29 July 2020

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents & Guardians

Car visor names should have arrived home with the eldest in each family last Friday. Please make sure that we are using these by having one in each family car as well as with any other family members who may collect your children.

This will not cure our current car park issues but will help speed things along.

I would also like to thank my staff who have all been out doing extra duties of an afternoon in an effort to make the best of what is a very challenging situation.

It was wonderful to see the staff out there going above and beyond to help out. It really does reflect St Mary MacKillops famous quote, ‘Never see a need without doing something about it.’ Also, a huge thank-you to the senior students who have been helping of a morning by guiding our youngest students to the new Lower Precinct. They too have been wonderful.

Please remember unlike other congested areas surrounding schools, we actually have capital works happening in an effort to remedy issues that have been a concern for some time. In a local Facebook group, our school was named along with at least five other schools as having constant congestion issues. Not one of the other schools mentioned in the post have ongoing works like we do that is trying to improve the congestion situation. At the end of this work, Joeys will have a tremendous amount of off-street parking that will ultimately make it safer for both the school and the Kindy students while also helping traffic flow smoother for the Park Avenue community. Unlike other situations where no work is happening, there is light at the end of this tunnel.

As some restrictions are beginning to be lifted locally, I would like to reemphasise that the parent restrictions onsite currently have more to do with our lack of space than COVID-19 at the moment. If you urgently need to see the office, I urge you to park and ring through. We currently have restricted access not total no access. I know many parents are wanting to see our new rooms but at this present time, we do not have the space for parents to park and stay in the grounds of a morning or afternoon.  We actually require all the available space for our students to play and for OSHC to operate of an afternoon. Please keep in mind that as some schools begin to welcome back parents onsite, out of a physical necessity, we will still be limiting access for a little longer. I can’t wait for when we too can fling open the gates to our family-based community once again. I need to remind myself that I too need to be patient as this day will come, but not just at the moment. Please be patient with us in this matter.

This Thursday at 5:00pm, report cards will be posted to Parent Lounge. I remind you that this Semester 1 Report will look different to our usual reporting format due to the disruption of COVID-19 in Semester 1. All Catholic schools will be issuing abbreviated reports that will reporting on specific Key Learning Areas rather than all of them as they normally would. You will also notice the absence of ‘Days Absent’ being listed due to the nature of the pandemic and the ‘At Home Learning’ response earlier in the year. Please make sure you have your Parent Lounge login details to access these later in the week.

Finally, this week has seen the beginning of our Prep interviews for 2021. Existing families with new children beginning in 2021 will be interviewed by Mrs Brennan and Mrs Senini in a slightly briefer format for those who already know the school. New families to Joeys will be interviewed by myself and this process will be slightly longer as it will involve a little bit more delivery of information.

We have booked in the interviews over the next 4-5 weeks and scheduled them so that at least one of the Leadership Team would be available if needed. I love showing off our school and finally we will have some new buildings to show our new prospective parents.

Keep an eye out for the Year 6 Father’s Day raffle that will be announced soon.

Kindest Regards
Bernard Fitzgerald
Principal - St. Joseph’s Catholic School Park Avenue

Happy every day. Learning every day.

APRE REFLECTION

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus describes the kingdom through images
Matthew 13:44-52

‘The Kingdom of heaven is like . . .’ Jesus likens heaven to a hidden treasure, a pearl of great price and a fishing net. In the last of these images, heaven is described as a grab bag containing a jumble of marine life. The net drags everything in and then the catch is sorted. No rubbish gets into heaven!

Gospel reflection by Artist Jenny Close

Q. Why might Jesus have given dozens of different descriptions of what the kingdom is ‘like’?
Q. In what ways can we get ‘glimpses’ of the kingdom?
Q. In what ways can you be a ‘glimpse of the kingdom’ for others?

