17 October 2018

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

I would like to begin this week’s newsletter by asking if you have any class requests for your child in 2019 to book a time through the office to see me before Monday the 5th of November. After this date, the teaching staff and the Leadership Team will be meeting and finalizing class lists on Tuesday the 6th of November.

In relation to this, I am looking to have more traditional type rooms in Years 1and 2 next year. I will still be promoting my classroom teachers to partake in collaborative teaching practices as I feel this is necessary for any educational institution, however, until such times as we have classrooms with the design, space and furniture that are more conducive to a flexible approach, I feel that this is the best way forward in the lower school at this time.

This Thursday we will be welcoming 52 new students to Joey’s along with their parents as we host our Prep Orientation day. This is always a great opportunity to highlight all the great aspects that makes Joey’s such a wonderful school. I am very excited as we are welcoming a wonderful group of young students and families in 2019. Our first group through for Prep Orientation will be 9:00-10:30am and our second group will be 11:00am-12:30pm. To accommodate our new guests, our current Prep students will be visiting Year 6. This is always an exciting day on the Joey’s calendar.

This week we welcome Jess Ivers back to the Joey’s community as she will be filling in the role of our Indigenous Teacher Assistant until the end of the year. Jess is a past student and a current parent at the school, so she is very accustomed to our school routines. The ongoing role of Indigenous Teacher Assistant commencing in 2019 will soon be advertised for those who may be interested.

Just a reminder that this Saturday evening, our school P&F Association will be holding an ‘Under the Sea’ themed Trivia Night at 7:00pm in the school MPA. Cost for the evening is $10 per person with nibbles provided and pizza available to order. A cash bar will be operating on the night. If you are interested in attending and supporting the P&F, I urge you to contact Tracey at the school office on 4994 8205 before Saturday’s event.

As you would be aware, the Skoolbag App is the quickest and most reliable way for the school to communicate with our Joey’s community. Skoolbag now has a new app that everyone needs to download in order to continue to receive the most up to date information from the school. The existing, older app will become obsolete very soon and is already causing some notifications not to be received and we are unable to update some of our contact information. The new app is free from either the App Store or the Play Store and you will use your existing login to get started. Please pass the word on within our community.

Congratulations to Steven Voss, past student of St Joseph’s, son of Leanne Voss and uncle to Ella Coughlan in Prep, for recently becoming the recipient of both The University Medal and The School of Engineering Medal. Both Medals are extremely prestigious as only one each per year are awarded by CQUniversity for Exceptional Academic Achievement. Steven is a past Dux at Joey’s and it is wonderful to see our past students continue to achieve great things once they leave our shores. Well done Steven, we are very proud of you.

A reminder that next Monday the 22nd October is a Pupil Free Day. The third Monday of Term 4 is always a scheduled Professional Development day for the staff at St Joseph’s Park Avenue.

Finally, in the coming weeks, all staff, parents and students from Years 2 to 6 will receive an invitation to take part in a Student Protection survey. Catholic Education (Diocese of Rockhampton) is committed to creating and maintaining safe environments for our students. The survey is a chance for us to monitor our progress, consider what we are doing well and what we could improve to make our schools safer places for our students. The survey is totally confidential and anonymous and a link will be forwarded as soon as possible.

I have also included a couple of Parent Education articles that some of you may find helpful on the topics of;

1. Online Safety for Prep Children.
2. Your Child’s First Smartphone – Are They Old Enough?

Don’t Forget …

• 2019 Prep Orientation Day, Thursday 18th October
• SJPA Trivia Night, Saturday 20th October @ 7:00pm
• Pupil Free Day, Monday 22nd October
• TCC Year 6 orientation half day, Tuesday 23rd October
• Crazy Sock Day (Gold Coin Donation) – Wednesday 31st October
• Swimming Carnival, Week 7 - Wednesday 21st November

Have a great week.

Regards
Bernard Fitzgerald
St. Joseph’s PA Principal

APRE REFLECTION

In this week’s Gospel from Mark (10:17-30) Jesus meets a man who queries Him about having eternal life. After some discussion Jesus says, ‘There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.’

