16 February 2022

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents & Guardians

I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the Parish that celebrated it’s 80th birthday being active in the Park Avenue area since the 21st of January 1942. I also have it on good authority that the original structure of Our Lady Help of Christians will be celebrating a 70th birthday very soon as well. A huge thank-you and well done to all who have been a part of the Park Avenue parish’s story over the past 80 years. St Joseph’s would not be the great little community nor an integral corner stone of the Park Avenue area without our relationship with the Parish during this time. We look forward to building on this relationship with many more years in the future.

Regarding our notification of a COVID positive student case last week, please be aware that we are unable to provide any further identifying details or specific information regarding the identity of positive cases due to privacy reasons.

Please be assured that we are continuing to ensure COVID-safe practices at our school.

As we are currently unable to host mass gatherings at the moment, we have decided to hand out our weekly ‘Excellence Awards’ (formally Worker of the Week awards) as well as our ‘Virtues Awards’ in class each Monday. For the time being, members of our Student Council will be presenting these each Monday morning in class. If your child is to receive an award that week, your child’s teacher will email you to let you know and to keep an eye out for the award that will go home in their school bag. Student’s names and their award will be listed in each week’s newsletter with ‘Virtues Awards’ under Mrs Carter’s RE section and ‘Excellence Awards’ under Mrs Senini’s Curriculum section.

Each week, collective photos from each Year Level will be posted on the Skoolbag app (without specific student names) under the title, ‘Weekly Award Winners.’

These awards will commence in Week 5 and this will be our ongoing process until we are able to meet again as a whole school community for our usual Monday Morning assemblies.

As we have been unable to have a whole school assembly or opening mass in 2022, I have included a list of our Year 6 Leaders as well as a couple of snap shots.

I will prepare a small PowerPoint presentation with photos to be shown in each classroom. The presentation will show the student body who their student leaders are as well as the school’s Student Protection Contacts.

Student Protection Contacts for 2022:

Bernard Fitzgerald – Principal
Deanne Senini – Assistant Principal, Curriculum
Elizabeth Carter – Assistant Principal, Religious Education
Michelle Hoffman – School Counsellor
Brooke Black – Inclusive Curriculum Teacher
Jessie Ivers – Indigenous Liaison Officer
Chelsea Holden – OSHC Coordinator

While on the topic of student safety, our staggered afternoon pick-up seems to be working well but we still need the use of the laminated surnames the school has provided to be displayed on car visors to help with ease of pick-up. With different teachers doing duty, the visors help with identifying cars and calling out names for the students. Please utilise the visors provided or make some homemade ones if needed.

As a staff, we have been discussing what we can do as an alternative to our usual Parent Information Nights.

An email containing a yearly summary of important information for parents will be sent home from each Year Level by Thursday 17th of February. This email will also include your Year Level teacher email address. When using this email address, it will automatically send your email to both classroom teachers. This has been done to encourage parents to communicate with both teachers, especially during COVID times when certain teachers may be absent.

As I do each year, if your child has specific learning or medical needs that teachers should be aware of, or certain individual specifics around your family circumstances, I encourage you to please contact your classroom teachers in order to discuss these specific needs.

I endeavour to do as much as I can, but as the number of these complexities increases across the school community, talking with your classroom teachers directly will ensure a smooth transition into 2022 with addressing your child’s or families’ specific needs.

I thank the staff for creating the videos to introduce themselves to parents, I think it was a nice touch and encouraging Family Partnerships and positive relationships during these uncertain times.

Finally, congratulations to Tom Compagnoni in Year 5 who was selected in the Under 11’s Club Rockhampton Rep Team for cricket. Tom is off to Biloela to represent Rocky in a regional carnival. All the best Tom.

Don’t Forget….

• Children’s Mass. 6:30pm, Sat 19th Jan @ OLHC Church
• Ash Wednesday, 2nd March (Students will celebrate in Year Levels)

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

St Joseph’s 2022 School Improvement Priorities:

• Prayer
• Family Partnerships
• Increasing Student Learning Gain and Achievement

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The beginning of the Sermon on the Plain (Mount)
Happy are the Poor! Woe to the rich.
Luke 6: 17, 20-26

This Gospel is a warning to examine the things that make us happy and sad.

What kinds of things make you the most happy?

