9 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE ACTING PRINCIPAL

Congratulations to one of our much beloved priests Father Frank Gilbert who celebrated a special mass with all priests in the Diocese last Friday. The mass celebrated Fr Frank’s 60 years as an ordained priest and acknowledged the great work that he has done in service to God and the people in the Rockhampton Diocese. Well done to Fr Frank as 60 years is a massive achievement and we look forward to more years of Frank celebrating school masses with our Joeys community.

Thank-you to our wonderful P&F Association who, on Harmony Day donated the awesome indigenous mats that every class has been using around the school. Our P&F does wonderful and important work for our school community. If you wish to come along and help the P&F out, we are meeting next Tuesday evening in the school staff room at 6:30pm. We would love for you to come along

This Friday at 9:00am we will be celebrating a combined whole school and parish mass to mark St Mary of the Cross MacKillop’s Feast Day, which was on Tuesday of this week. All are welcome to come along and attend.

Finally, I would like to congratulate you, our school community. I have just completed a little fewer than 80 prospective Prep interviews for 2018 with parents and children over the last three weeks. I must mention that one of the most appealing aspects to the visiting families during these meetings was seeing our school community in full flight. Most families commented on the welcoming behaviour and the polite manners of our students as well as the calm and engaged nature of our learning environment. This of course can be attributed to both the wonderful work you do as parents, as well as what the Joey’s staff do at school in partnership together. To all of the prospective parents who came through my door, I mentioned a number of things that Joeys is well known for in the community, and this list was I think, both full and impressive. I did however point out that what we should be well known for is that we have a lovely community of students, staff, parents and families that make our school great.

I was honestly very proud to show off our school to interested families over the last three weeks, but the presence of our friendly, welcoming, family community makes the job that much easier.

Don’t Forget …

• Under 8’s Day, Thursday 10th August
• Whole School Mary MacKillop Mass, 9:00am Friday 11th August in OLHC
• P&F Meeting, 6:30pm Tuesday 15th August
• School Board meeting, Thursday 17th August, 5:30pm
• 2018 Prep offers sent out. Friday, 18th August
• Children’s Mass, 6:00pm Saturday 19th August in OLHC

Have a great week.

Regards

Bernard Fitzgerald
St. Joseph’s PA Acting Principal

APRE REFLECTION

This week we celebrate the feast of St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Mary was a great Australian who we can look to for guidance this year as she truly was “The Someone to someone in need.” She faced many challenges in her life, as we do, yet her faith in God led her to persist and through her will, we have been graced with our school St. Joseph’s Park Avenue. On Friday, our Year 5 students will lead the whole school mass to celebrate the feast day of Australia’s first saint.

Have a great week

Bernadette Brennan
Acting APRE

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop Mass

This Friday at 9:00am, Year 5 will be leading our whole school mass in Our Lady Help of Christians church. We share this special day with the parishioners in our community and welcome all families and friends of the school to join us.

NO Prayer Assembly this week.

Please note there will be no prayer assembly this week due to the Mary MacKillop feast day mass. Next week we are celebrating a children’s mass, so the next prayer assembly will be in Week 8 lead by Prep W.

Mass times

Weekday

Tuesday 9.00am Holy Family
Wednesday 12.00 Noon St Mary’s
Thursday 8.00am Emmaus College (Yaamba Rd)
Friday 9.00am Our Lady Help of Christians

Weekend

Saturday – Vigil

6.00pm Holy Family
6.00pm Our Lady Help of Christians

Sunday

7.00am St Mary’s

9.00am Holy Family

Bernadette Brennan
Acting APRE

SPORTING MATTERS

Rockhampton Athletics selection

Congratulations to Braydon on his selection on the Rockhampton Athletics team to compete in high jump. Braydon recently won the 10 years high jump with an impressive 1.25m jump. He heads off to Emerald next to trial for the Capricornia team. Best of Luck Braydon.

