Friday 5th April - last day of Term 1

Friday 19th April - Good Friday

Sunday 21st April - Easter Sunday

Tuesday 22nd April - first day of Term 2

Thursday 25th April - ANZAC Day

Wednesday 1st May - St Joseph's Feast Day

Monday 6th May - Labour Day holiday

Can you believe we are at the end of the first term and Easter holidays arrived? Is it just me, or does the busyness of life increase year by year? I must say though, that we do handle the busyness and workload exceptionally well. Yes, there has been a lot done over the past 10 weeks, but due to your co-operation and support, the efficiency of the teachers and support staff and the quality of positive communication between home and school, the job gets done and done well. So, I do sincerely thank you all for your efforts in being part of a successful school term.

The cross country yesterday was a great example of a well-planned out event that the children and parents thoroughly enjoyed. Melanie Turner, as always did an amazing job organising and running the day. The calm way our staff, parents and students dealt with the medical requirements we had during the event is a real testament to Mrs Turner’s effective preplanning and risk assessment.

The smiles on the children’s faces as they ran across the finish line was wonderful and what amazing spontaneous sportsmanship. Throughout the day we saw wonderful examples of the St Joseph’s Spirit. The distance students run in a cross country was a true challenge but bought out the best in our students. As the children ran past me at the half way mark I could see the determination and never give up attitudes on their faces.

We saw many personal bests and witnessed many great moments of sportsmanship. Watching Ashton and Lapetti run arm in arm together over the finish line was a most precious moment and one that we will never forget. When some students began to struggle to keep going in the home stretch, other students spontaneously ran with them to boost their spirits and get them over the line.

The positive way the St Joseph staff, parents and students co-operated together reminded me of how proud I am to be part of this great Community.

My best wishes for a safe and Holy Easter season to the St Joseph’s community. Take the time to be peaceful and prayerful as we approach the holiday period and enjoy ‘down-time’ with family and loved ones. 

As you and your family celebrate Easter and all that it brings, may the spirit of Jesus be in your heart.

God bless,

Megan

As we finish our first term for the year, I would like to remind you all of the important upcoming events in our church calendar. At the end of these holidays we will begin the celebration of Holy Week which begins with Palm Sunday, the day Jesus triumphantly enters into Jerusalem. Due to the fact that our Holy week falls in the school holidays this year, we will celebrate the events of Holy week as a whole school when we return in Week 1 of Term 2.

What is Holy Week?

Holy week begins with Passion or Palm Sunday which falls on the 14^th April. During Holy Week we are called to enter this time with reverence and celebrate its rites with care and devotion.

Holy Thursday – Maundy Thursday 18^th April is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. At the mass of the Lord’s Supper the focus is on the celebration of the Eucharist and what happened.

Good Friday – 19^th April is the day we remember the passion and death of Christ on the cross. It is usually a solemn day and when the celebration finishes with the prayer over the people. Catholics should abstain from eating meat on Good Friday.

Easter Sunday 21^st April is the most significant day in the Easter celebration for Catholics. We celebrate the saving love and new life given to us through the resurrection of Jesus.

ANZAC DAY Celebrations.

Week 1 Term 2 will see an important focus on celebrating and remembering the ANZACs and all who have served their country. The human qualities of mateship, courage and sacrifice are associated with the spirit of the ANZACs and proudly embraced as a part of our National Identity. Servicemen and women who served under the Australian flag in conflicts and peacekeeping missions, demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the freedom of our Country and continue to do so still! Sons and daughters of our nation were prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice to defend their homeland and save its people. Ironically, through their sad sacrifice, we have been given freedom in our lives.

As a whole school we will gather to celebrate and remember so please make sure to keep abreast of what is happening so we can show our solidarity at this time. More details will be distributed in week 1 with regards to the Weipa Community March and service.

In and around our classrooms this term there has also been some wonderful teaching in Religion and a special mention to our Year 3 class with their Beatitudes wall and Year 4’s Lenten Rainbow, it is great to see our faith being celebrated and acknowledged.

Thank you and blessings for a wonderful break,

Amanda     

St. Joseph’s Cross Country 2019

Yesterday the students of St. Joseph’s participated in the 2019 Cross Country. The children sat in their House Colours - Mission, Pine and Embley  and cheered for their class mates.  All students participated with enthusiasm and demonstrated Confidence, Persistence and Resilience. 

The Parents and Friends provided a BBQ for the students and it was a fabulous day with a wonderful sense of Team Spirit. 

Thank you to all the P & F,  Parent helpers, Teachers and School Officers

for a very successful day.

Presentation of Age Champions and the overall House Winner are as follows:

First Place  - Cross Country

2014 Boys –  Parker Rajan

2014 Girls - Nina Ward

2013 Boys –  Dylan Spencer

2013 Girls –  Genevieve Shelton

2012 Boys –  Jack Potter

2012 Girls –  Sienna Hill

2011 Boys – Yuri Lesic

2011 Girls –  Ianneasha Raleigh

Age Champions – Cross Country  2019 

 2010 Boys – Ben Winaulin

2010 Girls – Ewa Mc Namara

2009 Boys – Jake McDonnell

2009 Girls – Jessica Hynes and Cordy Foo

2008 Boys – Sam McNamara

2008 Girls – Sienna Williams

2007 Boys –  Kaden Brett

2007 Girls – Natasha Winaulin

2006 Boys – Isaac Morton

Overall winning House for 2019 is Pine.

Congratulations to everyone and thank you again for making the 2019 Cross Country a success.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe and Happy Easter and look forward to seeing you all in Term 2.

Tuesday saw us all be part of the Term 1 Fun day in and around the school and classrooms. Here are some pictures of the students enjoying their activities.

