2 June 2021

Newsletter Articles

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

The Most Holy Trinity

Jesus sends forth the apostles with the promise to be with them always

Matthew 28:16-20

Living the Gospel – The Sign of the Cross

Jesus’ instruction that the disciples go out to all the nations and baptise them ‘in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ is an instruction that is still being carried on today. Those precise words are used by the priest at every baptism. They are also the words used in the sign of the cross – whether that is a personal, private blessing of oneself or a blessing of a group as in the introductory and dismissal rites as part of a Eucharistic celebration. When we make the sign of the cross, we use the words of Jesus.

@Liturgy Help – Greg Sunter

Children’s Mass Date Claimer

It has been a long time coming, but we are going to return to having a regular children’s mass next term. Saturday 31st July @ 6:30pm, will be our first Children’s Mass since the pandemic closed our churches. A Children’s Mass is led by the children, with children’s hymns, children reading and singing and is targeted at their level of understanding. Please add this date to your calendar and more will be posted next term. This will be a great way to celebrate the end of Catholic Education Week for 2021.

Liturgical Celebrations Coming Up

Laudato Si’ Week

This school community continues to amaze me. The involvement during our Laudato Si’ Week celebrations was unbelievable. What started out as a small idea to address the question of, “How can be better stewards of creation?" evolved into the great event that we hosted last Thursday. The students had a fantastic day and all the visiting stall holders commented on their positive interaction and learning opportunities. We all have gifts given by God within us to be better and do better in caring for our common home.

I am very grateful for the Joeys staff who committed to this concept and worked above and beyond the normal calling of school hours to ensure every student had a great experience. We are especially lucky to have Mr Kelson Tennyson on our team as the specialist and witness to living out Pope Francis’ call to being more sustainable and aware of The Common Home. Kelson has worked closely and often with the Sustainability Team to bring the event to fruition.

As with any new event, there will always be reflection on what we can do next time and how could we do it better. If you have a thought that might help our future Expos, please share them with me.

Congratulations to the raffle winners:

1st – Bunnings Voucher kindly donated by Monica’s family (Year 4) – Lorinda Goodsall
2nd – Organic Raised Garden Bed – Jenny Puckering
3rd – Bug Hotel kindle donated by Keely B’s family (Year 6) – Danielle Thompson

The winner of the photo competition was Matt Pollack. Check it out!

State of Origin Free Dress Day

The QLD Primary Schools Cup Netball team as hosting a Free Dress Day on the first State of Origin day Wednesday 9th June. Students are invited to wear Maroon (or Blue if they dare) to show support for their great state. Please note coloured hair spray and coloured zinc are not permitted. Students must wear closed in shoes and sun safe clothing.

Cost: Gold Coin donation or greater to help our girls raise funds for their trip to Pine Rivers in September.

Don’t Forget …

• State of Origin Free Dress Day - 9th June
• Rockhampton Show Holiday - 10th June
• R’ton District Athletics Trials - 14th & 15th June
• Cultural Performance Assembly - 14th June
• Academic Awards Assembly - 21st June
• Semester 1 Reports posted to Parent Lounge - Wednesday 23rd June
• All Prep enrolments for 2022 submitted online before the end of Semester 1
• Last Day of Term 2 - 25th June

Bernadette Brennan
Assistant Principal Religious Education

CURRICULUM NEWS

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE

All students in Prep – Year 6 are invited to participate in the QLD Premier’s Reading Challenge. Below provides an overview of what the challenge is and how to get involved.

The Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) is an annual state-wide initiative for state and non-state schools and home-educated students up to Year 9, and children attending early childhood centres. Over the past 14 years, more than 14 million books have been read, and in 2019 alone, 168,000 school, early childhood and individual readers participated in the challenge with more than 2.31 million books read throughout the PRC reading period.

The challenge is not a competition but aims to improve literacy and encourage children to read widely for pleasure and learning. Students can participate in the challenge within their school or as individual readers (home-educated students or students whose schools are not participating in the program).

For a student to successfully complete the challenge they must read or experience the allocated number of books for their year level during the reading period. Students who complete the challenge have their efforts recognised through the receipt of a Certificate of Achievement signed by the Premier of Queensland.

