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- PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
- TERM 2 CONCLUDES AT 2:30PM FRIDAY
- SCHOOL CLOSURE REMINDER
- HAPPY BIRTHDAY
- TEACHER AWARDS
- 2021 FIRST EUCHARIST (YEAR 4)
- COMMUNITY LINKS WITH JAPAN
- SPORTS REPORT, WEEK 10
- YEAR 5 ART EXHIBITION
- WIPE OUT WASTE
- PJ DAY IN AID OF HOMELESS
- ReLATE
- AFTER SCHOOL AND VACATION CARE
- SCHOOL HOLIDAY FUN
- SUPERGRASSE TENNIS
- COMMUNITY NEWS
Matthew O'Brien, Principal
Dear Parents, Guardians, Staff, Students and the wider St. Joseph’s Primary School Community,
Reports, Profile Books and Parent Teacher Conversations
The students’ progress reports will be ready for you this Friday afternoon.
The Written Report is one part of the broader assessment and reporting regime at St Josephs along with the Profile Book and the Parent-Teacher Conversation. These three elements aim to provide you with an accurate picture of your child’s progress as well as insights into the broad content of classroom curriculum. The written report provides a record of achievement standards as well as a description of the curriculum outcomes that each child has met. The Profile Book is a collection of work samples that provide examples of student learning. The Parent-Teacher Conversation allows for teachers and parents to discuss each child’s progress and identify opportunities for future learning. These three elements work together and each is diminished without the others.
Sadly, due to Covid restrictions we are unable to welcome parents and carers into the school for the important Parent -Teacher Conversations. In order to facilitate these meetings we will proceed via phone calls. I acknowledge that this arrangement is not as personable as a face to face meeting but under the circumstances I am confident that they will be beneficial for teachers and parents.
Mrs Grant, Mrs Evans, Mr Allan and I spent a deal of the long weekend reading over the reports and agree that the students should be congratulated for their excellent progress and effort this year. We would also like to commend the teachers for their diligence in preparing the reports for you which paint a very positive picture of life at school here at St Joes.
Winter Sports
Well done to all of the children who participated in the Winter Sports last Friday. On your behalf of the school I would like to thank the teachers who have coached the teams during lunch times so that the children were well prepared for a fun day.
ReLATE
This year St Joseph’s are partnering with Catholic Education Ballarat and MacKillop Family Services in furthering our Wellbeing initiatives through the ReLATE Program. The following is lifted from the MacKillop Family Services Website.
ReLATE combines educational research, social science, behavioural theory and neuroscience and applies a trauma informed lens, to bring practical strategies to schools to embed in their daily practice. ReLATE positions schools and systems, to create safe, supportive and predictable environments, enhance teachers’ understanding and responses to behaviour and improve student learning and wellbeing outcomes.
ReLATE was developed in Australia by MacKillop Family Services, drawing on the practice model implemented in our schools and delivered by The MacKillop Institute. At its core, ReLATE promotes transformational relationships, not only for students, but also for school leaders, teachers and other staff working with children, young people and families.
The ReLATE model is a commitment, as a school community or system, to sustainable and positive cultural change.
Within ReLATE, wellbeing is understood as an essential pre-condition for quality teaching and learning. Safe, predictable and supportive learning environments are created and maintained in classrooms where students are not just known, but deeply understood. School leaders and staff are supported both on their professional learning and development journey and in their wellbeing
We have already experienced the “Discovery Day” and have two more full school professional development days this year. Day 1 Term 3, July 12th and Friday, October 15th (Week 2, Term 4). I am looking forward to sharing more with you about this important school development.
Staffing Update
Maryanne Evans is taking long service leave for the first eight weeks next term. We wish her an enjoyable and refreshing break.
Michelle McIntyre Hand will fill the role of Assistant Principal - Wellbeing. Michelle has great experience and passion in this area having undertaken a Graduate Diploma in Wellbeing and prior experience in the role.
Kate McGrath has accepted the position in E1. Kate is well known to our school community as is a regular Casual Relief Teacher
School Review
We welcome Ben Van De Camp (Principal, St John’s Dennington), Mary Lovelock (External Reviewer), Sue Paulka (Teaching and Learning Leaders Catholic Education Ballarat) and Lee Schlooz (Educational Consultant, Catholic Education Ballarat) to St Joseph’s this week to undertake the validation of our school review. This review is the final stage in a lengthy and detailed process that began in 2019. This week the review panel will meet with students, staff and parents to validate the review document. At the conclusion of this process the panel, along with the school leadership team will write the final report. This report is designed to celebrate the successes of the school and identify future directions and opportunities for growth over the next five years.
