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Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to Term 3. Yet again we have moved back into COVID restrictions and I thank you all for supporting us in following the procedures we are required to follow. While we are in uncertain times I want to reassure you that we are doing everything we can to keep our school community safe.
Life continues to go on for us and our students have had a wonderful and settled start to the term. We welcomed Ridhima and her family into Year 1 at St Joseph’s and we hope that they enjoy becoming a part of our school community.
Naidoc Celebrations
Thanks to Aunty Kylie and Mrs Fraser who have worked hard to prepare a wonderful NAIDOC celebration today the children have had a wonderful day and really enjoyed the liturgy and activities. Our children enjoyed making damper, painting, planting bush tucker seeds, creating jigsaws and playing Aboriginal games. During the liturgy our Aboriginal girls performed a cleansing dance which was taught to them by Aunty Kylie. It was wonderful to see the pride these girls showed in being able to share their culture with our school.
Diocesan Athletics
Good luck to Nic, Jake, Angus and Jaxon who travel to Newcastle next week to compete in the Diocesan Athletics trials. We know they will represent our school and region with great pride and look forward to hearing all about their experience.
Year 1 Phonics Assessment
What is phonics?
Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds and is vital in learning to read. Some children struggle with learning to read so it is important that these children are identified quickly so teachers can plan for any specific support they may need.
What is the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check?
The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is a short, quick assessment that tells teachers how your child is progressing in phonics. Your child will sit with the class teacher and will be asked to read 40 words aloud. These words include 20 real words and 20 nonsense words. The test normally takes a few minutes. If your child is struggling the teacher will stop the check. The check is carefully designed not to be stressful for your child.
Why use nonsense words?
The assessment includes pseudo or nonsense words to see if the student is able to use their knowledge of blending to read a word rather than their memory of having seen that word before.
If you have any further questions, please talk to your child’s class teacher.
Parent Engagement Group
Next week we will hold our first meeting of our Parent Engagement Group. Our first meeting will focus on assisting parents with learning how to access our school weebly, mnconnect and email for students to help with home learning if it occurs. We will be running the same meeting over two time slots, one face to face and the other online. Please see the flyer attached to the newsletter for more details.
Do you run a business?
As a way to support our families, we are going to add a section to our newsletter where parents can share their business with the school community. If you would like your business included in our newsletter, please provide the office with a business card, or small advertisement and we will place it in this new section.
Please join me in saying a prayer that those communities currently affected by COVID restrictions remain healthy and safe.
God Bless
Making Jesus Real – Values of the week
Week 3 - I respect school equipment
Week 4 - I wash my hands correctly at the right time
Prime Minister Award
‘ Being a steward of creation’, ‘trying your best’, ‘speaking with kindness’ and ‘ being a responsible learner’ are some of the qualities that teachers consider when awarding ‘Prime Minister’ at our weekly assembly. It is an acknowledgement of the student’s efforts and they have the privilege of wearing the badge with honour, of suggesting a focus the school can work on, award Gotchas to other students at lunch time as well as earning Gotchas for themselves. Congratulations to Shianne Xuereb, Week 2 and Tyla Eakin, Week 3.
MJR Awards
As part of our MJR system ,we acknowledge that the following students, Ben Butchmann has reached 50 Gotchas and Mia Nash has reached 100 Gotchas. Well Done!
STEM Club
This term some students have joined The Techno's lunchtime STEM club. We are excited to showcase our first project, a Makey Makey game controller.
Parker and Joseph from Year 4 are two of the member of our tech group. They are enjoying being able to be creative with the technology that they are using and being able to use their imagination with technology like makey makeys and spheros. Thanks to Ms Monkley for another great learning opportunity for our students.
Year 3 happenings...........
Year 1 - Puppet Show
Year 1 spent Semester one designing and creating their marionette puppets. This term students performed a puppet play to showcase their puppets and to share with Kindergarten and Year 2 students the importance of using our TWISTS strategies to help us when we feel hurt by something someone has said or done. Please enjoy the videos below.
Foxx Williams, Joseph Ayers and Austyn Hagarty turn 6; Maria Fresen and Georgia Hartley turned 12.