Bernadette Brennan
Assistant Principal Religious Education

CURRICULUM NEWS

Important Curriculum Dates:

SEMESTER ONE REPORTS

On Thursday, 30th July from 5pm the Semester One reports will be available for viewing on Parent Lounge. I encourage you to check that you can log in to your Parent Lounge account. If you require assistance to do this, please contact the school office.

SEMESTER TWO PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

At this stage we are planning on having parent teacher interviews in their normal format, however, we will make a final decision based on updated health advice and direction from the Catholic Education Office as the date for interviews (Week 9) draws nearer. More detailed communication will be sent out to the school community in due course. If you need to speak to teachers before the Week 9 formal interviews, please make contact with teachers via email to arrange a suitable catch up time and method.

SCIENCE WEEK

St Joseph’s will be participating in Science Week again this year, however, due to COVID rules and restrictions and due to the added issue of our current building works, Science Week will look different to normal. Students will be doing extra science activities in class during Week 6 as a way of celebrating science.

BOOK WEEK

St Joseph’s Book Week is normally scheduled for Term 3, however the National Book Week dates have been changed to October with the hope that COVID restrictions might have eased more by then. This year we will hold our annual Book Week activities in line with the new National Book Week dates. More information regarding our Book Week celebrations will come out next term.

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE

All students are invited to participate in the Queensland Premier’s Reading Challenge again this year.

Reading plays an important part in students’ lives during their school years and beyond. It allows children to actively engage their imagination and opens up a world of educational opportunities.

Last year, 168,000 students from 937 schools took part in the challenge, reading an astounding 2.31 million books. What an incredible result.

The reading period for the 2020 Premier's Reading Challenge commences on Monday 11 May and closes Friday 28 August.

This year the Premier has invited all state and non-state school students to take on the challenge:

• Prep to Year 2 should read or experience at least 20 books,
• Years 3 and 4 should read at least 20 books, and
• Years 5 to 9 should read at least 15 books.

Experiencing books can include shared reading, listening to stories, or reading picture books. The aim for the 2020 challenge is to engage more students reading more books than ever before.

Every student who completes the challenge will receive a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Premier. Students who participate but don’t complete the challenge receive a Certificate of Participation from the school.

Attached to this newsletter is the form to be used to record the books read during this period. Once completed, please send this form back to the school office.

For more information about the Premier’s Reading Challenge, please visit the link below:

To download a reading record form click on the following link:

Interactive school reader record form (DOCX, 941KB)

You can play a big part in your children’s future by encouraging them to be part of this positive initiative.

I look forward to seeing as many of our students as possible take part in the 2020 Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Thanks for your continued patience and understanding of changes in processes during this extra difficult time at St Joseph’s. Your support is greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

FINANCE NEWS

Fee Accounts for Term 3 were emailed and posted to Parent Lounge last week.

If you have a Means Tested Concession Card and have not yet provided a copy, please send this through to Megan in the office for verification.

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.

When paying by Direct Deposit, please use your Account Number as the reference

(this is the 6-digit number on your Fee Statement).

CLASSROOM NEWS

Yr 1

Welcome to our new learning space!

We have hit the ground running this term in our new learning space. Already we are in full swing of our workshops for English and Maths. Some afternoons we spend doing ‘Investigations’. We have a Pizza Shop set up where we are working on our language of questioning to ask for ingredients when ordering a pizza and fractions of half and quarters. We are also investigating the types of weather in our world and using specific vocabulary to describe what the weather is like each day.

Here’s what some of us already love about our new room:

Spencer: I love that there’s lots of space.
Hudson: I love the TV in the breakout room.
Kaeli: I love using the ipads and my teachers are great at helping us learn.
Olivia H: I love the grey ball chairs.
Ned: The breakout room is awesome and I’ve never seen one before.
Harper: It is bigger and has lots of doors.
Siarra: It has so many whiteboards.
Luke: It has a pizza shop we can play with.

We look forward to welcoming you all into our room for a tour as soon as we are able. Until then, please enjoy our photos of the children engaged in meaningful learning experiences.