I would particularly like to acknowledge the work of Jim Guinan in coordinating the writing of our School Reflection Report. As the final dates were changed and Michael Gray finished up this detailed task became Jim’s responsibility which he did with his usual good humour and diligence.
I am looking to sharing the recommendations from the review with you next term.
School Advisory Council AGM
On Wednesday night we farewelled Sean Mueglitz as the outgoing chair of the SAC. Sean had been a member of the SAC for four years and chair for two years. I would like to thank Sean for his support of the school in this important role.
I would like to congratulate Mark Koch who was elected unopposed as the new chair. I look forward to working with Mark in the coming years. We also welcomed Melissa Happ to the group and thank her for her willingness to get involved. Chris McGrath, Peter Furphy and Donna Monaghan continue in their roles also.
The Annual Report to the School Community was tabled at this meeting. This report has been uploaded to our website. I commend it to you, particularly Michael Gray’s final Principals Report.
St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal
This week we are having a Pyjama Day and supporting St Vincent de Paul. They work with our Parish Community and below are some figures that were presented at Mass over the weekend of amazing work they are acheiving within the community
St Vinnies Warrnambool – Total Assistance for year
|
Food Vouchers |
$77,503 |
|
Donated Food (through Foodshare) |
$84,749 |
|
Gas, Electricity, Water |
$3,088 |
|
Accommodation |
$11,294 |
|
Transport (i.e. medical appointments, etc) |
$3,168 |
|
Education |
$1,680 |
|
Furniture |
$2,010 |
|
Other Assistance |
|
|
(incl Prescriptions $271, Whitegoods $355) |
$5,875 |
|
Total |
$189,367 |
Holidays
Finally, I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. Particularly our hard working, dedicated staff.
Matthew O'Brien, Principal.
School concludes at 2:30pm, Friday 25th June, 2021
Note the early finish time of school this Friday for all students.
Country buses run to an earlier timetable. Students who use the town bus system should check the timetable for the route that they use.
Happy Birthday to children celebrating their birthday this week.
Oliver Ault, Harvey Brown, Jacky Deverall, Billy Nicolson, Sebastian Rodger, Noah McDonald, Remy Roberts, Grace McInerney, Zarah Timpson, Milla Delaney, Rylan Hunter, Nyla Daffy and Bridget Ruane.
Registrations close: Friday 16th July, 2021
First Eucharist is a Sacramental Program for Year 4 students who have been Baptised and Confirmed.
Please complete this form and make a $25 contribution payment, to meet the cost of materials, through CDFpay (our online ordering system).
A kit containing the materials and information to prepare your child for the Celebration of First Eucharist and details of your Family Group will be available to collect at the Parent and Student Information Meeting in the Gathering Space at St Joseph's Church.
After school parents groups meet at the school at 3:30pm and evening groups meet in the home at a time arranged by the families in the group.
Please contact the Parish Office on (03) 5562 2231 if you have any queries.
Key Dates
| 3pm Friday 16th July, 2021 | Registrations Close |
| 7pm, Tuesday 20th July, 2021 | Parent and Student Meeting at St. Josephs Parish |
| 8:30am, 10:00am and 6:00pm - Sunday 29th August, 2021 | Celebration of the First Eucharist Sacrament |
St. Joseph’s has continued to maintain links with our ‘Friendship School,’ Doshisha Elementary in Kyoto. The students at our two schools have communicated with each other recently and valued the experience of practicing their language skills, meeting new friends and seeing school life in another country.
Sarah
‘Year 5 classes received letters from Doshisha Elementary School students in Japan. They had questions in the letters and Year 5’s wrote letters back with answers. A few days later, some of our classes were able to speak to the Doshisha students on a Google Meet. We were able to ask our own questions using Japanese. Everyone enjoyed it and we hope to do this again another time.’
Frankie
‘We received letters from three classrooms at Doshisha. The classes are called Hardy, Davis and Learned. We answered very simple questions like: How old are you? What pets do you have?
Deguchi Sensei linked us on Google accounts so we could hop onto our Chromebooks and talk to the Japanese students and speak Japanese to them. In the background we could see that they had received our letters. They were very fluent at speaking English and understood what we said. We got to practice our Japanese which was a good experience.’
