Matthew O'Brien, Principal

Dear Parents, Guardians, Staff, Students and the wider St. Joseph’s Primary School Community,

Loving God, 

Our creator, our saviour, our companion, 

bless this journey of a new school year that we undertake together.

Refresh our souls and renew our spirits

as we embrace the opportunities you have called us to in 2022. 

Bless each of us for the many gifts we have been given and for the privileges that our school community brings.

Lord, make our hearts pure as we return to school at St Joseph’s this week

and may you guide us with open hearts and minds eager to learn and teach. Help us to be strong and courageous; and be with us wherever we go this year.

We ask this in Your name, 

Amen

Welcome

Welcome to the new school year.

Our school is full of anticipation and excitement as the children and teachers have settled into their new classrooms. A special welcome to all of our Foundation students and to the 16 new students who have joined us across this year. 

Staffing Update

Melanie Alexander has taken leave for all of Term 1. Louis O’Connor has generously cut short his leave and will teach the children of B1 for Term 1. I would like to thank Louis for his ongoing support for the children of our school and share the thoughts and prayers of our school community with Melanie and her family.

New Staff

We welcome Amy Wormald C2, Lewis Dodwell B5 and Marcia Miller B8 to our teaching staff. Jenny McInerney (D4), Kate Whichello (F5) and Kate McGrath (E1) continue with us in 2022 after joining us last year.  Kayne Brereton, Layla Monk and Zoe Ritchie are welcomed to our staff as trainees. Zoe, Layla and Kayne all completed VCE at Emmanuel College in 2021 and are working at St Joseph’s this year whilst undertaking a Certificate 3 in Educational Support.  We wish these new staff members well as they join our team for 2022.

Matthew O'Brien	Lynette Hyland
Melanie Alexander	Angela Kavanagh
Patrick Allen	Catherine Lee
Jo Barfus	Francine Lindsay
Thomas Bels	Kathryn Ljubic
Marlie Boyd	Emily Lloyd
Leah Brooks	Andrew McCombe
Dianne Brown	Kathryn McGrath
Cara Chisholm	Jennifer McInerney
Louise Chow	Matthew McMillan
Ebony Cooper	Madeline McMurray
Yuichi Deguchi	Marcia Miller
Lewis Dodwell	Elizabeth Noonan
Laura Dunn	Monica O'Brien
George El-Hage	Louis O'Connor
Maryanne Evans	Marie O'Donnell
Gabrielle Ewing	Camille Sargant
Mark Gercovich	Joel Saywell
Jayne Gercovich	Elise Smock
Candice Grant	Clare Stacey
Steven Guthrie	Christine Thompson
Kristy Haberfield	Kara Ward
Narelle Hill	Kate Whichello
Keenan Hotker	Susan Wickham
Alison Hovey	Amy Wormald
Mark Hyland

Teacher email contacts

Classroom teachers are easily contacted via email or the student diary. Please be aware that teachers may not respond to an email after 5pm.

Parent Teacher Meetings

Monday 21st February and Tuesday 22nd February

These meetings will take place via video conferencing or phone calls. These initial meetings are designed as an information sharing between parents and teachers. It is an opportunity for teachers to learn more about the students in their care. Booking for the meetings will be available through Parent access Module (PAM) on the school app or website.

School Times

8:30am	Yard Supervision Begins
8:40am	Doors open
8:55am	Session 1
9:45am	Session 2
10:35am	Eating
10:45am	Recess
11:20am	Session 3
12:10pm	Session 4
1:00pm	Eating
1:10pm	Recess
1:45pm	Session 5
2:35pm	Session 6
3:25pm	End of School

Please note: The school gates are opened for students at 8:20am. There is not a provision for children to be supervised in the library before 8:30am. 

COVID Safe Practices

Notification of Positive COVID Test Result

Please ring the office to report a positive COVID test result so that we can be accurate with the information we are sharing with our school community. 

Pick Up Locations

As a part of our COVID safe plan we are minimising large groups of students gathering together. To this end we will continue with the allocated pick up areas:

This system is based on the starting letter of the children’s surname:

A-G	Loop at the front of the school
H-M	Queens Road
N-Z	Tennis Court

Foundation Student After School Pick Up

For the first four weeks, Foundation children will be ready to be picked from their classes at 3:20pm.  Those being collected from the Loop, Tennis Courts, Queens Road, catching the bus or going to After School Care, will be escorted by one of the Foundation teachers. 

Tennis Court Loop

To improve children's safety at the tennis court loop children will be able to enter cars in the bay closest to the clubrooms. The remaining bays have been roped off to remind children not to try to cross between cars. If parents wish to park in the parking bays then they must collect their child from the “Pick Up Zone” and walk them to the car. Children will not be permitted to walk across the loop to the parking bays.

Regards
Matthew O'Brien, Principal

Happy Birthday to children celebrating their birthday this week.

Emily Amos, Lily Harris, Harry McDonald, Paddy McKane, Olivia Cerdena, Hugh Cugley and Alexia O'Grady.

Happy Birthday to children who celebrated their birthday during January.

