24 October 2018

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

As mentioned last week, Catholic Education - Diocese of Rockhampton is committed to creating and maintaining safe environments for students and takes their legal obligations under the Education (General Provisions) Act 2006 and Child Protection Act 1999 very seriously. We all assist staff to meet their responsibilities by educating and supporting them to identify student protection concerns through recognising signs of abuse and harm and supporting them through the conferral and reporting processes. More broadly we also promote strategies that are designed to enhance student wellbeing so that students are safe to learn and can achieve their educational goals.

It is important to monitor our progress, consider what we are doing well and what we could improve to make our schools safer places for our students. To assist all of us who work in Catholic Education - Diocese of Rockhampton to continue to ensure that our student protection culture, processes and practices are of the highest standard, Encompass Family and Community, consultants in child protection, have been contracted as an external agency to conduct a research project that will canvass the thoughts of all who are engaged in the delivery of Catholic Education - Diocese of Rockhampton services.

All staff, parents and students from Years 2 to 12 from our kindergartens, primary schools, colleges and OSHC services have been asked to complete a confidential survey which will provide feedback about student safety and recommendations on how this can improve into the future.

The survey has been designed by Encompass Family and Community, is confidential and anonymous. The results will be analysed and reported on by Encompass Family and Community.

The St Joseph’s staff and students from Years 2 and above will be taking part in the survey during school hours this week.

I have included a Parent Survey Information Sheet as a PDF for further information on the survey process.

The link for the parent survey is -

This survey link will be available until Monday 29 October 2018 and your participation would be greatly appreciated.

A reminder that if you have any class requests for your child in 2019 please book a time through the school 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. Please be aware that Years 4 – 6 will be Flexible Learning Areas. All students in those year levels will be in a double GLA as one cohort.

The official 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. 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.

Last of all, thank you to the wonderful P&F Association and all who helped make the trivia night such a wonderful event. Well done, the night was a blast.

Don’t Forget …

• 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

Dear God,

Grant our teachers an abundance of Your wisdom. Prepare their hearts to welcome and love our loved ones, and may we make sure to show them love and respect in return. Give them grace as they help students who aren’t thriving, courage to say what needs to be said, tools and knowledge on how and when to speak love, and strength when they feel weak. When they feel unseen, remind them that no moment goes unnoticed. They are shaping the future in one million small - yet incredibly important - ways every day. We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of learning they share with our children. Bless them, Lord, and may they see even just a glimpse of how their faithfulness will forever impact generations to come.
Amen.

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
5.00pm Holy Family
6.30pm Our Lady Help of Christians

Sunday
7.00am St Mary’s
9.00am Holy Family

Bernadette Brennan
APRE

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

What’s Happening this Term

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.

• 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 to wear socks? Please note the children will wear their school uniforms with crazy 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 this Saturday 27th October. Sunday Mass times will remain unchanged.

Bandanna Day

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.

Sacramental Program

Would you like your child to take the next steps in their faith journey?

The next sacramental program (Penance/Reconciliation, Eucharist/First Communion and Confirmation) is starting soon. Please see the attached letter.

Bernadette Brennan
APRE

SPORTING MATTERS

Swimming Carnival Date Claimer

The annual swimming carnival will be held on Wednesday 21st November commencing at 5:00pm.

The carnival is held at the South Rockhampton Pool.

Friday Sport 26th October

Softball/Teeball

Yr 6 Boys

St Joeys v RGS on 3B

Yr 5 Girls

St Joeys 1 Blue v RGS 2 on 4C
St Joeys 2 Maroon v Mt Archer on 3C

Softball/Teeball games are now being played at KELE PARK

All Games commence at 12:30

Cricket

St Joeys 1 Blue v Park Avenue 1 on Field 6
St Joeys 2 Maroon v Park Avenue 2 on Field 5
St Joeys 3 White v Berserker on Field 2
St Joeys 4 Navy v Lakes Creek 3 on Field 1
St Joeys 5 Gold v Frenchville 2 on Field 3

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

Basketball

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

Bernadette Brennan
APRE

CURRICULUM NEWS

DAY FOR DANIEL

Once again this year we will be inviting students to participate in the annual ‘Day for Daniel’. ‘Day for Daniel’ is a National Day of Action to raise awareness about child safety and protection. Parents, carers and guardians are asked to start a conversation about personal safety in the real world and in an online environment.

Students are asked to wear a red shirt to school on Friday, 26th October with their normal sports uniform shorts. Those senior students travelling for sport are asked to bring their normal sports shirt to change in to.

Teachers will be talking to the students and completing activities as a way of remembering how to stay safe. Please reinforce the important messages of Recognise, React, Report with your children.

What does RECOGNISE, REACT and REPORT mean?

• RECOGNISE encourages students to be aware of their surroundings and to recognise body clues in situations where they don’t feel safe.
• REACT helps students to consider choices that may keep them safe or help make them safe again as quickly as possible.
• REPORT encourages students to report unsafe incidents to an adult.

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 – Use Main Idea and Supporting Details to Determine Importance

Readers understand the most important idea about what is being read. This idea is often stated in a sentence in the passage, whereas other sentences comprise pieces of information that tell more about the most important idea. Identifying and understanding main ideas along with determining importance are prerequisite skills to summarising text. Readers summarise the most important aspects of the text by determining the details that are significant and discard those that are not while stating the main idea in their own words, thus improving comprehension and understanding what is read.

Spelling:

Activity: Upper and Lower Case

Write your spelling words two times each. The first time write them in uppercase letters and the second time write them in lowercase letters.

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 4

Welcome back to Term 4.

We have had a very busy start to term 4 with swimming lessons and guest speakers. In HASS we have been investigating our environment and the effect of pollution. One activity we have taken part in was the River Story. As Mrs Rutherford read the story about how different things were affecting the water, we added items representing these to our make shift river. The end result was not very pleasant and everyone agreed that they would not want to drink or bath in the water. Which left us wondering what we can do to protect our environment. Over the next couple of weeks, we will continue to consider different ways we can look after the environment both at school and in our local community.

On Friday the 9th of November Year 4 will be leading the school in liturgy reflecting on the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War and Remembrance Day. We hope you can all join us.

Joeys News

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).

The following students celebrated their birthdays last week. They are: Jorja Hallam (3F), Sarah Clarke (Yr 5), Miranda Brunton (Yr 5), Isabelle Fuary (Yr 4), Ethan Roati (Yr 1), Kiasharn Henaway (Yr 4) and Flynn Kirkman (PM).

Have a great day.

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 in 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.

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