I wonder:

What thoughts might the wealthy man have had as he walked away from Jesus?
What would be the most challenging thing for Jesus to ask you to give away or walk away from?
Who do you know who has made a really significant ‘sacrifice’ in their life?
What impact does materialism have on your community?
Is giving to charitable causes an adequate response to today’s gospel?

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
APRE

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

Socktober

Socktober is an initiative of Catholic Mission which aims to ‘sock it to poverty’ to help some of the most needy and vulnerable children in the world have better opportunities in life and a hope-filled future.

• Next Tuesday and Wednesday, students are invited to bring socks to school that can be turned into sock puppets. Classes will then be invited to have in-class puppet shows to help raise awareness for Catholic Mission.
• On Wednesday 31st October, we will hold a Crazy Sock Day and encourage the students to wear crazy socks all over their body. What is the most creative way they can wear socks?
• To participate in the Crazy Sock Day we will ‘Pass the Sock Around’ the entire school collecting gold coin donations as a fundraiser for Socktober.

Weekend Mass Time change to 6:30pm

Fr Frank is commencing holidays at the end of October, so necessary changes need to be made to the mass times on Saturday evenings. To enable Fr Marcel to celebrate a Vigil Mass at OLHC and Holy Family, the consensus of the members of the Parish Pastoral Council was that Mass times be 5pm at Holy Family and 6:30pm at OLHC. These changes will take effect from Saturday 27th October.

Sunday Mass times will remain unchanged.

Bandanna Day

Just when life should be full of possibilities, cancer crashes into a young person’s world and shatters everything. Cancer pushes them back in to the nest, makes them grow up too fast and weighs them down with worries they’re not supposed to have yet.

CanTeen is the game changer. They help young people cope with cancer in their family. Through CanTeen, they learn to explore and deal with their feelings about cancer, connect with other young people in the same boat and if they’ve been diagnosed themselves, we also provide specialist, youth-specific treatment teams.

By feeling understood and supported, young people develop resilience and can rebuild the foundations that crumbled beneath them when cancer turned their life upside down. That’s how CanTeen is the difference.

Bandanas will be available for sale next week before and after school. Next Friday we will celebrate Bandana Day as our way of supporting Can Teen.

Bernadette Brennan
APRE

SPORTING MATTERS

Friday Sport 19th October

Softball/Teeball

Yr 6 Boys

St Joeys v Frenchville (Field 2)

Yr 5 Girls

St Joeys 1 Blue v Frenchville (Field 13) (turn into Wambool St off Western and fields on right)

St Joeys 2 Maroon v RGS 1 (Field 14) (turn into Wambool St off Western and fields on right)

Softball/Teeball games this week are being played at Western Street.

All Games commence at 12:30

Cricket

St Joeys 1 Blue v Berserker on Field 2
St Joeys 2 Maroon v St Joeys 3 White on Field 5
St Joeys 4 Navy v BYE
St Joeys 5 Gold v Lakes Creek 2 on Field 3

All games played at McLeod Park (Dean St) starting at 12:45pm

Basketball

12:15 – 12:55
Squishy Squids v Tilted Tortoises
1:00 – 1:40
Pink Pandas v Dunking Ducks
1:45 – 2:25
Raging Rhino’s v Fearless Falcons

Bernadette Brennan
APRE

CURRICULUM NEWS

Welcome back to Term 4. I hope everyone had an enjoyable break.

PetPEP

AVA PetPEP is the Australian Veterinary Association's Pets and People Education Program.

AVA PetPEP teaches children and the community about responsible pet ownership, safety around animals, healthy living (pets and people), welfare of animals and animals in the community.

All students from Prep – Year 4 will be attending this program to help educate and encourage responsible pet ownership and general safe behaviours around animals. More information can be found via the link below.

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 comprehension.

Strategy – Summarise Text

Summarising is taking selections of text and reducing them to their bare essentials: the gist, the main ideas and the main points that are worth noting and remembering. The reader captures the most important parts of text but expresses them in a shorter version in their own words so the text is more easily remembered.

