELC are still confident that they can get to the stage of opening the Weipa service and appreciate your patience and understanding.

SCHOOL BOARD

Thank you to those who have agreed to be on the school board. Our first meeting will be in July when Fr Dariusz visits again. More information will be shared next term. A School Board has a decision-making role and is an advisory group to the Principal.

Wishing everyone a safe and fun holiday.

Kath Porter

Our New Bishop

Our School belongs to the Catholic Education Diocese Cairns (CEDC) and we have been without a bishop for two years, until now! The Pope recently appointed Bishop Joe Caddy as the new Bishop of Cairns. To welcome him to our diocese we sent him a video to introduce ourselves and our wonderful school. We look forward to meeting Bishop Joe in August when he has planned a visit to Weipa!

A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian Church who is in charge of a diocese and empowered to grant holy orders. If you think about it in order of rank, a bishop is ranked higher than a priest.

College Visits

Our Year 5 and 6 students met with staff from Mt St Bernard College, St Monica’s College and St Augustine’s College this term to hear about what their colleges have to offer. It is important for our students and their families to discuss and decide what high school is best for them.

Under 8’s Day

Our Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students joined with Under 8’s from Weipa, Napranum and Mapoon areas to celebrate Under 8’s Day. The theme this year was ‘Connecting to Culture through Play’ and it was wonderful to see around 350 little people enjoying themselves and connecting through play. We have such a great community in Weipa and we had many local organisations join us to make the day possible. Thank you to Western Cape Colleges, Kluthuthu Christian College, C&K, Cape Kids, Pebbles Playgroup, Rio Tinto, Family Health, Cape Occupational Therapy, Hibberd Library, Bravo Company 51^st Battalion, Rural Fire, and Police for joining us on the day. We were also very grateful for the donations of fruit from Woolworths and dental products from Dental Health.   

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea

A shout out to our staff who raised $140 for The Cancer Council hosting a shared morning tea this term.

Reconciliation Week

The theme for Reconciliation Week this year was ‘Now More Than Ever’ and our students embraced this through completing activities and discussions to understand what this theme meant to them. Prep traced and decorated their hands and feet with colours from their various cultural backgrounds to show that ‘We all walk together’. Congratulations to Georgie, Zig and Toby for their ‘Now More Than Ever’ colouring in competition winning entries.  

Mabo Day

Mabo Day was on the 3rd June. It commemorates Mer Island man Eddie Koiki Mabo and his successful efforts to overturn the legal fiction of terra nullius or ‘land belonging to no-one’. The Mabo decision was named after him as he led the fight to change land laws to recognise Indigenous connection and traditional ownership of land in Australia. Year 1 spent time on Mabo Day learning about Eddie Mabo and the work he did to help First Nations people.

Athletics Carnival

Our students once again showed their good sportsmanship and athleticism during our Ball Games and Athletics Carnival this term. We had some spirited interhouse competition during Ball Games where Prep-Year 2 had Over Under Ball and Tunnel Ball, and our Year 3-6 students had these games plus Leader Ball. The Athletics Carnival saw our Prep-Year 2 students compete in a 60m race, a relay and some novelty events. They then went back to school around lunch time where they enjoyed a wet play afternoon.

At the Athletics Carnival our Year 3-6 students competed in many track and field events. The track events included the 800m, 200m, 100m and relay, and the field events included high jump, shot put and long jump. The students ran, jumped and put (yes, it’s a ‘put’ in shotput not a throw) as best they could. It was great to see our 8-year-old students participating in all the track and field events this year as well. We were very proud of all our students for having a go and trying their best!

School Officer Day

We have wonderful school officers at St Joeys and last week on School Officer Day we celebrated them. Thank you to Miss Peta, Miss Rachael, Miss Kim, Miss Lynette, Miss Kathy, Miss Nikki, Mr Jamie and Mr Sam, we appreciate everything you do to help the students, the staff and the school. We would be lost without you!

It has been another busy, productive and fun term. Enjoy your holidays, stay safe and we will see you all back in Term 3!