The Year One team and students

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students and staff who will celebrate their birthday this week.

They are: Lilly Carpenter (Yr 5), Pippa Kaufman (Yr 2), Jordana Corry (Yr 4), Kiara and Sophie Coughlan (Prep), Paityn Spence (Yr 3), Alex Crane (Yr 5), Brittney O’Leary (Yr 4), Harrison Bell (Yr 1), Jazmyn Palmer (Yr 3), Liam Jannsen (Yr 3), Makenzy Austin (Yr 5) Marley Austin (Yr 5), Mrs Hannah (Yr 1) and Miss McGinley (Yr 3) for last week.

Have a great day.

TOUCH FOOTBALL

After discussions with the leadership team this week, it has been decided due to COVID safe requirements and the current stage 2 capital works that are underway at the school, St Joseph's Park Avenue will not be able to nominate any Touch Football teams in the upcoming Saturday Morning competition this year.

With the season set to start in early August, (if restrictions permit) you may wish to nominate your own team not affiliated with the school in any way or contact the below clubs to see if they have any teams that need players.

Magpies – magpiesrocky@gmail.com
Rebels – Andrew_pratt@emmaus.qld.ed.au
Crushers – dkels5@eq.edu.au

If you do have any questions or concerns regarding this decision, please contact the leadership team – Bernard Fitzgerald, Bernadette Brennan & Deanne Senini.

Thanks
Michelle Smith

SCHOOL BANKING TERM 3

Banking for Term 3 has recommenced.

Please remind your children to put their bank books in the grey banking bags, which is in their classroom.

Thanks
Megan Crosthwaite

P & F NEWS

Thank you to all our Joeys community for their co-operation during the few wet weather days we had last week. Whilst not ideal, our amazing staff made sure our kids were safe, dry and got to their waiting families promptly.

The mornings have still been quite cool, so if you’re on the hunt for a jacket, or even some other good quality second hand uniforms, don’t forget our uniform shop. As a reminder, the uniform shop is generally open:

As we don’t always have the volunteers to man the shop, if there’s something you require, please contact our volunteers via our Facebook page, or message Amanda Conway or Rebecca Wogand for further details.

Reminder:
Wed Aug 12: P&F Meeting 6:30pm - Inclusive Curriculum Room

Thanks,
Joeys P&F

Jabbering with Joeys

This week we’re chatting with our other amazing Year 2 teacher, Catherine Farr, who also just happens to be a parent of a student here at Joeys.

Name: Catherine Farr
How long have you been at Joeys?: 11 years
Favourite Food: Thai or Project Mex
What did you want to be when you grew up?: Teacher or jillaroo
Favourite Music: Country Rock
Coffee or Tea: Coca cola
Favourite subject at school: Math, Science, History
Hobbies outside of Joeys: Camping and Sewing
Favourite book/movie: Game of thrones (The books)
Favourite colour: Orange
Best “Dad” joke: Mum: “How do I look?” Dad: ”With your eyes!”
Favourite thing about Joeys: The community spirit, someone is always there when you need them.

FRIDAY PIZZA

Due to the current situation we have had to change the way we run pizza and icy cups on a Friday. The following changes have been made:

• Pizza and Icy Cups to be ordered and paid for from outside the Year 6 room in the morning from 8:15 – 8:35am.
• Brown bags not required for pizza – students simply bring their money ($2 per slice) and tell the Year 6 students what you would like to order.
• Pizza slices will be delivered to classes in provided brown bags in tuckshop boxes at lunch time.
• Icy Cups will be delivered to the classrooms at approx. 2:55pm ready for home time.

Please note: There is a pizza order form available if you think this will be helpful to assist your child with the ordering process. Also, Icy Cups can sell out, so it is first in best dressed when ordering in the morning.

DRAKES SUPA IGA

Simply scan your Drakes Supa IGA key tag at 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