7 February 2024

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Welcome to Week 3.

During last Friday’s opening school mass, we presented our school community with St Joseph’s school theme for 2024.  Our theme is, ‘2024 Witnesses of VIRTUE and DIGNITY.’

Our opening school mass was held in the school’s MPA due to extreme heat concerns however, we were blessed with the most pleasant weather so far this year and a beautiful Homily from Fr Jomon. During this celebration, we chose to present our 2024 Student Leaders to the school community while also welcoming our new staff and our new cohort of Prep students. 

Our 2024 School Leaders are.

Student Council – Jake Baker, Audrey Brady, Rhyver Maker, Ella Coughlan, Jacob Wall & Pippa Kaufman.
Daly House Captains – Flynn Kirkman & Izabelah Zerafa.
Leahy House Captains – Koby Goody & Paige Toby.
MacKillop House Captains – Nate Oliffe & Amelia Pedersen.

I look forward to working with these student representatives in 2024.

I would like to mention how reverent and respectful the behaviour of our school community was at the mass celebration.  Many who attended, including Parish members, commented on the wonderful behaviour of the students.  Well done, it was a great celebration and a wonderful blessing to begin the school year.

A reminder that next Wednesday evening we will be holding our first P&F meeting for the year.  The meeting will be held in the library commencing at 6:00pm with everyone welcome to attend.  A strong P&F association helps keep our school community strong and centered on our Catholic identity and family values.

Next week, Wednesday 14^th February, will be a big day as we will be celebrating Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the Lenten season.  Information on how we will be celebrating as a school community will be sent home shortly. 

Our School Board Annual General Meeting for the year will be held in Week 5.  The meeting will be held in the library at 5:30pm. 2024 will see the School Board continue to work on the new Engagement and Wellbeing Framework for the school community.

I hope that our ‘Open Evening’ format for our Parent Information Session provided families with an opportunity to touch base with your children’s teachers.  Please remember that you can email our staff if needed and that open communication is key to a positive working relationship between school and home.

Finally, please note that our annual Bishop’s In-service Day for staff professional development will be held on Friday the 16^th of February.  Due to all staff attending this day, it is a Pupil Free Day for all Catholic Schools in Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast, Outside School Hours Care also not be in operation on that day due to staffing shortages.

Don’t Forget …

• Season A - Inter-school Sport Commences (10-12yrs), Fri 9^th Feb
• First P&F Meeting for 2021, Wed 14^th Feb @ 6:00pm
• Ash Wednesday Mass, Wed 14^th Feb
• Bishop’s In-service Day, Fri 16^th Feb (Pupil Free Day)
• First Children’s Mass for the year, Sat 17^th Feb @ 6:30pm in OLHC
• School Board AGM, Wed 21^st Feb @ 5:30pm

Have a great week.

Regards
Bernard Fitzgerald
Principal
St Joseph’s Catholic School, Park Avenue

St Joseph’s 2024 School Improvement Priorities:

• Christian Virtue – Dignity
• Increased Learning Gain & Achievement
• Learning Dispositions

CURRICULUM NEWS

Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum

Each year students in all Catholic schools in the Rockhampton Diocese complete the Daniel Morcombe Child Safety Curriculum.  At St Joseph’s, this is completed in Term 1 of every year.  Your child will learn how to keep themselves safe and will undertake lessons around the three messages of ‘recognise, react and report’.  Please let me know if you’d like more information about this program. 

Later this year, in June, we have organised for Bruce and Denise Morcombe to visit St Joseph’s to speak to the students regarding child safety.  We look forward to this visit. More information about this will come out closer to the date.

Learning Dispositions

Each year, our students work on developing skills related to our school learning dispositions of Resilience, Persistence, Creativity, Independence, and Collaboration. You will also see these Learning Dispositions appear on our student report cards. So, what do they mean and look like in practice?  Over the next several weeks, I will break these down to help develop a shared understanding across all of our Joey’s community.

At St Joseph’s:

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.

In Prep I am displaying resilience when I:

• Talk about my feelings
• Try new things
• Bounce back after disappointment or challenges

In Year One I am displaying resilience when I:

• Use a growth mindset
• Try new things
• Bounce back after disappointment or challenges

In Year Two I am displaying resilience when I:

• Use positive self-talk when tasks are difficult
• Bounce back when something doesn’t work the first time
• Stay calm when faced with challenges

In Year Three I am displaying resilience when I:

• Stay calm when faced with challenges
• Bounce back quickly after disappointment and difficulties
• Use positive self-talk when tasks are difficult

In Year Four I am displaying resilience when I:

• Have a positive attitude towards my work
• Embrace mistakes and move forwards in my learning
• Use a range of strategies to problem solve
• Keep rising to meet challenges

In Years Five and Six I am displaying resilience when I:

• Am generally calm
• Choose not to fight or withdraw when I’m upset
• Calm down within a reasonable period of time when I am disappointed or upset
• Bounce back to doing my work when things go wrong

Guinea Pigs

As many of you would be aware, we have four wonderful guinea pigs in the school: Possum, Wombat, Snowball and Cuddles.  These pets provide a lot of joy and emotional support to our students (and staff). They had a great time over Christmas spending time at both my place and Mrs Shaw’s house.  Like many of us, they had some extra holiday cheer and have now outgrown their current enclosure.  As such, they have a larger home on the way and will be relocating from Year 2 to the Prep room once their new home is ready for them. 

We will be recommencing lunch time cuddles with the guinea pigs soon. If you are happy for your child to interact with the guinea pigs, please complete the permission form and return it to school.  Students will not be permitted to touch the pets until their permission form has been returned.