Mrs  Julie  Dore

Acting Assistant Principal Religious Education (APRE)

Welcome to Week 10 and it has been another very busy few weeks and the children have been working hard during this time with lessons and end of Term 2 Assessment. What an amazing last few weeks we have had with Athletics Carnival, the Weipa Fishing Classic, AFL Crusaders Cup and Cricket. We are looking forward to the holidays and a well-earned rest.

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.

Being the last week of Term 2 to go I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very relaxing holiday and I look forward to seeing you all in Term 3.

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. 

Learning and Teaching 

Thank you to all the community for coming together to celebrate all our events this term. The students and staff worked very hard to put together some fantastic learning experiences. As we are coming into the final week of term, just a reminder that parents will receive report cards this week. Families will receive a paper copy that will be sent home via your child and there will also be a copy on the parent portal.  

What are reporting requirements?  

The Australian Government requires all schools to provide parents with feedback on their child’s academic progress and achievement twice per year using a five-point scale. In prep to year 2, the five-point scale is Support Required, Developing, Sound, High & Very High and for year 3 – 6 is E, D, C, B & A. 

It is important to note that the achievement standard for each year level is set for what students should be achieving by the END of the year and at this point this report card is an update on how they are travelling towards that goal. This means that it is NOT bad to be receiving a SOUND grade for a subject. This means that your child is working right where they should be for this stage of the year. If your child receives a DEVELOPING mark, this does not necessarily mean they are failing, but rather that they are still developing the skills they need to master at this stage and there is room for improvement, as well as working towards the expected achievement standard. 

What is current practice?  

St Joseph’s Parish School provides end of semester reports, using a five-point scale and a general comment.   

We are committed to enhancing the overall reporting experience and providing you with clear and meaningful insights into your child’s academic journey. We appreciate working with you in partnership in your child’s education and will continue to keep you updated on these important developments. Please direct any questions to Tiffany Barber – Leader of Learning and Teaching on tbarber1@cns.catholic.edu.au.  

Congratulations

Congratulations to our students who participated in the Reader’s Cup competitions – Vanessa (y6), Toby (y6), Rowan (y5), Aiza (y5). Their dedication and efforts place St Joseph’s in 8^th place for the competition.

Welcome to Week 10 and our final week of Term 2! We are so proud of how far the Preps have travelled this term and all the learning they have completed. We have enjoyed consolidating our learning the last couple of weeks by demonstrating everything we have learned this term. This has been through our assessments and further being able to put these skills into practice through a range of activities.  

In Maths, we’ve been learning all about time and duration and how this is applicable to our own lives. We can sequence events that happen in a day, talk about the duration of events and also compare the duration of events too. As always, we love learning about number and using this in lots of different ways including equally sharing, partitioning, sequencing, writing, modelling and much more.  

In English, we’ve been putting our writing skills to the test to write a retell of a story. We enjoy listening to the story first, discussing the events and then coming up with a sentence or two to talk about the story. It’s been exciting seeing how far we’ve come in our letters and sounds learning and how we use these when reading and writing. We continue learning our last letters and sounds next term including digraphs (2 letters) and trigraphs (3 letters), as well as our tricky words and using these in a range of different ways.  

During Science, we have loved learning all about the weather this term. We’ve been exploring weather patterns, different types of weather, and how the weather affects our lives. This has provided us with lots of opportunities for hands on experiences and some experiments too which we love. We’ve also enjoyed integrating our weather learning into our Morning Routine where each day we got a turn at being the meteorologist to go out and observe the weather, and come back into the classroom to report to our peers what we found.  

During Technologies, we’ve been learning all about materials and our favourite part was designing a boat. We got to design our boat, make our boat and test how well it could float. This was definitely one of our favourites with Mrs Dore this term. Mrs Dore has also been helping us with our AUSLAN and we are getting tricky by being able to communicate through AUSLAN to share short phrases and words.  

During HASS, we focussed on Geography and looked at different places that are special to us. This included here in Weipa and also all around Australia and the world. We loved looking at maps and satellite images of earth and sharing with the class all about the places that are special to us.  

We concluded our Religion unit where we learnt all about Jesus, who he was and how he lived growing up. It was very interesting being able to compare Jesus’ life to ours and looking at how some things were the same and some things were different.  