Dear Parents

Thank you for a wonderful start to the year. We have been working hard towards learning the letters of the alphabet. The students have started to read decodable readers during guided reading and discussing the characters in the text. The Prep students did a fantastic job at Cross Country. Thank you for all the wonderful support this term. We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday and we will see you back in Term 2 Tuesday the 23rd.

What a terrific start to our year, Term One you were eventful!  When I look back at what we have achieved this term, I am very proud of our students.  We have learned to read, spell and use 35 tricky words, use nouns and verbs in our writing, and how to read, say and spell many phonemes.  In Maths, number sequences have been explored - skip counting, ordering numbers, counting forwards and backwards.  The students are able to measure and compare the length of different objects.  We have gathered a variety of data and demonstrated how to graph this in different ways.  Schoolyard Safari was a favourite unit where the students learned about different animals, how they move and why their habitats are suited to them.  The students have enjoyed our Lenten activities and I hope they share what they have learned with you over the Easter break.  Have a restful holiday period, and I look forward to welcoming you back in Term 2.

What a wonderful term! I’d like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. I look forward to seeing everyone in term 2. We have a large amount of overdue library books. Reminder notes should have come home with your child if this applies to you. Please return these as soon as possible. This fortnight our attendance has improved with 65% of our class attending school more than 95% of the time. Well done! We have had such a busy term with so much progress being made. Congratulations to all students for giving learning a red hot go. Everyone should be very proud. 

Happy holidays everyone!!!

What a fabulous term for Year 3. All of the students have shown how hard they can commit to learning and are developing good learning habits. These past two weeks have been all about finishing off assessment with the students being super resilient at all times. They have shown courage and determination while participating in their Naplan Online Practice Test and I can successfully say the students will be ready to do the test next term without a worry in the world. The students in Year 3 represented well at our Cross Country and have shown fantastic sportsmanship. This Friday we were lucky enough to be a part of school prayer with students showcasing their hard work. Our attendance this past two weeks is sitting at 71.4% of our students attending 90% of the time. Thank you parents for your help in making sure your child has had a great start to the learning year. I hope you have a fantastic rest and I look forward to what will be yet another busy term.

First term is officially done and dusted - can you believe it?

Thanks to all the families who attended our parent teacher interviews. It was really helpful to catch up with you to reflect on the term and make goals for term two. It makes a difference to your child’s education when they can see teachers and families working in partnership.

We have been busy finishing up testing in maths, reading and comprehension this fortnight. It has been really valuable to observe what the children know and what we need to work on next. This data will help inform planning for next term, for both my teaching and the homework that will be set, to work on each student's strengths and build up the areas they may need more support in. As always, I appreciate any feedback you have on the homework.

This week our attendance has improved to 68% of students attending 95-100% of the time. It has been great to see a full class most weeks not only for improved outcomes for your student but also gave me the opportunity to develop a relationship with these students.

This term we farewell Judson who is moving away. We wish Judson all the best in his new school and will miss his laughter filling the classroom.

Have a safe and relaxing holidays to prepare for term 2.

On Tuesday our class successfully completed the Naplan Practice test online.  It went smoothly and the children were very calm and patient, so great effort everyone! Please mark in your calendar the date for Naplan next term (May 14,15,16^th).

Our Science Research PowerPoints on Desert Survivors are ready to be presented to the class. Each student after completing their research posed 2 questions about their animal which they will ask the class. We have also completed our Narrative writing task on the Deltora quest.  I look forward to reading and marking these over next few days. Our maths focus has been graphing information, reading grids and graphs and revision of subtraction and addition. We did lots of practice trading and regrouping with large numbers for adding and subtracting. I have given each student a workbook to do in class so that everyone knows what to do for each operation.  We have discussed the important events of Easter in Religion and completed some sequencing activities about the Easter Story. 

It has been a very productive term. We have worked hard on our routines, achieved lots in our learning, established new relationships with our peers and each student has strived to improve on their learning goals. I wish everyone a restful and lovely holiday.

Term 1 has been a busy time for the year 6 students, with the challenge of leadership in the school and several changes in the classroom. Thanks to Ms Jocumsen and Mrs Saunders for teaching us during the term, and now we are looking forward to working with Mr Mitchell for the rest of the year as we finish our Primary school education and prepare for High School.

A highlight of the end of term was the Cross Country. The year 6 students showed great responsibility in leading their house cheers, encouraging the younger students, and helping staff with setting up, running the day and clearing up afterwards. All this as well as competing in the races, where we saw some fantastic results and personal best times.

In our class work we have been learning about Volume and Capacity in Maths, continuing our emphasis on Reading Comprehension in English, and in History we have been learning about Australia’s Prime Ministers. In Religion we have been learning some interesting facts about Judaism and the first five books of the Bible.

Wishing you all a safe and Happy Easter.

Dear families we wish to advise that the tuckshop will not be available until Wednesday of Term 2. 

 As we approach the holidays this is a good time to send out reminders for extra school stationary that may be required for learning as well as uniform necessities. Some students maybe getting low on supplies and some students may have grown so might need new socks, shoes etc. 

A link to the Uniform policy has been provided below and if you could check with your child's teacher about any necessary stationary that maybe required.

Thank you and we hope you have a relaxing Easter break with your families.

These school holidays the Weipa Town Authority has a number of different activities happening. There are two links below for the 2 weeks of the holidays:

Link for week 1:

https://www.weipatownauthority.com.au/events/event/26/april-school-holiday-activities---week-1

Link for week 2:

https://www.weipatownauthority.com.au/events/event/27/april-school-holiday-activities---week-2

And the winner is : Cody Simpson.