17 March 2021

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINICPAL

It is nearly 12 months to the day since COVID precautions completely changed our normal schooling routines as we began to prepare for the reality of at home schooling.

As shocked as I was then at how vulnerable we were as a society in the face of the pandemic, I never would have thought at the time that 12 months later that we would only now be seeing the role out of vaccinations and that our routines would still be greatly affected by this very serious situation.

While we have been able to recommence great Joey’s services like ‘Breakfast Club’ by slightly altering our processes, we are still unfortunately unable to have school discos or even the ‘Grandparents Day’ morning tea portion of our Feast Day celebrations. Those who have been at the school for a few years, know just how enjoyable this celebration is and that it is one of the most prominent days on the Joey’s annual calendar.

With food preparation and service issues, as well as the elderly still being in the most vulnerable category (grandparents, please do not be offended as being referred to as elderly remembering that I too am a grandparent), the church being unable to accommodate the numbers needed while meeting COVID protocols as to how many people could attend, we were unable to host this part of our St Joseph’s Feast Day celebrations this year. Please know that we still value our Grandparents Day celebrations and that they will be included again when possible.

With that being said, our St Joseph’s Feast Day mass will be held this Friday the 19th of March in the schools MPA. Parishioners, parents and grandparents are all welcome to attend. We ask that on arrival you please sanitise your hands, sign in and practice social distancing. Seating in pairs placed 1.5 metres apart will be provided for our visitors. Mass will begin at 9:00am.

Our Diocesan Director, Leesa Jeffcoat will be visiting our lovely little school tomorrow. Leesa likes to visit every school in the Diocese each year and I am sure that she will be excited to see the huge number of physical improvements that have been made over the last 12-18 months. With the vast improvements made recently, I thank Leesa and the commitment that the Catholic Education Office has made to the staff and families at St Joseph’s. We appreciate the support shown in what we offer the area of Park Avenue and it’s surrounds. I have always maintained that the human element of our school is what makes it great, however, having contemporary, state-of-the-art rooms to match, is also greatly appreciated.

A reminder that this Friday we will also be acknowledging our National Day Against Bullying and Violence with our school community wearing their ‘BE KIND’ shirts.

Much has been spoken about with our students around the power of kindness. I hope we have a great day and remember the important message of looking after and caring for each other.

Don’t Forget …

• School Board Induction Meeting. Wed 17th March @ 5:30pm in Library
• Leesa Jeffcoat school visit. Thurs 18th March
• St Joseph’s Feast Day Mass. Fri 19th Mar @ 9:00am in School MPA
• Wear our ‘Be Kind’ shirts for National Day Against Bullying & Violence. Fri 19th March
• Principal Diocesan Gathering 24 – 25th March
• Year 6 Camp. Chaverim Bundaberg. 29th March – 1st April
• Holy Thursday. 1st April
• Term 1 concludes, Thursday 1st April
• Good Friday. 2nd April
• Easter Sunday. 4th April.
• Term 2 commences, Monday 19th of April

Have a great week.

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

St Joseph’s 2021 School Improvement Priorities:

• Parent Engagement
• Writing
• Social Emotional Learning

APRE REFLECTION

Fourth Week of Lent

Arsad, an Indonesian farmer, had no toilet in his house, so always had to walk into the forest to the open defecation area. His family was often sick and open defecation caused many neighbourhood disputes. With the support of Caritas Australia and its partner agency, Laz Harfa, Arsad took part in hygiene, sanitation and financial management training. He then funded the building of a toilet in his house and helped other community members to save money to construct their own toilet.

Now, Arsad’s family is healthier, their community no longer practices open defecation and is more harmonious. Arsad inspired his community to ‘Be More.’

Oliva has now graduated, attendance at her classes are growing, her kiosk is thriving and she is helping her children with their homework. She aims to become a pastor and run for leadership in the next local election - to help her community to ‘Be More.’

Watch a short film about Arsad’s story here.

“Aspire not to have more, but to be more.” Please support Project Compassion by contributing to the classroom fundraising money boxes.

ST JOSEPH’S FEAST DAY MASS

This Friday we are celebrating the feast of St. Joseph the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As our school is named after St. Joseph this is an important day on our calendar. Families are invited to join us at 9:00 am for a whole school mass in the Multi-purpose Area.

NDA

The National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence is this Friday.

We're joining the nationwide movement with schools across Australia to take action together against bullying on Friday 19 March 2021.

We're proud to be an NDA school.

We're proud to say “Bullying! No way!”

At our school we encourage students to take hold of the issue and talk about what works. Let's support our students to drive powerful messages and take action to prevent bullying.

This Friday 19 March 2021 we will wear our “BE KIND” T shirts.

Liturgical Celebrations Coming Up

• OLHC – Our Lady Help of Christians church – next to school
• MPA – Multipurpose Area (Basketball court)

Bernadette Brennan
Assistant Principal Religious Education

CURRICULUM NEWS

ST JOSEPH’S TEACHING AND LEARNING FRAMEWORK

Throughout 2019, the staff assisted me to develop a teaching and learning framework for our school. It has since been endorsed by the Rockhampton Catholic Education Office and is currently being implemented across our school. Each week in this newsletter I would like to share a section of this framework with the school community so that everyone is aware of what teaching and learning looks like at our school.

This week we will begin looking at Part 2 of the Teaching and Learning Framework – The School Curriculum Guide. This section is broken up into 5 sub sections: Curriculum Vision, Learning Culture, Curriculum Organisation, Data for Learning and Teacher Expertise.