Why read? Literacy skills are vital to ensuring children have the best chance to succeed in their schooling and life. The PRC is an opportunity for students to be enthusiastic about reading, writing, authors and illustrators. Reading a variety of books builds vocabulary and knowledge, improves spelling and comprehension, can improve confidence and is also a great way to relax.

Reading requirements

While there is no compulsory reading list for the challenge, book lists have been developed in conjunction with the Department of Education’s (DoE) Reading Centre and the Global schools through languages team (State Schools – Performance), to help students, teachers, parents and guardians select age-appropriate reading material. The book lists are available on the Premier’s Reading Challenge website and have been divided into year level groups.

Students are encouraged to select a range of fiction and non-fiction books suited to their reading ability. Students are welcome to read books from previous years' book lists and from lists for other year levels.

Book titles are also available in Chinese, French, German Indonesian, Italian and Japanese. Students learning languages from Prep (or students with a family background in a language other than English) can choose to read or experience any books in additional languages to English as part of the challenge. Books in additional languages are not in year-level groups. Language teachers will be able to make decisions about appropriate books for students at their schools based on their understanding of students' level of language learning and their interests.

To successfully complete the PRC, students must read or experience the number of books indicated below in English or additional languages.

Prep – Year 2 students are required to read or experience 20 books
Year 3 – Year 4 students are required to read 20 books
Years 5 & 6 – Students to read 15 books

The requirement for Year 5 through to Year 9 students to read 15 books acknowledges that older students are likely to select longer, more complex books that may take them longer to read.

If they have time, students are welcome to read more books than the challenge requirements. They just need to record them on another reader record form. All books will go towards Queensland’s total PRC tally.

The following activities can be counted towards the challenge:

• reading independently

• shared reading

• being read to (Prep – Year 2 for books written in English; and all year levels for additional languages).

The following literature forms can be counted towards the challenge:

• printed books
• e-books, virtual books and digital publications
• graphic novels and comic books
• audio and braille books
• newspapers, magazines and recipe books
• books in additional languages (other than English).

A reading record form can be downloaded from the following website:

or collected from class teachers. Once completed, please return the form to school. The challenge finishes on 27th August. Please have forms returned to school by this date.

UNDER 8S MORNING – SAVE THE DATE

This year we will be celebrating Under 8s Week with a morning full of fun activities for students in Prep – Year 3. This morning will be held in Week 10 on Thursday, 24th June. More details will be communicated as the day gets closer.

INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN SCIENCE WEEK

National Science Week is celebrated during the week of 15th – 21st August, which for us, is Term 3, Week 6. The 2021 theme is: Food: Different by Design. This year we are going to celebrate Science Week by organising an expo of displays for our students to engage with.

We are hoping to get some experts to volunteer their time to teach our students something interesting about Science or Technology (if that sounds like you or you know someone who might be interested, please let me know).

As well as these professionals from our community, we’d love for some of our own students to run a display. It doesn’t have to match in with the theme but simply be something to do with Science or Technology that they are interested in.

If your child is interested in running a display, and you are happy to help them learn about their topic and put together an engaging display / activity, please fill in the form that came home last week and return it to the office by the end of Term 2 so that I can begin to organise the logistics of this event and check that the display/activity fits in with our workplace health and safety requirements.

Some ideas:

• Teach the community about the importance of bees and how they help us
• Explain how a volcano erupts
• Show how to filter dirty water
• Become an expert on a natural disaster and teach the community what you know
• Teach the community how to make soap
• Show off your coding skills with a robotics display
• Design a solar powered vehicle

Please note, this is not a competition but simply a way of celebrating Science by sharing our knowledge and passions. Also, parents don’t need to be present on the day as long as the student can talk to their topic and their display.

If you have any questions or would like to volunteer your expertise and time, please contact me through the office or via email: deanne_senini@rok.catholic.edu.au.

ICAS

St Joseph’s will be offering ICAS assessments again this year. These assessments are online assessments designed to recognise and reward academic excellence. The assessments are based on the curricula for the relevant year. Students are asked to demonstrate a deeper, integrated, and thorough level of knowledge. New ICAS assessments are developed annually for each subject in every year level. This is to ensure an engaging and beneficial experience for all students.

ICAS offers the following assessments:

Please note that your child may miss out on their PE or Arts lesson if the ICAS assessment is scheduled for that time. If your child is absent for the scheduled assessment, there is no opportunity for a catch up assessment and you would need to speak to ICAS directly to try to organise a refund.