Spelling:

Activity: Keyboard Practice

Type your words on the computer. This will help you learn to spell your words as well as help you become aware of the keys on a keyboard.

Regards,
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

FINANCE NEWS

Fee Accounts for Term 4 were emailed and posted on Parent Lounge on Monday 15th October.

Fee Accounts are now being published to Parent Lounge and will no longer we posted out in hard copy. You will need to Login to Parent Lounge to access your Fee Statement.

Term 4 Fees are due for payment on Monday 29th October.

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?

Please remember to update your Concession Card if it has expired, as you are unable to get the Concession without a new card being presented.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Yr 5

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students who will celebrate their birthday this week and over the holidays. They are: Nick Murphy (Yr 6), Harrison Styles (Yr 1), Harper Corry (PG), Lilah Kipling (PM), Shaylah Ireland (3T), Humbal Salam (Yr 1) and Hugh Ballinger (Yr 4).

Have a great day.

UNDER THE SEA TRIVIA NIGHT

Our Under the Sea Trivia Night is this Saturday 20th October, starting at 7pm. It’s a great night, and we’d love for as many to come along and join in as possible.

Cost: $10 per person, with max 10 per table.

There’ll be prizes for the best dressed table, nibbles provided, pizza available to order and a cash bar on the night.

Please see Tracey in the office for table bookings up until Friday 19th October.

We hope to see you there!

ROSARY IN THE PARK

Come, pray with us!

When: Saturday, 20 October at 11 am
Where: Central Park-opposite Hungry Jack’s
(don’t forget to bring a chair)

All welcome!

Our Lady needs to hear from us!

PARENT LOUNGE

Changes to your address, phone number or work phone number can be made in Parent Lounge. Simply log in, go to the Parent Details tab, make your changes, then submit.

POSITION VACANT – PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS & SAFEGUARDING MANAGER

The Bishop and the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton are committed to ensuring the safety, well-being and dignity of all people, especially children and vulnerable adults in our communities. We have an important legal, moral and spiritual responsibility to create a safe and nurturing environment for our people. Having laid strong foundations in recent years by implementing a safeguarding framework throughout the Diocese, a skilled Professional Standards & Safeguarding Manager is required to continue this very important work.

Applicants are asked to submit a covering letter, their resumé and no more than four pages addressing each of the Key Selection Criteria (shown on page 6 of the Position Description) to hr@rok.catholic.net.au. The Position Description can be downloaded via the link below.

For further information, please call Vicki Oliver on 07 4887 3090 or email hr@rok.catholic.net.au.

Applications will close on Monday, 29th October at 9am.

The Cathedral Parish of St Joseph is seeking a professional, solution-focused individual with strong interpersonal, written and oral communication skills to perform clerical duties and day-to-day administrative tasks.

The successful candidate will support the Parish’s various ministries, applying the values and mission of the Diocese and the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The Parish requires the candidate to be highly organised and reliable with an enthusiasm for teamwork, flexibility, adaptability, creativity and keen attention to detail to ensure our office runs smoothly.

A high level of computer literacy is essential. Proficiency in the use of the Microsoft Office suite including Word, Excel and Publisher would be an advantage.

Hours of work are 9.00 am to 4.30 pm, Mon-Wed and Wed-Fri on alternating weeks (total of 42 hours per fortnight).

Applications close: COB Monday, 5th November 2018

Please see the Diocesan website below for the full details of this position or contact Gerard Hogan on 4927 6744 or Gerard.Hogan@cdor.org.au for an Applicant’s Kit.

SCHOOL BANKING

School banking every Thursday.

Please send your child’s banking book in so they can place it in the grey classroom-banking bag.

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 do not take long and are available after assembly on a Monday morning with Deanne Senini, and on Wednesday afternoons from 2:30pm - 3:00pm. Debbie Rooney will conduct induction sessions in the tuckshop, if you are helping 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 be 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 hand 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 inside.

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