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Dear Parents and Carers
It is hard to believe that this will be our last newsletter for Term 3.
I am so grateful that we have been able to have a very settled term, with only minimal impact on our daily lives at school. Thank you for your support in remaining outside the gates and keeping your children home when they are sick. You have helped to keep our school healthy and thankfully COVID free.
Next term we will continue as we have this term with all mandates in place. We are busy planning Kinder Orientation, Year 6 Graduation and our End of Year celebrations in ways that we have not done before. These are all important parts of our school and we will do our very best to make these as meaningful as possible for everyone.
Aboriginal Education
This year we have had Aunty Kylie and Mrs Fraser working with our Indigenous students and in classrooms in increasing our cultural awareness across the school and working to improve student outcomes for our Indigenous students. This week we were lucky enough to have Uncle Jeremy Saunders visit us for the day for a cultural immersion program. Thank you to Aunty Kylie for organising this, our students and teachers really enjoyed the day.
Ukulele
During Term 4 our Ukulele Group will continue to work towards their small showcase at the end of the year. Notes have gone home to the current students in the group. The group is open for Year 3 – 6 students. If you are interested in your child joining this group the cost for the term is $50, ukuleles and tuition are provided. If your child is interested in joining, please ask them to collect a note from the office.
Change over to Summer Uniform
We are beginning to experience some warmer weather. Children will be able to wear either winter or summer uniform to suit the weather conditions for the next few weeks. Our official change over to summer uniform will be Day 1 of Term 4.
Term 4 Dates
The first day of Term 4 will be Monday the 12th of October. Students last day of Term 4 will be Wednesday 16th of December.
Welcome
I would like to welcome River and his family to St Joseph’s. River started in Year 5 this week and I am sure that he will enjoy being a part of our school community.
Please join me in saying a prayer for all of our families that they enjoy a wonderful break over the holidays and remain safe, happy and healthy.
God Bless
Making Jesus Real – Value of the week
Week 10 - I wear my uniform with pride
Prime Minister Award
MJR Awards
As part of our MJR system ,we acknowledge that the following students, Delilah Barbour-Williams and Arabella Roohan have reached 100 Gotchas; Scarlet Sheather has reached 200 Gotachas; Jakayla Minns has reached 300 Gotchas and Nicholas Blanco has reached 400 Gotchas. Well Done!
Mary Mackillop Award -Term 3
This award is presented to one student each term that consistently goes above and beyond to put the needs of others first. This award is founded on one of the most motivating and known sayings of Saint Mary MacKillop “never see a need without doing something about it” (1871). We present this award to someone who follows in Saint Mary’s footsteps by reaching out to the most needy and vulnerable in our school community. Congratulations to Emma Letheren.
Whats been happening in Year 5
Year 5 Cultural Dance
During weeks 2-5 Year 5 were lucky enough to have Mr Mervyn Brown join our class. Mr Brown is a 3rd Year Student Teacher from the Australian Catholic University and a proud Yuin man from the south coast of NSW. Mr Brown taught Year 5 about Aboriginal culture and dance from his perspective and guided Year 5 in creating their own dance based on some native Australian animals.
Cultural Day
On Monday, Uncle Jeremy Saunders attended out school to teach us about Aboriginal Culture in our local area, Biripi Country. Uncle Jeremy was lucky enough to spend time with each class teaching them about Biripi Country, Biripi Language (Gathang Language), dreamtime stories (Tiddalik the Frog & The Seven Sisters), through learning language, dancing (dancing in language) and sharing some artefacts such as hunting and throwing boomerangs, didjeridoo, dilly bag, kangaroo skins, the difference between the coastal and western, coolamans, clapsticks, weaving baskets, ochre and how to make string with bark. The students were able to connect and engage with Uncle Jeremy by participating through learning language and dancing. They had a wonderful day learning about our local Biripi Country. Thanks to Uncle Jeremy for taking the time to come and share your knowledge and experiences with our school.
PBS News:
PBS (Positive Behaviour Support) and MJR (Making Jesus Real) are two key components of behaviour management at St. Joseph's. We aim to teach expected behaviours associated with our four school rules; I am Safe, I am Respectful, Iam a Learner and I am a Steward of Creation. We also aim for our daily interactions to be modelled on the example of Jesus, thus Making Jesus Real.
Over the course of the term, problem behaviour is recorded on 'Yellow Forms' (office referral forms) and the data collated to inform future teaching and focus areas. This term the data revealed that most of our students are following school rules and behaviour expectations most of the time, with 87% of students always displaying positive behaviour and 92% of students with 1 incident or less. We also had no incidents classified as major.
Thank you for continuing to speak with your child about the weekly focus areas listed in the newsletters and for valuing and supporting our PBS Behaviour Expectations.
Shae Lapi-an
Assistant Principal
Library News
So much happening in the library... We recognised Indigenous Literacy Day on the 2nd September. Last week Year 6 came and participated in an ESafety webinar about protecting their privacy online.
This week we celebrated International Dot Day. Based on the book by Peter Reynolds; The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing. Students were encouraged to come and make their mark and participate in some fun activities.
Our book week celebrations are beginning with the announcement of the first 2 competitions and the dance–a–thon sponsorship forms.
Students received a colouring in competition to complete with great book fair vouchers as prizes. The colouring in competition is due the last Friday of this term. The second competition is to create and construct a ‘curious creature’. This can be a real or imagined curious creature made from any materials. Students have the opportunity to come to the library in break times and create or this can be completed at home and brought in by the end of Week 1, Term 4.
This year, book week is being celebrated from October 17th-23rd. We will recognise this fantastic week with a book fai, costume, dress up day and dance-a-thon and other fun activities during week 2 of Term 4.
Thanks
Kate Monkley
Year 7 enrolments
Don’t forget that Year 7 enrolment forms are due, please make sure you have completed your form for your child’s high school.
Bentley Minns and Gabriella Blanco turn 6; Delilah Barbour-Williams turns 7; Tyceon Xuereb and Zeke Pereira turn 8; Parker Hagarty, Kyran Lewis, Lara Prior, Isak Van Der Merwe turn 10; Riley Hill, Cherry Burke and Lexie Van Der Merwe turn 12.