To purchase an ICAS assessment for your child please log on to our ICAS parent page at the following link and using the following access code:

Your school access code is: XWG624

ORDERS MUST BE PLACED BY SUNDAY, 25TH JULY.

If you have any questions or concerns about ICAS, please let me know.

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.

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 look at the Principles of Practice section of the School Pedagogical Model.

Principles of Practice encourage a shared understanding of how we teach so that learners achieve optimal growth and learning success.

A schoolwide pedagogical approach provides teachers with a shared understanding of effective instructional practice and brings significant consistency to the learning experiences of all students in the school.

A Pedagogical Model facilitates reinforcement, connectivity and consolidation of students’ learning experiences across the entire school journey (Crowther, Andrews & Conway, 2013).

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Park Avenue embraces the following Principles of Practice:

• Know the learner and the curriculum
• Create a reflective thinking and learning culture
• Activate surface, deep and transfer learning
• Assess for learning
• Provide specific, ongoing and actionable feedback

• Monitor and evaluate impact

Regards,
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

CLASSROOM NEWS

Yr 6

Maddison Clarke - Soon, Year 6 will be running Peer Support sessions with the younger year levels trying to build a relationship with the group and our co-leader.

Elijah Austin - My favourite thing about Peer Support training was doing games and being able to have two days of fun. It was entertaining completing the newspaper dress up and the river crossing.

Jorja Hallam - In Maths this term we have been learning about fractions. We have mainly been learning about equivalent fractions.

Danielle Thompson - In HASS, we have begun an assignment which is based around a global issues project. We have to choose from three ideas: climate change, world poverty, and child rights.

Amarli Batchelor - We sold succulents and propagation kits at Laudato Si’. We all got given a succulent of our own to nurture.

YR 6 FUNDRAISER

Year Six are conducting a Krispy Kreme fundraiser to help raise money for school camp. You can order your donuts through the link below. Order options are:

Original Glazed Dozen: 12 of Krispy Kreme's Signature Original Glazed doughnuts
Fundraising Assorted Dozen: 2 x Choc Iced, 2 x Choc Iced Sprinkles, 2 x Strawberry Iced, and 6 x Original Glazed doughnuts.

Pick up will be Thursday, 24th June from 2pm – 4pm outside the Year Six Classroom (no alternative pick up times will be available). Orders close on the 9th of June. Thanks for your support!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students and staff who will celebrate their birthday this week. They are: Chloe Bragg (Yr 6), Kade Scott (Yr 4), Elizabeth Compagnoni (Yr 2), Amelia Horton (Yr 6), Cassius Austin (Yr 5), Walker Currie (Yr 3), Ava Tranberg (Yr 6), and Henry Timms (Yr 5).

Have a great day.

TCC MUSICAL

Please see attachment for the upcoming TCC Musical – The Addams Family, playing at the Pilbeam Theatre on Friday the 11th June and Saturday the 12th June.

DRAKES SUPA IGA

Drakes Fundraiser for St. Joseph's Cathedral

I thank you for your support of this project which has raised over $40,000, of which the school community has played an important role. Please continue to support the Cathedral by shopping at DRAKES using your key tag and receiving the benefits.

If you have not been part of this fundraiser you are invited to get a key tag from your local School or Church and shop at your local Drakes, one cent in every dollar you spend will go to the Cathedral. No Fuss, only benefits.

Hoping to see you at Drakes
Stay Safe

Shirley Hopkins,
Co-ordinator, Drakes Fundraiser for St Joseph's Cathedral

FROM THE SCHOOL COUNSELLOR

Finding a way to connect with someone who might be living in violence or feeling unsafe at home can feel difficult.

Here are some tips to connect and support a friend, colleague or neighbour.

Helping them be supported and connected can help them know where and how to get help and plan for safety.

If you are feeling afraid or unsafe in your relationship, or you want to help a friend, you can seek confidential advice from the DVConnect Womensline service on 1800 811 811 - 24 hours, seven days a week.

The DVConnect Mensline service can also be contacted on 1800 600 636 from 9am to midnight, seven days a week.

If you are in immediate danger contact police on Triple Zero (000) to seek assistance right away.