Friday Sport 11/08/2017

Hockey

1pm

St Joseph’s PA 1 v St Joseph’s Wandal 1 on Grass 2
St Joseph’s PA 3 v Lighthouse CC 3 on Grass 6
St Joseph’s PA 5 v Lighthouse CC 1 on Grass 5

1:20pm

St Joseph’s PA 2 v St Joseph’s Wandal 2 on Grass 2
St Joseph’s PA 4 v Lighthouse CC 4 on Grass 6
St Joseph’s PA 6 v Lighthouse CC 2 on Grass 5

1:40pm

St Joseph’s PA 1 v Lighthouse CC 1 on Grass 6
St Joseph’s PA 3 v St Mary’s 3 on Grass 3
St Joseph’s PA 5 v St Mary’s 1 on Grass 5

2:00pm

St Joseph’s PA 2 v Lighthouse CC 2 on Grass 6
St Joseph’s PA 4 v St Mary’s 4 on Grass 3
St Joseph’s PA 6 v St Mary’s 2 on Grass 5

All Hockey games are played at Kalka Shades

Netball

Junior D 12:30pm

St Joseph’s PA v Frenchville on Court 10

Junior C 12:30pm

St Joseph’s PA v St Joseph’s Wandal on Court 12

Junior B 1:10pm

St Joseph’s PA v The Hall on Court 11

Senior D 1:50pm

St Joseph’s PA v Crescent Lagoon Red on Court 12

Senior B 12:30pm

St Joseph’s PA v Mt Morgan on court 9

All Netball games are played at Jardine Park

Rugby League

Year 6 A’s Minor Semi Final 12:45pm

St Joseph’s PA v St Anthony’s @ RSHS Bottom

Year 5 A/B’s Major Semi Final 1:45pm

St Joseph’s PA v Frenchville @ Victoria Park Bottom

CURRICULUM NEWS

Important Curriculum Dates – Term 3

Naplan Reports

Going home today are the 2017 NAPLAN reports. NAPLAN tests were held in May this year. NAPLAN assesses reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy skills. Please make sure you ask your child for their NAPLAN report.

Under 8s Day

Our annual Under 8’s Day morning will take place at St Joey’s on Thursday 10th August. This is a day where we celebrate the learning and development of our younger students. The day will begin with a short liturgy led by 3A in the multi-purpose area. Following the liturgy, the children will be free to investigate the various hands on activities prepared by our Prep – Year 3 teachers. Parents are most welcome to attend this part of the day. After first break students will head back to class where they will complete activities with their class for the rest of the day. Students in Prep to Year 3 are invited to come along to this day in free dress. It is essential that this free dress consist of clothing which is sun safe (no sleeveless shirts), a school hat and fully enclosed shoes. If you are able to assist your child’s teacher on the day, please let them know as soon as possible. If you have any questions about this day, please don’t hesitate to see me. A note with more information regarding this day went home last Friday with Prep – Year 3 students.

Big Book Swap

Every second year during book week we have a big book swap morning (Tuesday 22nd August). This is when we ask students to bring in an unwanted book (in good condition) and swap it for another pre-loved book. This activity has been very well supported in the past and I’m hoping it will be again this year. The aim is for every child to go home with a new pre-loved book. Any leftover books are distributed to classrooms and used as classroom readers. If you would like to donate a book (or multiple books) for this event, please drop them to the library to Mrs Roberts who will place them aside for our big book swap. More books suitable for the upper grades are still required.

Woolworth’s Earn and Learn

Once again St Joseph’s has registered to be part of the Woolworth’s Earn and Learn program. Through this program we will be able to get new educational resources for our school.

From Wednesday 26th July to Tuesday 19th September we are collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn Stickers. You will get one Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker for every $10 spent (excluding liquor, tobacco and gift cards). Place the Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker onto a Woolworths Earn & Learn Sticker Sheet and when it’s complete, the Sticker Sheet can be dropped into the Collection Box here at the school office.

At the end of the promotion we’ll be able to get some great new equipment. The range is extensive and offers lots of items ideal for our students – including resources for Maths, English, Science and some fantastic fun supplies for Arts & Craft, Sport and for our library. Last year through this program we purchased a variety of maths equipment including a teaching clock for every classroom, some stopwatches and sporting equipment.

You can get a sticker card from any Woolworths Supermarket and we will keep spare ones here in the office if you need an extra one. Please make sure you completely fill the sheet before you return it to school as partly filled sheets are not counted.

LITERACY CORNER

Reading:

Learning to read involves children learning skills in comprehension, fluency, accuracy and expanding on their known vocabulary. This week’s skill comes under the heading of accuracy.

Strategy – Chunk Letters and Sounds Together

Chunking letters and sounds together (familiar word patterns such as blends, digraphs, prefixes, suffixes, compound words and smaller words within a word) to make decoding more efficient, rapid and accurate. For children to be able to understand what they read, they must be able to read the words rapidly as well as accurately. This frees children to focus their attention on the meaning of what they have read.

Spelling:

Activity: Tracing words

Trace your words into sand, shaving cream or paint. This is a fun way for students to learn their spelling patterns.