HPE was exciting this term as we got to experience new sports – AFL and cricket. Visitors came up from Cairns and taught us the skills to be able to participate in these sports and we loved it. Health saw us learning about the very important topic of Cyber Safety and we enjoyed learning about personal information and how we can keep this information safe.  

One of our favourite units for the term was our Arts unit because we got to learn all about dance. We explored how different cultures experience dance and use dance as part of their important cultural practices. We also got to learn our own dances and then be extra tricky by changing the dance up to incorporate changes in direction, tempo, levels and actions. We all loved moving to the music and it was lots of fun to be able to do this with our friends.  

Exciting events for us this term were Under 8’s Day and the Sports Carnival and we look forward to more exciting events coming up in the new term.  

As usual thank you for your continued support and please don’t hesitate to contact me on kbackhouse@cns.catholic.edu.au or SeeSaw should you wish to discuss anything.  

Have a safe and enjoyable break and see you in the new term.  

Kate Backhouse and Rachael Steele.  

Wow! I can’t believe that it is week 10 already. It has been a wonderful term of learning and being in great routines. I have seen so much growth in all of the students- academically, socially and emotionally. Report cards will be out this week, please remember to make contact if you need to discuss these further.  

In our English lessons we have been practicing our verbs, adjectives and nouns in our sentence writing. Students are beginning to add these independently and are making so much progress with their spelling as well.  

The past few weeks we have learnt about time and time durations as well as continuing to revise number facts. It is always good to keep practicing our days of the week and months of the year. This is something we look at often in class but it is good to keep that practice up. Our practice our skip counting and numbers that come before and after is something else we keep revising. 

In Religion we have been looking at Jesus and his miracles. We have looked at how Jesus turned water into wine, feed the 5000 and healed the sick. Students also looked at what phrases Jesus used when asking his disciples to come with him and spread the good news.  

With only a few days left in the term, please remember to let the office or myself know if you are starting holidays early. I will be away in the first week of next term but will be back on deck Week 2. I hope you all have a restful break and will see you all next term.  

Dear Parents and Carers of Year 2,

We have made it to half way through the year already. We have worked hard and enjoyed many activities throughout the term. Year 2 were lucky enough to attend National Simultaneous Storytime at Kumrunja Centre where we participated in activities, had our faces painted and listened to the Bowerbird story. We also had a visit from James Barber from SES who gave us valuable information about what the SES do and he even brought his truck in for us to look at. In Week 9, Year 2 attended our athletics carnival followed by an afternoon of water play.

In English this term students have been continuing to innovate a text during writing time. We have read many fiction stories and then changed them up to create our own. Students came up with creative ideas to make their stories interesting with a focus on using adjectives. These helped us describe and add details and helped us in creating an interesting beginning. We have also been using picture prompts to plan and create stories, letting our imaginations run wild. In reading students have been working on strategies such as asking questions, inferring and making connections.

In Maths students have been working with measurement and have been working out the capacity of different objects. We ventured to the sandpit to fill containers with sand, ensuring our measuring was equal. We have also been looking at different ways to subtract and have been making fact family connections.

In HASS this term we are learning about Australia and our connections. It has been interring to learn about all the different connections student have across the country. Religion we are learning about the parable of the Sacrament of Penance as well as The Creation Story. In Science students are learning about push, pull forces and applying that to build and create a toy in technology. In PE we have been lucky enough to continue AFL lessons with Matt and Jake. 

We sadly farewelled Ally Nash as her family will move at the end of the term. Ally you will be very missed by us Al!! 

As always, please feel free to contact me via SeeSaw or my e-mail ttapper@cns.catholic.edu.au if you have any questions or concerns,

Kind Regards,

Mrs Tash Tapper.

Dear Parents and Caregivers,  

This term in 3A and 3B, we will be exploring many different topics within the Australian Curriculum. Please see a Curriculum Overview below and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.  

General Information: 

3A 

Physical Education: PE day is Wednesday. 

Homework: Homework will start in week 3 and will go home on Thursday and be returned before or on Wednesday the following week.   

