Dear Parents and Guardians,

Time to press the reset button for 2020!

Everyone is looking refreshed and ready for the term. Like many of you I went to Cairns. It was truly wonderful to be able to enjoy being with family and experience the freedom of the releasing of restrictions.

Term 2, 2020 will certainly stay in my mind for a long time, as we dealt with the challenges that COVID 19 forced upon us. What an awesome school community we have at St Joseph’s! What an amazing feat we achieved.

One of our biggest takeaways during this time is the perseverance and adaptability of our staff and the support of our school community. We should always be proud of what we managed to achieve and remember these strengths as we continue striving to provide effective learning and well being for all our students.Our school motto, “Bringing Faith and Learning to Life” truly is a great fit for our school. We are a school that strives to strengthen faith, promote respect and acceptance and builds community at every level throughout the school.

The desire to maintain strong academic standards is an ongoing focus for St Joseph’s. We value prime teaching time and continue to place increasing emphasis on quality teaching and learning within the total curriculum. Staff and students have embraced new ICT initiatives enabling our students to gain exposure to the technology shaping the 21st Century.

With the easing of restrictions, we will be able to start easing back with more school events. So please, watch this space!  We will continue to encourage social distancing and implement the appropriate hygiene practices to keep everyone safe. We will hold our first whole school face to face assembly on the basketball court this Friday. As we still need to continue social distancing for adults, only parents of students receiving class awards are asked to attend at this stage. We look forward to when we can have our usual parent attendance at assembly. We thank you for your support and understanding as we keep to safety regulations.

Your assistance in keeping your child/ren home with any sickness is much appreciated.

Before school procedures – As we begin the term, we are still asking parents to continue to drop off and pick up as we did last term to ensure social distancing of adults so we can minimize the risk of COVID transfer.

Semester 1 report cards will be sent home early next week and as previously mentioned this is a modified report card due to COVID 19.  If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to discuss with your child’s classroom teacher.  We will schedule parent teacher interviews for week three.

School Maintenance

Over the school holiday period a great deal of scheduled maintenance has taken place including painting.

Our CES ICT support tech, Jason Mistfud, also visited us to update devices and maintain computers ready for learning this term. Jason also installed a VIV system in each classroom which has improved the quality of the images and access to the interactive screens.

Over the next few weeks we are also looking forward to when a new batch of home readers arrive.

2021 Prep Enrolment

Believe it or not, it is time to commence the year-long process which is the enrolment of our Prep cohort for 2021. As always, we will begin with our siblings before we move forward to inviting new families to join our community.

Our school website is the pathway to the enrolment process which must be completed online.  Children must be 5 by 30 June in the year they enrol (2021). I encourage you to attend to this process as soon as possible.  Our friendly office staff are always happy to support and answer any questions you may have regarding your child’s enrolment. 

NAIDOC Celebrations 2020 postponed

The National NAIDOC Committee has decided to postpone NAIDOC Week 2020 from 5 July to 8 November. NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. The week is a great opportunity to participate in a range of activities and to support your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.  

Communication is an important vehicle between the family and the school and I cannot stress enough the importance of you reading the newsletter, accessing schoolzine app, school Facebook page and the correspondence sent home from your child’s teacher. These forms of communication are our main means of keeping you informed with what is happening around the school. Teachers can be contacted via email or by calling the office to make an appointment. If you need to contact your class teacher urgently, please phone the school reception.  As you would be aware, teachers are unable to meet with you once the bell has gone as they are responsible for the students in their class.

Wishing you a great term full of happiness and learning,

God Bless,

Megan

“Dear brothers and sisters, let us continue our celebration of Holy Mass: the Memorial that heals our memory. Let us never forget: the Mass is the Memorial that heals memory, the memory of the heart. The Mass is the treasure that should be foremost both in the Church and in our lives. And let us also rediscover Eucharistic adoration, which continues the work of the Mass within us. This will do us much good, for it heals us within. Especially now, when our need is so great.”

Pope Francis -  Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Solemnity of Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ 2020

This Week Let us include in our prayers…..

• Those who suffer from systemic racism in Australia, the Americas, Europe and all countries where people are judged on the colour of their skin. We continue to stand peacefully and in solidarity with those who have lost loved ones and pray for healing for those who continue to suffer as a result of prejudice and racism.
• Those who are suffering from COVID-19 in the second wave of the virus in Australia and world wide. We prayer that you find the patience and strength to preserve through these difficult times.
• For our school community, we all return to school refreshed after a well earned holiday ready to tackle the challenges of learning that lay ahead for us this term.

Sunday’s Gospel

You will find attached in this week’s newsletter a copy of a family prayer that families can use at home around each week's Gospel reading. It is a fantastic, family friendly resource for those wishing to engage in weekly scriptures. It was wonderful to be back at church this week and prayer amongst people. Church services have resumed and Father Dariuzs will be presiding over  mass on the 25th & 26th July.  This week’s gospel was about understanding the Kingdom of God from Matthew’s Gospel as the sower and the seeds.

‘A sower went out to sow’

“Today’s readings use the rich imagery of the spilling forth of life in nature to illustrate how we are predisposed to receive God’s Word, which will in turn spill out of us. If we look around us, it is not hard to see that the entirety of creation, including ourselves are ‘groaning with labour pains’ for the coming forth of God.

We are called to make ourselves soft, fertile soil, rather than hardened clay to receive the seed of God’s word.

In the Gospel Jesus explains why he speaks in parables. It is in parables, in stories that we able to see a deeper truth not through a literal reading but by calling on our imagination to read between the lines. Unless we want to be hardened clay or we need to open ourselves in creative participation with the Word and let it sink deeply into our being.”   Gospel Reflections

Sacramental Program

After discussions with Father Dariuzs, and in light of Bishop Folley’s pending retirement, it has been decided to postpone the sacramental program until 2021. We will be proceeding with the programs next year for those who wish to partake in the sacraments of the Eurarchrist, Reconciliation, and Confirmation. We apologise for the unforeseen delays due to COVID-19 and appreciate your patience and understanding with these changes.

Assembly

This term we will resume more school functions as the COVID-19 restrictions ease. We will begin by gathering the students for our first assembly this week. Due to the continued restrictions around adults on school grounds, we will invite the parents of students receiving awards to the assembly each week.

May St Joseph smile on you,

Meg Newell

This Term P.E for all students will be on Thursday, please wear Sports Uniform on the allocated day.

Students will be learning about the following concepts:

 Prep - How can I be a good sport and play safely on a team?

 Year 1 - How can I show value for myself and others?

 Year 2 - Ropes and Rhymes

 Year 3 - Scoot, Scoot - How can we safely scooter around?

 Year 4 - Bat, Catch, Howzat!

 Year 5 - Built for B-Ball

 Year 6 - Over the Net

AFL Cape York are so excited to travel again and will be visiting St Joseph’s Parish School Weipa on the following dates:

Thursday - 23rd of July

Thursday - 30th of July

Thursday - 6th of August

Matt, Jake and Shelby will also be introducing a nutrition program called On The Move With Deadly Foods. On The Move With Deadly Foods Project (OTMWDF) aims to educate and promote healthy food and drink choices and encourage regular physical activity.

The classroom session involves students working through a resource booklet, which aligns to the HPE Curriculum in a fun, interactive and educational session. There will be an interactive gameshow and class activities.

Regards,

Melanie Turner.