If you have plenty of money, high social status, fine foods and expensive material possessions, you might be drifting away from God. Why might this be true?

What kinds of things make you sad?

If you are filled with jealousy, greed and lust, you might be drifting away from God. Why might this be true?

If you yourself are living fairly well, yet things like poverty, oppression and injustice still make you angry because they bring suffering to others, maybe you are coming closer to God. Why might this be true?

If you feel joy and contentment when other people succeed, earn compliments and experience good luck, then maybe you are coming closer to God. Why might this be true?

@Liturgy Help – Lisa-Marie Calderone Stewart

I am thrilled to be able to have some celebration of our faith this Saturday night at our Children’s Mass. You should have received an invitation to this event via eldest in the family. If you are able to join us at Our Lady Help of Christians Church please return the slip to let me know.

Children’s Mass

Liturgical Celebrations Coming Up

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

PARISH BULLETIN

Elizabeth carter
Assistant Principal Religious Education

CURRICULUM NEWS

Welcome to the 2022 school year. Even though COVID is always throwing a spanner into our plans, we hope to be able to bring the students lots of interesting and challenging curriculum opportunities throughout the year.

LEARNING DISPOSTIONS

As a staff we have been working on our school Learning Dispositions. These are skills which we are hoping all our students will develop while they are with us at Joeys. Over the year you will be hearing more about these dispositions and our hope is that the students will be able to recognise when they need to use each disposition to help them in their learning. In the coming weeks, teachers will be breaking down what each disposition would look like for their particular year level and sharing these with their students. We are also in the process of developing visuals for each disposition which you will hopefully see around the school in the near future.

Below is a general description of each Learning Disposition:

Resilience
The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties

Persistence
Continuing on a course of action in spite of difficulties

Independence
The state of being strong and not having to rely on anyone else

Creativity
Using imagination and critical thinking to create something or solve a problem

Collaboration
Working with other people in order to achieve something

Regards,
Deanne Senini
Assistant Principal Curriculum

FINANCE NEWS

School Fees for Term 1 will be emailed out & posted to Parent Lounge Friday 18/2/22.

Please ensure that you check your email or log into Parent Lounge to check your School Fees on a regular basis. If you now have another child at the school you may need to increase what you are currently paying so as to not get behind with Fees.

If you have a means tested Concession Card and have not yet given a copy to the Finance Secretary, please do so as soon as possible.

All new families should have received your Parent Lounge Login details.

If you have not received these, please contact Tracey or Megan in the office.

If paying by Direct Deposit, please use your Account Number as the reference instead of names (this is the 6-digit number on your Fee Statement).

CLASSROOM NEWS

Yr 6

We are very keen to get started in Year Six for 2022 and know that we will embrace any challenges this year is going to offer. There is a lot to learn and many great opportunities ahead of us. The leadership side of things is always a new and exciting experience with jobs to do around the school, ideas to share and fundraising to complete.

In English this term we are going to be writing informative texts, getting stuck into Soundwaves and completing a novel study. Our major focus for Mathematics will be fine tuning our number fact recall skills and learning about working with and converting measurements. In Religion, we are learning about the significance of The Eucharist and Jewish Holy Days. Some of our other topics include, Federation, micro-organisms, the You Can Do It program and Daniel Morcombe. We can’t wait to fire up our Macbooks and get started!

Prep

It’s been a wonderful start to the year as prep students are welcomed into our Joey’s community. They have shown fantastic independence and joy as they learn the new routines at school and take on new responsibilities.

A special part of belonging to Joeys is learning about Jesus. They are discovering who he is and where we can read stories about him. Students have shown great excitement to learn all about Jesus and God.

Students have commenced learning Soundwaves and have already covered the sounds for b, k, d, f and g. Through play, investigation, and explicit teaching in small groups they are immersing themselves in literacy workshops.

Maths workshops are also beginning with an all about number enquiry through hands on manipulatives. Of course, we have also had opportunities to meet new friends and begin to develop social skills as we play together.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students who will celebrate their birthday this week. They are: Addison Bosel (P), Octavia Corry (P), Eliana Stevenson (Yr 3), Mia Duncan (Yr 5), Amaya Murphy (Yr 6), Ruthie Perkins (Yr 2), Cooper Lee (Yr 5), Braydon Smith (Yr 4) and Lilly Oliver (Yr 2).

Have a great day.

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