Science (Mrs Peters): Monday. 

HASS (Mrs Hamilton): Friday. 

Art (Mrs Barber): Tuesday 

Technology (Mrs Barber): Thursday. 

Birthdays: you are welcome to bring in cupcakes or icy poles for your child’s birthday to share with their class. We have 13 students in our class however new students may arrive so please check in with me for class numbers. 

3B 

Physical Education: We will be learning AFL this term as well as doing athletics. PE day is Wednesday. 

Homework: Homework will start in week 3 and will go home on Thursday and be returned before or on Wednesday the following week. 

Science (Mrs Peters): Friday. 

HASS (Mrs Hamilton): Monday. 

Art (Mrs Barber): Tuesday. 

Technology (Mrs Barber): Thursday. 

Birthdays: you are welcome to bring in cupcakes or icy poles for your child’s birthday to share with their class. We have 16 students in our class however new students may arrive so please check in with me for class numbers. 

Religion: Students will learn about the life and teaching of Jesus. They will develop an understanding of the cultural contexts in which the Gospels were written and the type of texts used in the New Testament to develop their understanding of the life and teaching of Jesus and the Christian belief that Jesus is the Messiah. 

English: The focus for English this term is narrative writing and building skills to create interesting stories through developing story structure, using verb groups and noun groups to make our stories more interesting, and using appropriate punctuation. As per the Year 3 Speaking and Listening curriculum, students will develop these skills as they practice their control, tone, volume, and pitch when presenting. We will also explore a range of books and build our reading and comprehension skills to further become lifelong readers.  

Mathematics: Across Term 2, students will continue to develop number sense with numbers beyond 10 000 and order five digit numbers. They will continue to develop strategies to add and subtract two and three digit numbers in real world financial contexts and they will develop multiplication and division strategies. Next, the students will identify angles bigger and smaller than a right angle. They will estimate, compare and measure the attributes of objects and events. Finally, towards the end of the term we will represent fractions and their multiples in different ways.  

HASS – History: History this term is all about students investigating local communities and describing how the community of Weipa has changed over time. Students will explore the timeline of how Weipa has become the town it is today. Students will also identify how and why people contribute to their community.  

Physical Sciences: Students will learn about what things produce heat, and how things produce heat. They will learn what materials are good conductors of heat and which are good at insulating against heat. 

The Arts – Dance (Mrs Barber): In The Arts curriculum this term, students will be participating in Dance. Students will use improvisation; design their own dance moves; link and combine movements; perform with expression; respond to different stimuli and create and perform a dance phrase applying their newly developed skills. 

Languages - Spanish: This term students will continue to learn Spanish. Students will be learning different words and phrases in Spanish and communicating these with the online teacher as well as the classroom teacher during a follow up lesson each week.   

Health: In Year 3 Health this term, we will interpret health information to apply strategies to enhance their own and others’ health, safety, relationships and wellbeing. 

Technology (Mrs Barber): This term students continue with Design Technology. In this unit students join fabric and fibre to investigate the suitability of materials, systems, components, tools and equipment to repurpose a piece of clothing of their choice. 

MTSS-E: MTSSE (previously known as PB4L) is the whole school positive behaviour for learning approach to consistent behaviour management and exceptions. 

Homework: Homework will be primarily based around the revision of common core skills in Mathematics and English. To start the year homework will be sent home in a homework book however Laptops will be sent home for specific activities when they are purposeful and assigned to students. Homework will be sent out on Thursday along with library books and be returned on the following Wednesday.  

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the year 3 teachers via email dhamilton@cns.catholic.edu.au or apeters@cns.catholic.edu.au or the school Office.   

Kind Regards,  

Debra Hamilton & Amanda Peters 

Hello Year 4 families!  

What an amazing term in Year 4! We dived into writing and presenting Information Reports! We learnt how to research and write factual sentences! We published and presented our reports and shared them with the class! We are now learning about complex sentences! Just ask us what they are!  

In Maths, we tackled fractions and decimals in term! One of the trickiest concepts in Year 4. We placed fractions and decimals on number lines and discovered the relationship of equivalence between many fractions. 1/2 is the same as 2/4!  

