St Joseph's Parish School Weipa eNewsletter

Dear St Joseph’s families and friends,

Last week the school was a buzz with excitement as Josh Arnold shared his talent and joyful energy with our school community. The writing and performing of our St Joseph’s School Song was an amazing process of collaboration with the students and staff. Josh has not just helped us to write and performing our school song. His music has brought our school community closer together, reminded us of what we love about our school, our town and captured the true spirit of St Joseph’s Weipa. I may be a little biased, but I think our song could be the best song Josh has ever produced. We look forward to the finished product and there will be an official launch of the song in Term 4.

On Friday we held a Whole School Mass to celebrate the Induction of our Year 6 student leaders. Over the term and particularly this week, Year 6 have spent time exploring what qualities make a good leader? At St Joseph’s our student leaders focus on servant leadership. Which means learning that just as Jesus came to serve and not be served, so should we.

I look forward to seeing our Year 6 Leaders continue to step up and lead the way for the rest of 2020.

In the midst of such a busy week, visitors Luke Brown, Director of School Effectiveness and Rachel MacLean, Leader Formation continued to support with the development of the 2021-2023 Strategic Plan. As part of this process, capital works plans and an updated master plan are also being developed. I look forward to when the draft Strategic Plan is ready to be shared with our school community for feedback in Term 4.

It is an exciting future that presents itself here at St Joseph’s and I look forward to sharing the journey with all members of our community.

As this is the last newsletter before the holiday break, I would like to take the opportunity to wish all our families all the best in taking some time to “Be Family” during the next few weeks. Enjoy every moment!

God Bless,

Megan Pearce

This week let us also include in our prayers…..

For our essential workers, that they continue to find strength to care for those in need and our most vulnerable;
We pray too for those who have lost their lives bringing aid, care and support to those who are hurt, disadvantaged and need protection.
Those travelling during this upcoming holiday period, that they travel safely. May all of our community enjoy a well deserved rest during this holiday period.
For those who follow the example of Mary of the Cross Mackillop, that her legacy lives on in the hands of others;

May these prayers and all those we hold in our hearts, be felt by those who need them most.

Sunday’s Gospel- 24^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Please find shared in this week’s newsletter: the Sunday prayer at home which has some wonderful resources to unpack this week’s readings in a family friendly way.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Father Dariusz’s homily at today’s service. This week’s readings are a reminder of the importance of forgiveness in our daily lives. It reminded me of words that I have recited and chanted since a young girl at a Catholic school, the Our Father. If I was paid a dollar every time I recited the Our Father, and we lived to a ripe old age, we’d end our lives with a great fortune amassed. So familiar and oft-recited are the words that they’re always in danger of becoming no more than a soothing sound. Is it true to say that if any of us prayed this prayer just once with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and meant every word of it we’d be ready for heaven?

The Gospel reading from this week invites us to home in on just one petition: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. This is a much-needed reminder of the importance of these words that we so readily recite! Let’s pause and think on this….. we constantly dare to ask for divine forgiveness only to the extent that we forgive others. The fact is that the more we resist letting go of resentment and anger from our hearts, the less room there is for us to welcome the gift of God’s mercy. The Gospel readings invite us to see that the forgiveness we are called to offer one another is on a minuscule scale compared with the boundless mercy we have received from God. Next time we recite the Our Father, let us take a moment to pause and reflect on the importance of not only seeking divine forgiveness for our sins but also to re-engage with being forgiving ourselves to others who may have wronged us.

Reading Reflections

Year 6 Leadership Retreat & Mass

It was such a wonderful induction mass experienced by all on Friday. A special thank you to our Year 6 families for joining us as our Year 6 students took their leadership pledge to be servant leaders at St Joseph’s.

Future Minds STEM Session

This week our staff and students have the wonderful opportunity to engage in the Future Minds Sessions. This program is part of Rio Tinto’s investment in a four-year program targeted at school-age learners. The program aims to prepare young Australians for the digital future, help fast-track development of skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, automation, systems design and data analytics. All students will participate in activities ranging from building catapults, using Virtual Reality and game building programs. Our staff will also undertake professional development around how technologies can be used to engage students with learning and the neuroscience of imagination.

May St Joseph smile on you,

Meg Newell

APRE/CST

Praying_with_Children_13_September_2020 _pdf 1.51 MB

SCHOOL DROP OFF ZONE – BOUNDARY STREET

A reminder to all of our community, that this zone is set up to maximise traffic flow and safety for students, parents, visitors and staff who use the area.