Touch Football Clinics
Last week we were so fortunate to have David from Touch Football Victoria visit our school to show us the fundamental skills of the game. The Year 4 students showed sheer determination when attempting to score a ‘Touch-Down!’ We look forward to many of these students transferring their new knowledge into the yard during play times.
District Winter Sports
Soccer: Congratulations to all our teams who finally gained the opportunity to compete last Friday. Our Soccer team played well in all 4 matches, coming a very close second overall.
- Joseph’s 0 v St Pius 2
- Joseph’s 4 v OLHC 1
- Joseph’s 0 v W. East 0
- Joseph’s 6 v Warrnambool 1
A big thankyou to Jeff Vizon and Kristian Thompson for selecting and coaching the team on the day. We must also congratulate the students for the manner they displayed when representing the school, showing great spirit and wonderful sportsmanship on the day. Well done everyone.
Football: Our footballers also competed in four matches against the other schools in our local District, remaining undefeated after these games and therefore advance to the next stage, Division Competition. This will be held at the same venues, (at this stage;) on Monday July 19th. Huge congratulations and gratitude to Mr McMillan for selecting and training these students to the level they exhibited on Friday. Well done!
Tee-Ball: Both our Tee-Ball teams have also progressed through to the Division Competition which is a fantastic achievement! We had only commenced teaching the basic Tee-Ball skills during our Physical Education classes prior to their trials commencing. And from what I’ve been told - all their knowledge and skills came together on the day. What a reward!
Netball: The Netball team were also undefeated after their 4 matches played on Friday. It was a very close game against OLHC, coming away with only 2 points ahead of them on the siren! All girls displayed maturity and admirable team-work considering the short time they have had playing together. We look forward to the next round playing against other schools in our Division.
Year 5/6 Girls Footy Training
Our first trial for Girls Footy will commence this Thursday at lunchtime, please bring along pants and long sleeve tops, socks and boots if you own them for this session. (This will prevent unnecessary amounts of mud on uniform and in our classrooms afterwards.) Registrations for girls football will close this Wednesday 23rd June at 4:00 pm.
Year 5/6 Hockey Trials
This Tuesday from 1:45pm there will be our first hockey trial for those Year 5/6 Boys and Girls who are interested in playing early next term. Please bring mouthguards and shin pads if you have them. Students may wear their Sports Uniform to School on Tuesday.
Basketball Clinics & Hooptime Years 3/4 and 5/6
It has been unfortunate that we haven’t had more access to expert coaches and face-to-face time outside of the Covid restrictions to enable our basketball trials to really kick off! However, we will continue some skills during P.E lessons this final week of term and we look forward to restrictions easing even more next term as we have some clinics booked in with Mike McGorm from July 26th. We are encouraging many students to practice their skills during the week at home and in the yard at school. Hopefully we can also encourage any parents who might like to assist as coaches for our teams to please email us at sport@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au
The dates of competition are:
Friday 13th August
- Year 3/4 BOYS All-Stars Team
- Year 3/4 GIRLS All-Stars Team
Friday 27th August
- Year 5/6 BOYS All-Stars Team
- Year 5/6 GIRLS All-Stars Team
- Year 5/6 MIXED Future Stars Team
Regards,
Mrs Emily Lloyd (Physical Education and PE Co-ordinator)
Please see some of the amazing work that the students have produced that are on display in the gathering space at St. Joseph's Church
Congratulations F4! Your class has taken out ‘Rocky’ the Pup Award this week.
Also, a big shout out to all the students and families that are doing a super job of reducing our ‘single use' plastic items in our weekly lunch boxes. We have nearly cut our waste in half in the space of one week with only just over 300 wrappers in the whole school last Wednesday. We are moving closer to the ‘zero’ waste goal for our school. We just have to all do our part and work together to help the environment with some simple changes. Keep it up everyone!
This Wednesday will be our last Wipe Out Waste - Rubbish Free Wednesday so let’s all do our very best to set another record for this term.
Thanks everyone,
Eva Scarborough and Ella Hall
Young Vinnies are holding a Pyjama Day on Friday 25th June (Last day of term 2) in aid of the homeless.
Students are welcome to wear their pyjamas, Oodie or onesie.
Slippers are suitable in the classroom but school shoes or runners are required in the playground.
It is suggested that children bring a warm jumper or coat for recess and lunch play.
A donation ($1, $2 or $5) can be made via CDFPay (online ordering).
All proceeds to St Vincent de Paul.
Warrnambool Council Vacation Care and After School Care Information pages contain information for both these programs that are run by the Warrnambool City Council.