Our guinea pigs love to eat, and therefore, can be quite expensive to maintain a good healthy diet for them.  If you would like to assist with providing some food for these wonderful pets throughout the year, please drop donations to the office or the prep classroom.  They love to eat the following:

• Lettuce (all kinds except iceberg)
• Capsicum
• Cucumber
• Carrot
• Celery
• Apples
• Tomato
• Kale
• Cabbage
• Beans
• Corn
• Coriander
• Mint
• Rosemary
• Asparagus
• Cauliflower
• Rocket

To name a few.  A quick google search is all you need. They also need a constant supply of fresh hay.  All donations will be gratefully accepted.

Regards
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

5^th Sunday Ordinary Time
Jesus heals many people.
Mark 1:29-39

Living the Gospel – Prayer

In the midst of an extremely hectic 24 hours where Jesus effectively launches his public ministry, Jesus takes time to go aside to a lonely place and pray. The passage tells us that it was ‘long before dawn’ that he did this. It may have been his usual practice to pray early in the morning or he may have been restless after the events of the previous day and the thought of what lay ahead. Nevertheless, Jesus provides us with a model of using prayer to reflect on events and to prepare ourselves for the day ahead.

  @Liturgy Help – Greg Sunter

SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM

A reminder that the link to online registration for the Rockhampton Sacramental program is open until the 8^th of February.  Please complete your registration by this date to ensure your participation in the program.  Families can do so using the link below:

Our first family workshops for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, begin this week; on Tuesday the 6^th at St Peter’s and Thursday the 8^th at Holy Family.  These will start promptly at 5.30pm and families are reminded it is compulsory to attend one of these.

Christian Meditation

We are so happy to continue offering each child at Joeys an opportunity to meditate in the Christian tradition each day.  This practice occurs after 1^st break and allows students the opportunity to calm after what is often a very busy play time.

Christian meditation is a particular form of meditation taught by John Main OSB (1926 - 1982). In 1975 John Main OSB began the Christian Meditation Centre in London and this was the start of the World Community for Christian Meditation. (Click on hyperlink for resources)

Christian meditation is a very simple and ancient tradition of prayer that has been embraced by our community.  If you would like some more information about how to support your child with Christian Meditation or how you can make it part of your home and family life, please contact me.

Liturgical Celebrations Coming Up

*SJPA – St Joseph’s Park Avenue
*OLHC – Our Lady Help of Christians church (next to St Joseph’s, Park Avenue)
*HF – Holy Family Parish Centre (next to Anthony’s School)
*STM – St Mary’s Church (next to St Mary’s School)
*MPA – Multipurpose Area (Basketball court)

Parish Newsletter

Elizabeth Carter
Assistant Principal Religious Education

FINANCE NEWS

School Fees for Term 1 are due for payment today, Wednesday 7^th February. If you are having difficulty with the payment of school fees, please contact Mr Fitzgerald or Mrs Crosthwaite (Finance) as soon as possible.

At the beginning of each year, it is highly recommended to check that you have amended your payments for any extra siblings you may now have at school and for any increases for the year. This will ensure that you don’t get behind in your school fees. You can check this at any time on Parent Lounge.

If you have a means tested Concession Card and have not yet given a copy to the Finance Secretary, please do so as soon as possible to receive the appropriate discount.

If paying by Direct Deposit or Centrepay, please use your Account Number as the reference instead of names (this is the 6-digit number on your Fee Statement).

CLASSROOM NEWS

The Breathtaking Year 6’s!
Reported By Amelia Pedersen, Ella Coughlan and Audrey Brady
5th of February 2024

It has been a smashing start to Year 6’s last year of primary school. Leahy House has taken over the jobs for the first two weeks, by reading the awards, selling Icy Cups, Pizza Fridays, Sportshed and putting up and taking down the flags. In preparation for the Grade 6’s big year, Mrs Farr and Mrs Duncan have been helping the class try on their Senior Shirt samples for sizings, ready to wear every Friday. Our new Year 6 teacher, Miss Hitchen helped us create a colourful art piece. The year 6’s enjoyed creating a colourful brick background and designing their name on a blank piece of paper.

On the 2nd of February was the Opening School Mass. This mass is a big event on our school's calendar. Sports Captains and the Student Council got the opportunity to read at the mass, and hand out the new blue and white staff umbrellas. When Paige Toby was asked, “What did you like about the school mass?” She answered with, “I liked when all the staff had a smile on their face when they got their new umbrellas.” The first two weeks of school for the Year 6’s has been a blast. We have enjoyed bonding with our new teachers, as well as each other.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students and staff who will celebrate their birthday this week.  They are: Addison B (Yr 2), Hudson H (Yr 1), Octavia C (Yr 2), Eliana Stevenson (Yr 5), Billie McDonald (Yr 1) and Mrs Donohoe (IC).

Have a great day.

DRAKES SUPA IGA

Drakes Fundraiser for St. Joseph's Cathedral

I thank you for your support of this project which has raised over $40,000, of which the school community has played an important role.  Please continue to support the Cathedral by shopping at DRAKES using your key tag and receiving the benefits.

If you have not been part of this fundraiser you are invited to get a key tag from your local School or Church and shop at your local Drakes, one cent in every dollar you spend will go to the Cathedral.  No Fuss, only benefits.

Hoping to see you at Drakes 
Stay Safe

Shirley Hopkins,
Co-ordinator, Drakes Fundraiser for St Joseph's Cathedral