This week’s focus is on the Learning Culture of St Joseph’s. This section is quite large so it will be broken up into smaller sections for the next couple of weeks.

Learning Culture

At St Joseph’s Park Avenue, we encourage students to be the best learners they can be. Each child is supported to co-construct learning goals and work towards achieving these goals. We promote our learning spaces to be places where risk taking, collaboration and exploration is encouraged and supported.

We promote positive learning relationships in our community. This is done through our communications, interactions and involvement with our Parish, parents and community members.

We promote safe and supportive learning environments for our students. Students are regularly made aware of how to stay safe at school and who they can turn to when feeling unsafe.

Learning Spaces

St Joseph’s Park Avenue offers collaborative learning spaces and pedagogies for our students. Collaborative learning spaces provide students with the opportunity to work collaboratively with their peers and teachers and be fully immersed in small group explicit teaching opportunities. Through the collection of regular and relevant data, teachers target their instruction to their learners’ needs and support them to become self-directed, responsible, and accountable learners. Each cohort works as a team to provide the joint cohort of students’ opportunities for small group workshops. These workshops consist of aspects of explicit teaching, collaboration between peers and opportunities for planned independent practice of learnt skills.

Our learning spaces are furnished with a variety of modern educational furniture to support the use of best practice teaching strategies and to provide students with seating choices to assist with self-regulation and collaborative learning. The chosen furniture also enables teachers to set up dedicated teaching areas which can be easily redesigned based on the purpose of each lesson.

High Expectations for Learners

At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Park Avenue, we encourage our learners to work with their teachers to develop personal learning goals in the areas of numeracy, reading and writing. These goals are derived from data analysis, teacher observations, student self-reflection and conversations between teachers and students. Teachers encourage students to strive for growth every day through encouragement, meaningful feedback, and regular acknowledgment of success.

Academic awards are presented at the end of each semester of learning. The purpose of this process is two-fold: to recognise academic achievements and to provide motivation for students to strive to improve their academic results and efforts.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN will be occurring this year for our Year 3 and 5 students.

Attached to this newsletter is a brochure about NAPLAN for your information.

We will be participating in planned NAPLAN practice tests this term with the official NAPLAN tests occurring next term. The practice tests allow for us to test our devices as well as our internet to ensure we don’t have any technical issues. It also gives the students a chance to practise the tests in the same format that they will appear on the day.

The practice tests will occur as follows:

• Year 3 omnibus test (a mixture of questions from numeracy, reading and conventions of language) – Thursday, 25th March
• Year 5 omnibus test (a mixture of questions from numeracy, reading and conventions of language) – Wednesday, 24th March
• Year 5 writing – Thursday, 25th March

Please see below for our school’s official NAPLAN testing schedule:

There will also be opportunities to compete catch up tests during the week of 17th – 21st May.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child’s participation in NAPLAN, please contact me through the office or via email: Deanne_senini@rok.catholic.edu.au.

ART COMPETITION

Students are invited to enter the 2021 Independent Education Union’s Awards for Excellence in Art Design competition. All students from Prep – Year 6 are eligible to enter.

Design Task:

• Your task is to produce a piece of artwork that best reflects the theme: Our World.
• You may include a statement or caption to reinforce your visual image.
• You may use a variety of media (paint, crayon, pencil, ink etc). It must also be suitable for exhibition purposes.

Entries close: Friday, 23rd July. Cash prizes of $100 - $350.

Please note: All entries must be posted to the appropriate address in time for it to be received by Friday, 23rd July. Parents are responsible for posting their child’s entry.

Please see Mrs Senini for an official entry form if you are interested in entering this competition.

Regards,
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

CLASSROOM NEWS

Yr 2

YR 6 EASTER RAFFLE

This is the last week that Year Six will be selling raffle tickets for our Easter Raffle. The tickets will cost $1 each and will be sold at the back of the office every morning and afternoon. There are many prizes to be won such as chocolates, stuffed toys and lollies.

All the proceeds of the raffle will be going towards Year Six Camp Fundraising.

All prizes will be drawn and given out on Friday the 19th which also happens to be on St Joseph Feast Day.

Thank you for your support, it is always a great event!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students and staff who will celebrate their birthday this week. They are: Blair Andjal (Yr 5), Ahri Cooney (Prep), Hudson Stefek (Yr 1), Amelia Nolan (Yr 5), Blake reading (Yr 1), Olivia Green (Yr 2), Elle Honeyball (Yr 5), and Ryder Millar (Yr 4).

Have a great day.

P & F NEWS

I would like to thank our volunteers who organised the Meal Deal today. Proceeds of the meal deal will go toward supporting our Joey's families that are currently facing such a difficult time. Also, thank you to our Breaky Club helpers for the St Patty’s day breakfast goodies of green pancakes and fruit!!!

Don’t forget, with the Easter break approaching, there will be no P & F meeting for April. The next P & F meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 12th at 6.30pm in the Library. All are welcome!

POSITION VACANT

The Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton (Bishop’s Office) is seeking an Administration Officer – Clergy Visa.

This casual support role will be up to 10 hours per week and will support the work of the Bishop and Chancellor with the process of renewals and applications for international clergy Visas.

Experience needed - proven relations working with government agencies including Immigration Department and Catholic agencies, attention to detail, efficiency with processing of information and forms, confidentiality and strong verbal and written communication skills.

Please contact Kristy Gear, Human Resource Manager on 4887 3090 or email your resume and cover letter to hr@rok.catholic.net.au Applications close Friday 19 March 2021.

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