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Tuesday 5th March - Shrove Tuesday
Wednesday 6th March - Ash Wednesday Liturgy at 11.15am in the Church
Monday 15th March - P & F Meeting at 7 pm in the flexible learning space
Sunday 17th March - St Patrick's Day
It’s hard to believe that we have nearly hit the halfway mark of the term!
This week I attended the first Principal's Leadership Conference for 2019. These events are compulsory for all Principals and occur each term. The theme of our Forum this term was ‘Many Voices: One Spirit. It was an action-packed agenda setting ‘System Efficacy’ as the collective focus for all our schools. We discussed how the various aspects of the School Strategic Plan will be achieved and what actions will result from the plan’s implementation. Over the coming weeks I will share St Joseph’s Strategic Plan with the School Community.
Thank you to those who joined us last Friday afternoon for our 2019 Meet and Greet. It was wonderful to see so many families come in to meet the staff and enjoy the opportunity to meet other families. Thank you to Katie Bowe, our Tuckshop Convenor, for providing such a delicious selection of food.
The evening was a great opportunity to introduce our new Parents and Friends Office Bearers for 2019. I would also like to thank all those who supported the Parents and Friends fundraising throughout 2018 and look forward to the exciting events to be held in 2019. The school’s P&F Association is a positive way to be involved with the school and I would strongly encourage you to come along to a meeting to see the work that they do to support the education of St Joseph’s students. The meetings usually only run for an hour and are light-hearted, enjoyable gatherings.
I have been most impressed by the number of children turning up to our Cross-Country training sessions each Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Our annual carnival will be on Thursday and Friday of week 9. The students are encouraged to wear their team colours for the day. Further information will be given closer to the Carnival.
God Bless.
Megan
Before School Play Area
To ensure there is enough room for play, we have extended the area that children can play in, to include the shaded area at the side of the basketball court.
Soccer at St Joseph’s
Some of our Soccer games in the older grades have become too rough and competitive without the support of an Adult referee. Rather than ban the game our kids enjoy so much, we will trial alternative days and times for years 4/5/6. The roster is displayed in each classroom and on the notice board near the Tuckshop. We will also be ensuring there is a shared understanding of the rules, bibs for players and a soccer space will be mapped out on the oval.
Attendance
Congratulations again on our high levels of attendance over the past few weeks. I am very proud to announce that our school has the second highest attendance of all Catholic Schools in this Diocese so far this term. It’s great that we are second from the top and not second from the bottom as we were last year. Keep up the good effort everyone!
Did you guess what our reward for the class with the highest attendance was?
Prep has the pleasure of looking after our reward fish “Adam Attendance”. He is currently enjoying his time in Prep and I hope he is learning lots about phonological awareness.
Next week we see the beginning of a special time in our Liturgical year with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday which is the beginning of Lent.
Shrove Tuesday/ Pancake Day will be celebrated on Tuesday 5th March during the day. Our Year 6 students with the help of some volunteers will be cooking pancakes and sending around to classes for the children to share and prepare for the Lenten season. If you have a child with allergies could you please let their classroom teacher know so we can make alternative arrangements for them.
Ash Wednesday 6th March – we will be holding a Liturgy in the Church at 11.15 am and invite you all to come and join us as a school community.
What is Lent?
The name ‘Lent’ comes from an old English word meaning ‘to lengthen’. It was used to describe the 6-week period leading to Easter because in the northern hemisphere it coincided with the time when the short winter days were gradually growing longer.
Lent began as a brief period of preparation for those adults who were to be baptised at Easter. Eventually the rest of the Community showed their solidarity with the catechumens by also observing an intense period of prayer and fasting before Easter.
© Liturgy Brisbane
Lent is a time for strengthening our faith, a time to reflect on who we are and where we are going. It is a time of quietness and prayer, a time of penance and meditation, a time to become aware of our strengths and weaknesses.
What is fasting and abstinence?
Traditionally the Catholic practice of fasting meant having only one full meal a day. Smaller quantities of food may be eaten at two other meals but no food should be consumed at any other time during the day and the law of fasting only applied to people from 18 to 59 years old.
Abstinence is the practice of abstaining from the use of certain kinds of food. Everyone aged 14 years and older is bound by the law of abstinence from meat.
The practice of fasting and abstinence aims at leading us to interior conversion by making us more disciplined and more charitable. We fast in order to share our time and our treasure with an attitude of love towards God and others. In addition, the practice helps us imitate the example of Jesus who fasted for 40 days in the desert.
The ashes that are marked on our foreheads on the first day of Lent are a symbol of humility, purification and sorrow and remind us of the need to repent our failings. But we remember also that we are Easter people – that good can come out of evil, that death gives way to new life and that there is hope in the midst of despair. © Liturgy Brisbane.
During Lent we try to make a conscious effort to prepare ourselves for Easter. We can do this by increasing our prayer, helping others, fasting, giving up things we particularly like, and supporting Project Compassion.
In the spirit of renewal and conversion we observe Lent by reflecting on the central events of Jesus’ life and welcoming the opportunity to grow through changing our lives.
This is probably one of the best feel good stories so far this term and I certainly look forward to hearing some more about what the children and our families are going to do this Lent.
Project Compassion Appeal
Our compassion boxes have arrived so they will be distributed to classes next week so students and families are asked to “give a little” by placing coins in their collection box. At the end of the term and before we go on our Easter holidays, we will count all the money raised and pass it along to Caritas Australia. This year the theme is “100% Hope.”
As Pope Francis said, “Cultivate with love the seeds of goodness, beauty and truth that God sows in every new generation.”
VOLUNTEER INDUCTION
On Thursday we held our first Parent volunteer induction session and it was fabulous to see so many volunteers wanting to be a part of our school community. Thank you, ladies for your attendance and the great questions asked during our discussion. If you missed out on this opportunity, please let me know and we can arrange for another session to be scheduled.
Thank you and blessings for a great weekend,
Amanda
Prayer the week:
Lord, sometimes we are weak and give in in the face of difficulties.
Help us to be strong and to persevere.
Lord, help us to always try to finish what we start.
Lord, help us to overcome our greed and selfishness.
May God's thoughts always be in my mind,
God's words be on my lips,
God's love be in my heart.
Amen
Term 1 school fees have been emailed to families, but we would like to let you all know that these were generated by Catholic Education Services in Cairns as Leanne has only started her Finance training this week. CES in Cairns have been supporting the school to date. The look of your term invoice is now different from past years. Please let us know if you have any concerns with the account you have received.
St. Joseph’s Cross Country
Volunteers Needed
The St. Joseph's Cross Country has been set for Friday the 29th of March, 2019 at St. Joseph's School Oval. If you are able to assist with the Cross Country please email
Training
This week in Cross Country Training 22 students attended on Tuesday morning and 34 students attending on Thursday morning, great effort everyone!
Training will continue every Tuesday and Thursday 7.30 - 8.00am throughout the Term.
Our students participated in the Clean Up Australia Day today.
Keep up the great work of keeping our school grounds so tidy and free of rubbish!
