2 March 2022

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents & Guardians

The Rockhampton Catholic Education Office will be hosting this year’s St Patrick’s Race Day on Saturday the 12th of March. The day helps support Catholic Primary schools from Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast.

Information on where to purchase tickets is on the official banner below.

Instead of a St Pat’s Raffle we will be having a St Patrick’s Day free dress day. Students will be asked to dress in green to celebrate Ireland’s most famous Saint. We ask for a gold coin donation for each student on the day.

A big shout out the Roser family who again have donated St Joseph’s Spot Prize for the St Pat’s races in the form of a $100 Va Voom gift voucher from their business in the Red Hill centre. Thank you very much to a family who no longer have children at Joeys yet still have a strong connection to our community. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

This Friday at 6:00pm, the Queensland Government’s mask mandates and restricted access will cease. This means that visitors will no longer have to wear a mask and site limitations in terms of visitor numbers will be lifted. This means that the following school events will begin to resume as per normal.

• Prayer Assemblies
• School Masses
• Breakfast Club
• Monday Morning Assembly
• Grandparents Morning Tea/St Joseph’s Feast Day Mass.

We do however still have to have school volunteers check-in as per normal processes and provide proof of vaccination. The loosening of restrictions does not change the fact that if someone is unwell, they should refrain from coming on site, or if a child becomes unwell while at school, they need to be collected as soon as possible. Those who wish to remain wearing face masks will be supported in their choice to do so.

The P&F Association have provided me with the link for the SJPA Second-hand Uniform Facebook Group –

Don’t Forget….

• Ash Wednesday, 2nd March (Students will celebrate in Year Levels)
• Early 2:50pm Pick-up processes are in place till at least the end of Week 6, Friday the 4th of March.
• Mandatory Mask wearing ceases, 6:00pm Friday 4th March.
• St Pat’s Race Day, Saturday 12th March
• St Patrick’s Free Dress Day, Thursday 17th March (Gold Coin Donation)
• Grand Parents Morning Tea/St Joseph’s Feast Day, Friday 18th March
• Bishop’s Inservice Day (Pupil Free Day) Friday, 1st April (Last day of Term 1)

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

St Joseph’s 2022 School Improvement Priorities:

• Prayer
• Family Partnerships
• Increased Learning Gain & Achievement

Positive COVID Case Notification

St Joseph’s Catholic School Park Avenue wishes to advise you that, during the past week, we have been notified of positive cases of COVID-19 in our school community.

St Joseph’s regularly consults with the Catholic Education Office and relevant authorities, and continues to follow the advice of Queensland Health regarding cleaning requirements.

Queensland Health has advised that no quarantine of students or staff is required.

As COVID-19 remains active in our community we ask you to continue to monitor your child’s/children’s health and if they develop any flu-like symptoms:

• Keep your child/children at home
• Seek a PCR or Rapid Antigen test where it is recommended and notify the school of positive results. Please be aware, a negative COVID test does not change the requirement to be symptom free to attend school.
• Follow the advice of Queensland Health

As we continue to navigate the pandemic, please remind your child/ren to:

• maintain good hand hygiene at all times
• cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or the inside of their elbow and dispose of tissues in the bin immediately.
• practice social distancing from others where possible
• wear masks when required

We will continue to work closely with health authorities to keep our school community informed of any developments and advice. Thank you once again for your ongoing support.

Bernard Fitzgerald
Principal – St Joseph’s Catholic School, Park Avenue

RELIGIOUS MATTERS

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Take the plank from your eye
Luke 6:39-45

Living the Gospel – You hypocrite.

It is often argued that it is hypocrisy to attend Mass on Sundays and be ‘holy’ in that circumstance but to then be less than perfect during the rest of the week. This is often rolled out as a convenient excuse for not attending Mass at all: everyone who goes to Mass is a hypocrite. Of course, attending Mass does not imply perfection. It is in fact a recognition of imperfection and the need to come together as a community and to seek God’s help to have another go at trying to get it a bit more right in the coming week.

@Liturgy Help – Greg Sunter

A last call for families who wish for their children to be part of the Northside Parish Sacramental Program for 2022. If your children have been Baptised and will be 7 years of age by 15 March 2022 they are able to join us to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist. Please contact me via email if you would like more information.

For those parents who have already indicated they wish to join the program, please see below a link to the site the Sacramental Team have prepared for us all. It is a wonderful resource and has all the information we need, including the dates for workshops and Sacraments.

Liturgical Celebrations Coming Up

*SJPA – St Joseph’s Park Avenue
*OLHC – Our Lady Help of Christians church (next to St Joseph’s, Park Avenue)
*HF – Holy Family Parish Centre (next to Anthony’s School)
*MPA – Multipurpose Area (Basketball court)

PARISH BULLETIN

Congratulations to our Virtue Award Recipients for Week 6

Elizabeth Carter
Assistant Principal Religious Education

SPORTING MATTERS

Rockhampton District Selection Trials

Below are the Rockhampton and District Trials (RDS) for the following Primary School sports happening in Term 1 & early Term 2. If your child has the prerequisite skills and you wish for them to trial in the following sports, you can contact me through the school office to obtain the appropriate trial forms. Alternatively, the forms can be downloaded in the Parents Notes section of the Skoolbag App.