In Science we discovered how forces work in our everyday lives and presented our findings to the class! In Geography, we investigated Sustainability and the importance of it in relation to conserving resources!  

The highlights of this term were definitely our sporting events! AFL, Cricket and the Athletics Carnival were incredible experiences. Everyone showed excellent sportsman ship. 

Rhiannon Bell

Hello Families and Friends of Year 5, 

What a fantastic first semester we have had in Year 5! Thank you to all our parents and volunteers that were able to give their time at our athletics carnival. It was a great day and it wouldn’t have run as smoothly if it weren’t for our volunteers! 

Thank you to the parents and families who attended our Year 5 Camp meeting on Thursday. If you were unable to make it, and have questions please let us know. There is a packing list and information letter, as well as parent slips for permissions. These must be fully understood, and if you have concerns, please contact us.  

Across our English unit, the students drafted, planned, wrote and published various informative texts to give information to an audience. We wrote about different topics, as well as bushfires and floods. We also read and comprehended various texts, including Tashi, The Forbidden Room.  

Within Maths, students have been exploring fractions and data. They have represented fractions using decimals or percentages and collected classroom data. Students justified their classroom data using fractions and represented results using graphs and tables. 

It was fantastic to be able to attend both the AFL Crusader Cup with many schools in the cap last week and this week the Cricket Cup at WCC. It was fantastic to see great sportsmanship and teamwork at these sporting events.  

I wish you all a safe and fun school holidays with your family and I look forward to supporting each other for Term 3! 

Kind Regards, 

Emily  

Yr 6 News 

So much has happened in the last 5 weeks!   

In class everyone has been working really hard on their writing skills to extend and develop their own style, using the language features taught and detailed descriptive language. Our final writing pieces were pretty amazing and now we are drafting them to complete a Yr 6 Fantasy Narrative Book.  

Our Maths focus has been on fractions, decimals and percentages. Connecting each of the three together and plotting them on a number line has been challenging but we worked it out!  Our Essential Assessment pretests have given us lots of discussion points and teaching about concepts we were not sure about.  

In Religion, for our Prophets unit we explored many stories, however “Jonah and the Whale” was our pick. This was a very complicated story and we learnt a lot about what life was like in that time in the Old Testament and that life was in turmoil for many people. We learnt that God is merciful and forgiving, despite Jonah not following the rules. 

Our Spanish conversational skills are really improving and with more confidence, most students are having a go at positional language and speaking in whole sentences and asking questions in Spanish. Great progress. 

Outside the classroom, our highlights have been Athletics Day, Crusader Cup and the Cricket Cup this week. So many personal achievements and progress made in skills and Leadership.  

Everyone is ready for a holiday to refresh and gather strength for Term 3. 

Enjoy holidays all. 

Libby Lange

Good luck Mr Jamie and the under 9 soccer team that are in Townsville this weekend to compete in the 2024 Filippo Mele Memorial Carnival.

AFL Crusaders Cup

Last Friday Year 5 and 6 completed in the AFL Cape York Crusaders Cup.

80+ players from St Joseph’s Parish, Western Cape College, Napranum, Old Mapoon, Aurukun and Lockhart River played in the annual Crusader Cup at the Weipa Cricket Oval.

It was a massive day of AFL in the region to showcase the skills learned in school against other schools and communities.

It was an amazing effort and all the students made their schools and community proud.

Western Cape College went through undefeated to take home the trophy.

Thanks Matt, see you next year!

On Monday the Year 4, 5 and 6 students went across to Western Cape College to participate in the Cricket Cup. From about 10 am we were organised into 6 different teams, I was in the purple team and Conrad was in the blue team. The oval was split into 5 fields and the teachers were our umpires.

On the day we were able to verse 2 different Western Cape College teams and 2 Aurukun teams. Aurukun travelled by bus to join us on the day and we all had a great time seeing kids again after the AFL Crusader cup day. The umpires chose a most valuable player from each team, and they were able to take home a Cricket backpack, sunglasses and a poster. Congratulations to: Kaylee, Rowan, Sione, Ananya, Alex and Rachel.