Regards,

Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

CLASSROOM NEWS

1F

What a great term to be in Year One!

The RACQ demonstration about road safety was very interesting with practical advice on how to cross the road. Students engaged enthusiastically in the activities and listened carefully to the instructions and information.

During Science week we had an awesome presentation by Ms Price from the Rockhampton City Council Recycling Division telling us about the importance of recycling and reusing products instead of just dumping them into land fill. Our class made clothing from reusable products from our homes instead of throwing them out. The students made vests, dresses, hats and diverse wearable garments. Other students from the school and family came to see the students model their clothing and ask these knowledgeable students questions about recycling and reusable products. The students also made recycled paper!

Also during Science Week the students got to see what the other classes were up to. There was much to see and experience. The CQU also had interesting, interactive displays to capture the minds of the students.

Harmony Day was very effective for Year One students. The students listened to Indigenous stories and learnt some Indigenous words. They also created hand prints using chalk and coloured in Australian animals. The Indigenous dancers performed for the school and were very entertaining. The students were very eager to join the dancers and learn some of the movements from the dances.

Year one was also very lucky to have Ms Hill visit and talk to us about the Darumbal seasons and foods as part of our HASS unit. She also shared her many artefacts with the students.

Karen Fox

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students who will celebrate their birthday this week. They are: Egan Cass (2H), Charlie Harris (5C), Grace Mundy (5T), Harrison Hopkins (5T), Amarni Goody (6F) and Nicola Dobbs (3T).

Have a great day.

FINANCE NEWS

Fee Accounts for Term 3 were emailed and posted out on Monday 17th July.

Payment for Term 3 Fees was due Monday 7th August 2017.

If you have not received your Fee Statement, please contact Megan for a copy.

If paying by Direct Deposit, please use your Account Number (6-digit number on your Fee Statement) as the reference.

If you have an outstanding amount and are unable to make any payment, can you please make immediate contact with Bernard or Megan to advise your current situation?

TUCKSHOP NEWS

We are looking for people that can help in the tuckshop on Mondays and Tuesdays.

If you are interested, please stop by the tuckshop and let us know.

Thank you

SCHOOL BANKING

Banking will recommence tomorrow (10th August).

If you are wanting to start school banking and are unsure of what to do, pop in to the office and we can help you out.

School banking is done through the school every Thursday.

LOST PROPERTY

The lost property is starting to mount up. If your child/ren are missing their jumper or school jacket, lunch box, water bottle or hat, this is where it could be.

At the end of the term, all unnamed items will be discarded or donated to the Uniform Shop.

VOLUNTEERS INDUCTION SESSIONS

WPH&S Volunteers Inductions are necessary for the safety of your children. Therefore, we ask that all parents who generously volunteer their time to the school, either in a classroom or in the tuckshop, attend a very brief induction regarding maintaining a safe environment for the children of St. Joseph’s.

These sessions only take about five minutes and are available after assembly on a Monday morning with Deanne Senini, and on Tuesday afternoons from 2:30pm - 3:00pm. Sue Clarke will also be conducting induction sessions in the tuckshop, if you are helping out in there.

Thanks

UNIFORM SHOP

Our uniform shop is run by VOLUNTEERS of the school and is open

Monday morning from 8:15 - 8:45
Tuesday afternoon from 2:45 - 3:15
Friday morning 8:15 – 8:45

Please feel free to drop any uniforms you no longer need so they can put out to sell. Proceeds can go back to you or you can donate it back to the P & F.

The Uniform Shop has quite a lot of good second hand uniforms. Please feel free to pop in (at the opening times above), and have a look.

There are second had Emmaus uniforms also.

FRIDAY PIZZA

Meatlovers and Hawaiian Pizza are available every Friday for $1.50/slice. Please have your order in a Brown Paper Bag with your name, class and order on it, with the money in side.

Please use a brown paper bag with child’s name and class written on the front.

TUCKSHOP IS UNAVAILABLE ON FRIDAYS

DRAKES SUPA IGA

Simply scan your Drakes Supa IGA key tag and the checkout with your groceries, and automatically 1 cent of every dollar you spend goes to the Cathedral Conservation Fund.

Key tags are available from the office; local church or Drakes stores. Put it on your car keys so you remember to use it.

Key tags can be used at any Drakes Supa IGA supermarket in Queensland. Currently in our Diocese Drakes stores are located at

• Glenmore (North Rockhampton)
• Emu Park