Please note and action the following points as necessary while using the zone:

Drive with great care at a slow speed
Move to the end of the drop off zone to pick up or drop off wherever possible
Please move to the back of the que after 2 minutes of waiting to allow traffic to flow
Students alight and enter cars from the footpath side only – cars must come to a stop before students enter.
Encourage students to have bags with them rather than going between cars to use the boot
Parents stay in the car to maximise timing
Stagger your time to pick up to avoid congestion. 3:00 to 3:15pm

Please note the tuckshop will be closed on FRIDAY 18TH SEPTEMBER 2020 for end of term cleaning.

COVID-19 Saftey and End of Year School Events

Due to COVID we have had to cancel swimming lessons and the Swimming Carnival.

At this stage all other planned events will be going ahead with approved safety plans. We are currently consulting with CES to develop COVID-19 safe plans for all other events including Prep Orientation Parents Sessions, NAIDOC week, Starry Starry Night and the Year 6 Graduation.

COVID-19 SAFE REMINDERS

Schools have slightly different distancing measures for students, but no leeway on adults. As a reminder please be aware of and support our school by actioning the following points:

Avoid gathering and chatting in groups, in or around the school grounds.
Avoid sitting in the school grounds waiting to pick up students
Be prompt in dropping students off or picking students up in the school grounds
Always sign in and out of the school via the office when attending meetings or volunteering in the tuckshop.

Dear Prep Families,

In Literacy we have continued to learn interesting fact about animals, last week we learnt about whales and this week frogs. We have investigated the life cycle of a frog and how they grow from an egg to a tadpole, froglet and then an adult frog. We have used our new knowledge of these animals to write interesting information reports. We are also consolidating our learning from throughout the term to build on our writing and reading skills.

In numeracy we have continued to build on our knowledge of number facts and introduced the concept of adding numbers to 10.

In religion we have learnt about the story of David and Goliath. The students then related it to their own life and looked at how they can problem solve when they find something challenging.

We very much enjoyed having Josh Arnold visit our class this week to teach us the new school song and introduce us to some of his other songs like “Fred the Frog”.

I hope you all have an enjoyable and restful school holidays, we look forward to seeing the children in Term 4 for their final term of Prep!!

Andreika

Click on the link below

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1w-2aoi7s7BCng9_jaDdPRhfpdnyz6mI7/view

Hi Families,

We are busy in year 2 completing all of our end of term work. In maths we have been looking at direction, and moving forwards, backwards or even manoeuvring ourselves around the classroom and playground by turning left or right in quarters! Our students worked in groups to direct each other around the playground and basketball course by giving different instructions.

We have also been looking at direction using flips, slides and turns. We used our iPads in maths to direct the Spheros around the classroom. The students had lots of fun making different tracks and obstacle courses to navigate through.

I hope all our fathers and father figures had a lovely Father’s Day. Our students really enjoyed making a little gift for you. Thank you for all you do for our students and families.

I wish you all a very safe, relaxing school holidays, and I look forward to see you all in Term 4!

Kind Regards,

Emily

Just like that we have reached the end of Term 3. After ten weeks together, Year Three has shown great growth individually and as a class. We have continued to work on positive relationships and interactions with others, appropriate reactions in situations and instil being respectful, responsible, resilient and ready to learn every day.

In English, we are wrapping up the Persuasion unit and the students have been busy creating their brochure to convince people to visit Weipa for their next family holiday. They have been researching and writing persuasive sentences about the flora, fauna, history, geography and attractions to entice people to visit.

In Mathematics, the students have thoroughly enjoyed having a mini Year Three Supermarket set up to help them with calculating the total cost of items and change to give. Role playing and using concrete materials has been a great way to consolidate their learning. The Fractions unit has been more challenging as we explore half, quarters, thirds and fifths of shapes and collections of objects. Using concrete materials, paper and pizza topic has been a fun way to explore what equal parts looks like.

The Year 3 students thoroughly enjoyed working with Josh Arnold on the St Joseph's School song. There were certainly some hidden talents that came out through working with Josh and it was great to see Year Three so enthusiastic about writing the song. We hope you like it just as much as we do.

Wishing all the Year Three families a safe and enjoyable holiday. Stay healthy and I look forward to seeing you return safely in Term 4.

In Faith,

Mrs Michelle Gear

Dear Parent and Guardians,

On Friday the 28th of August St. Joseph’s, Weipa celebrated Book Week. The Theme was Curious Creatures, Wild Minds. The students did a fantastic job creating their costumes and particiating in the Book Week Parade.