Please be aware that for your child to attend these trials as a 10 year old student that they would need to be exceptional as they will be competing against students up to 12 years of age.

Elizabeth Carter
Assistant Principal Religious Education

CURRICULUM NEWS

Congratulations to our Week 6 Excellence Award winners:

Prep:

Magenta McBean

Year 1:

Hudson Stewart
Braxtyn Pope

Year 2:

Harpah Schukking

Year 3:

Lachlan Bragg
Imani Cooney

Year 4:

Izabelah Zerafa

Year 5:

Robbie Larkin
Alivia Muir

Year 6:

Jett Debono
Gabriel Maker
Brittney O’Leary
Maiya White

Keep working hard to achieve your goals.

DANIEL MORCOMBE CHILD SAFETY CURRICULUM

All classes have begun teaching the mandated child safety curriculum. The Curriculum consists of classroom lessons across three phases of learning: Prep—Year 2, Years 3—6, and Years 7—9. The Curriculum, available to all Queensland schools, aims to develop student knowledge and skills to recognise, react to and report unsafe situations.

Teachers use a variety of materials, including interactive whiteboard activities, worksheets and safety books, to deliver the Recognise, React and Report messages. Developmentally appropriate scenarios are also used to explore and discuss safety situations that children and young people may encounter in the home, at school or in their environment.

One of the first lessons involves discussing private body parts. Please be aware that this is an essential and extremely important lesson. Some students do feel uncomfortable during this lesson as correct anatomical terms are used to name private body parts. If you feel your child might struggle with this topic, please talk to them about it this week before it is discussed in class.

MEDICAL UPDATES

Please remember to hop onto Parent Lounge and check that your child’s medical details are up to date. It is extremely important that we know about any changes so that we can keep your child safe at school. If you have an action plan which needs updating, please arrange to get this done by your doctor as we legally are required to have up to date medical plans.

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

TERM 1 FEE ACCOUNTS
Fee Accounts for Term 1 were due Wednesday 2nd March

Term 1, 2022 Fee Statements were emailed and posted to Parent Lounge on Wednesday 16th February. These are due for payment on 2nd March 2022.

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 4

It has been a whirlwind start to the year! We are building our skills in researching while we ask ‘wondering questions’ in HASS. In Science, we’re researching pollinators by exploring plants in our school yard. We even have a Queen Ant as our class pet, and we’re going to vote on a name very soon!

Our ant tank. The Queen Ant is in the tube with her eggs.

Here are some of the highlights of our first couple of weeks, straight from a few of our students:

I have four teachers in my class: Mrs Walton, Mrs Chapman, Mr Tennyson, and Miss Wornum. They are all really awesome. So far at school we are doing heaps of fun science like going outside. - Lucia

Math has gotten harder and I like that. - Walker

At school we are learning about bees. – Mia

At school we have been learning about Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. When white people came over they hurt lots of Aboriginal people. - Flynn

Sometimes our teachers tell us to use our dictionaries and we use them. - Paige

This term in year 4 Extension writing group we had a brilliant idea to enter a competition for writing. Kelsey and I have decided to make a picture book up to 500 words. We agreed on an underwater theme. Kelsey and I are so thankful for a wonderful opportunity. - Zara

I love to do Art, Science and Math. – Juliet

In Extension maths we are doing a time table challenge. It’s when we have a sheet with time tables and we have to finish it in three seconds. - Ella C

We are all looking forward to an exciting year ahead!

Happy faces in Year 4 as we learn in our Art class.

INCLUSIVE CURRICULUM

1 in 10 children and 1 in 3 adults suffer from hearing loss, which left undetected can affect learning, socialising and overall quality of life. Sound Scouts have an online hearing test app that delivers an immediate report, including next steps if a hearing loss is detected. Sound Scouts is now free for Australian school children (aged 4-17) thanks to Hearing Australia and funding from the Australian Government.

YR 6 EASTER RAFFLE

This term the Year Six major fundraiser is an Easter multi-draw raffle that will be drawn on Monday 28th March 2022. Tickets are $1 each and will be sold in Weeks 7, 8 & 9. Students will be selling tickets from just inside the gate each morning so please send your child/ren money to purchase tickets.

If you think you might be able to sell a book of 20 or 50 tickets within your workplace or at your sporting club etc please reach out to the year six teachers and we can arrange to get a book of tickets to you for selling. The contact email addresses are;

hannah_hamilton@rok.catholic.edu.au
alana_jones@rok.catholic.edu.au

Thank you for your support, it is always a great fundraiser for our year six students.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Congratulations to the following students who will celebrate their birthday this week. They are: Adam Neden (Yr 4), Tallon Kinlyside (Yr 1), Cohen Mitchell (Prep), Carter Chalk (Prep), Ryan Hallam (Yr 5), Melody Cooke (Yr 1), Isabella Palframan (Prep), and Hudson Street (Yr 1).

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