9 March 2022

Newsletter Articles

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents & Guardians

This week we see an easing of COVID restrictions across our state and more importantly, in our school. Masks are no longer required but if you would like your child to take this precaution, we welcome your choice. Mass gatherings are now allowed so from next week, Monday morning assemblies and Friday’s prayer assemblies will be open for all to attend. Due to staff absences the difficult decision was made to cancel this week’s Monday assembly and Friday’s Prayer Assembly. Awards for this week will be given to students next Monday.

Despite the easing of restrictions, we are still being challenged by the realities of COVID and feeling the effects of cases and close contacts in our school. As previously discussed, notifications of COVID positive staff and students will be general in nature. You would all now 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 practises at our school. These include sanitising affected classrooms and other spaces immediately, upon hearing of a positive case in that room.

All three members of our leadership team are absent this week. We have been supported by DCEO and our Assistant Director for schools, Mr Mike Kelso has been working on site at Joey’s to ensure day to day procedures continue as normal. We thank Mr Kelso for this great show of support.

Our staggered afternoon pick-up continues to work 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.

We continue our Lenten journey this week and students will be learning of the good work Caritas do across the globe. I encourage you to discuss this with your children and to make a commitment to support Caritas through their Project Compassion appeal this Lent.

Kindest Regards
Elizabeth Carter
Acting 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

1st Sunday of Lent

Jesus is tempted in the desert.
Luke 4:1-13

Living the Gospel – Lent

The 40 days that Jesus spent praying and preparing in the wilderness is reflected in the season of Lent that lasts 40 days from Ash Wednesday until the day before Easter Sunday (not counting Sundays in the season). It has been traditional that during the time of Lent Christian people renew their efforts in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All three of these practices are actions of preparation. Just as Jesus prepared for his ministry in the wilderness, so too is Lent an opportunity for us to be deliberate about our reflection on what we are called to do in this world.

@Liturgy Help – Greg Sunter

A reminder for families who have indicated they wish for their children to be part of the Northside Parish Sacramental Program for 2022 to access the program’s webpage. On it you will find all the important dates. An information session for parents only is first up. You can attend this on 15th March at Holy Family or 16th March at Our Lady Help of Christians. Please click the link below for the Sacramental Program’s webpage.

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)

CURRICULUM NEWS

Week 7 Excellence Award winners will be celebrated at next Monday’s assembly.

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

Fee Accounts for Term 1 were due Tuesday 2nd March and are now Overdue

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

Please ensure that you have increased your payments if you now have extra siblings in the School to ensure that your fees don’t get behind.

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 3

Due to the Covid restrictions that were present last week, our Ash Wednesday Liturgy looked a little different this year. In Year 3 we started our liturgy by gathering to This is The Time by Michael Mangan. We then proceeded to carry out the liturgy including the sprinkling of ashes over the heads of each student and teacher in the room. At the conclusion of the Liturgy, we spoke about Lent and that during the season of Lent people make promises. Each student were then given the chance to write their Lent promise on a purple cross and hang it on our prayer tree.

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: Charlotte Lambert (Yr 5), Hayley Brydon (Prep), Kaeleb Harris (Yr 6), Marlowe Harris (Yr 1), Alexis Lyons (Yr 2), Kasey Sherriff-Hearn (Yr 1), Koby Goody (Yr 4), Zara Wogand (Yr 3), Lachlan Bragg (Yr 3) and Tyson Arnold (Yr 3).

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