Year 4 have been working hard over the last 2 weeks, between finalising their learning and beginning assessment, there has been a waterfall of brain juices flowing! Throughout our studies in Hass and English, we have been investigating the adventures of various explorers, mapping out the new world, prior to 1800. Their adventures were filled with challenges, disease, the unknown and limited technologies, so there is always plenty to learn. Some explorers were even swept away with the tide and ended up on the wrong shores!

Religion has us looking at the stories of Joseph within the Book of Genesis. Joseph was surely a man that was faced with challenges throughout his life, and with the support of our Lord, he was equipped to face them all.

We wish you all a very safe and relaxing holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in Term 4.

Regards,

jsimmons2@cns.catholic.edu.au mturner@cns.catholic.edu.au and sulanas@cns.catholic.edu.au

We made it to the end of another busy term. Well done everyone! In Year 5 we have had an interrupted 2 weeks with a few of us having some time away due to sickness. This has made us more independent with our learning. We have showed that we are able to follow instructions well, guide our own learning and complete learning tasks successfully. This has been rewarding as we have received feedback on our learning this past week and allowed us to continue on with similar or harder tasks.

We finally finished our Gold Rush worlds in Minecraft. There was a lot of use of creative elements to reflect what life would have been like on the Goldfields in Australia. Everyone’s world’s were a little different to everyone else in the class. Some had homes for the Governers or Police. Some had secret bunkers with stashes of gold. So creative and very fun to make.

Our narrative poems have been challenging but we are looking forward to adding the finishing touches on these this week. There have been poems about life in the campsites and also what it was like to experience the Eureka Stockade. We found it hard to rhyme and use a variety of poetry language. We can only imagine what it was like but I think some of us really nailed it.

The highlight though this past week was having the opportunity to work with Josh Arnold and create our school song. We had a lot of experiences to draw on to help Josh understand our school and the wonderful lives we have because of living in Weipa. It was great to see how he took our insight and created song lyrics as well as music. The filming was also fun. We love our new school song.

Our Year 5 students will be participating in their first stage of a leadership retreat on Friday 9th October (Week 1, Term 4). During the day the students will complete a variety of activities that will begin their leadership process at St Josephs. To complete the day, we will be having a sleepover at the school on the Friday night. More details about the day and sleepover will be communicated in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out on the newsletter and emails.

Thank you for another great term. I hope you all have a restful break and look forward to our last term of 2020.

Our most exciting news is that our Yr 6 shirts have arrived! They look amazing and we are all so proud of our design. The photo of us all together just looks awesome! We were sorry that Jaiden and Kyan weren’t there for our photo, but we will get one soon with all Yr 6 Students together, supporting each other and celebrating our connections. The 3 icons of the black cockatoo, the turtle and barramundi are key to our focus next term.

This week has been amazing for many reasons, we have had the opportunity to give input to co-write our school song with Josh, be involved in the singing process (core group) and feel that as Yr 6 Leaders we are making a difference in our school. As their teacher, I am beaming with pride how each student has stepped up to the mark and in their daily actions really showing maturity and Leading the Way!

In our curriculum learning, our main focus has been constructing our model in Science. Once our models were assembled, we had to then create an electrical circuit (with our kits) that transferred the energy to charge a bulb or motor. Some of our models were helicopters, a mower, boats, lighthouse, windmills and a rollercoaster. Then we had to explain the concept. We have thoroughly enjoyed this task and learnt heaps! Many problems were solved and some really important collaborative learning took place. This is where real learning for the future occurs!

For our English, we have completed our Persuasive writing task and students are now preparing to deliver a speech or presentation to their specific audience. Some topics are about our Tuckshop menu, a review of our play/activity time during breaks, extending P.ED time, how our Government can support our Farmers more and also refining the sprinkler system at St Joseph’s. All of these topics were chosen by each student and it is so encouraging to see them have a voice. The focus I have reiterated is that they need to have evidence to back up any argument to voice how they want to get across their message. It has been hard work, but each student has persevered, and they will be proudly presenting their speeches next week.

In HASS, we have been researching different immigrants who came to live in Australia and the reasons why. This has been an interesting and confronting topic and has generated a lot of interesting dialogue in class. The students have had to explore the obstacles many of these people have overcome to make a better life for themselves in Australia.

So much rich learning happening in Yr 6.

We had a fantastic couple of days celebrating our Leadership day and School Mass, was wonderful to see how far each student has come in their Leadership Journey!