Eamon Cottee, Mayon Bentara Hettiarachchige, Charlotte Smedts, Lachlan Walters, Evie Cooper, Sophie Ierodiaconou, Eliza Vagg, Stella Lawlor, Mia Pozzobon, Neve Lyons, Emma Winnell, Evie Bushell, Violet Greening, Mia Jackson, Milla Rentsch, Nicholas Senchenko, Laila Brooks Zoe Davis, Thisara Kumarapperuma, Ruby McNeil, Jameson Nelson, Patrick Kerr, Jack O'Brien, Henry McKinley, Charlotte Newbury, Tom Farley, Annabel Hatton, Jack Gladki, Archie Shiells, Max McCosh, Lennie Bell, Lillian Visinoni, Levi Ciurleo, Cohan Kane, Blake Wood, Buddy Macdonald, Connor MacDougall, Poppy Monk, Lachie Cannon, Aila Kamath, Alexander Triance, Vincent Visinoni, Isabelle Ward, Curtis Chard, Darcy Schrama, Maxim Shepeliuk, Elliot Smock, Stanley Coverdale, Charlotte Brennan, Oliver Mugavin, Theo Arms, Rhiana Gibbons, Amali Greene and Abbey O'Keefe.

Our school calendar an be accessed via our SZApp or website and is regularly updated. Parents are encouraged to refer to this for important school dates including term dates, school closures, public holidays, sacramental dates and school camps and excursions.

In Terms 1 and 2 we have the following pupil free school closure days:

Monday 28th February, 2022 (Term 1)

Monday 23rd May, 2022 (Term 2)

The District Tennis competition is coming up later this term on the Friday 25th February. Tennis trials will be held at lunchtimes on Thursday 3rd and Thursday 10th February for boys, and on the Friday 4th and Friday 11th February for girls to determine the team that we will send, this is strictly for senior school (Year 5 and 6) students, and we encourage any that may be interested to come along! There is a sign up sheet on the wall under the sports notice board.

Matt McMillan, Physical Education and Sports Coordinator

Swimming trials are for those children wanting to compete in swimming. You will only qualify for the next stage if you participate in the scheduled swimming trials.  

Once the trials are completed swimmers will be selected to represent the school at Division Swimming and notified. 

Closing date for submitting this form is strictly 3pm, Friday 11th February, 2022. Entries will not be accepted after this date and children will therefore not be considered for selection to the division swimming finals.

Matthew McMillian, Physical Education and Sport Co-ordinator

In accordance with St Joseph's Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement, it is a requirement for parents/guardians to discuss the agreement with their child/ren and accept the terms. This agreement is to ensure that all students that have access to the school’s digital resources are aware of their responsibilities and agree to abide by the school’s Acceptable Use and Cybersafety Agreement. The agreement covers the student’s use of technology equipment (such as computers, hand held devices, cameras, printers), and digital platforms (such as Internet, networks and email. social media, apps, and software).

Permission is required for each child in your family from Foundation to Year 6.

To access this agreement:

1. Login into your PAM account
2. Select the red bell icon in the top right corner (you will then see the agreement)
3. select YES for your child to agree to abide by the Acceptable Use and Cyber Safety Agreement and Use Technology Equipment at St. Joseph's Primary School for the 2022 school year.

This is required to be accepted by Friday 11th February, 2022

St Joseph's Recycling Centre

St Joseph's Recycling Centre is now available for Bottle Tops, Bread Tags, Home Printer Catridges and Batteries. Children can place items in the recycling centre in the school foyer before and after school.

As we commence 2022 we require all families to login to PAM and update their child's Medical Information. Please take the time to check that all information is correct. 

This information assists with our electronic permission forms. 

Please follow the instructions below to update a medical profile for each of your children by:

1. Click on link to PAM (found on our webpage or SZapp)
2. Click on student (if more than 1 child, this will need to be done individually)
3. Click on Medical Profile (blue writing to the left of screen)
4. Check all questions and select Edit Details for updates to be made.
5. Once you get to the end of the questions please confirm by clicking on the Green “Update Details” Box found at the bottom right of screen.

As a parent/guardian you are able to access your child/rens medical profile on PAM at any time to update as needed.

If you have any queries or require your PAM login details, please do not hesitate to get in contact with the office.  

Please notify the school by phone or by using the Update Contact Details in our SZApp if you have any updates to home address, contact phone numbers and email addresses. Parents are encouraged to have two alternate contacts for their child in the event that parents cannot be contacted.

Be aware that email addresses are used in several of our systems which we need to change each of these manually.

A guide on getting your child to and from school safely.

School Canteen Support 

St Joseph’s Primary School has been very fortunate to be able to maintain our canteen being available 5 days per week.  This has been due to having Tanya Hughes as a canteen coordinator but also because we have maintained such a strong base of canteen volunteers.  The last two years have impacted this group along with a lot of our trained volunteers finishing at the end of last year.

We would love to continue to be able to offer our canteen services each school day, however, today our most pressing need is to increase the number of volunteers we have to help keep our canteen running at its current high standard and for 5 days per week.

We can work around your work roster or family commitments. You can do as many or as few 'shifts' as you would like. A daily shift will commence from 11.00am and you will be finished by 1.15pm. 

Training is offered. There are now two conditions: you have a current volunteer working with children check and be fully vaccinated. Working with children checks can be applied for through the Department of Justice website online and completed at the post office with a passport size photo. 

If you can help out please click the link to fill in your details and availability.

We really hope this request being sent out to all families will increase the number of volunteers, if not, the next step will be to look at changes we would have to make to keep it running which would more than likely mean either less days of operation or more paid time, both of which will have a massive impact on the costs and potential profits made. 

Our Parent School Association has very strong support for maintaining the canteen as a service to families, available daily if possible and quality healthy food at reasonable prices. The small profit from the canteen is spent directly on our school grounds program, including play-ground equipment and student facilities. Voluntary help is critical to achieving this outcome for everyone’s benefit.

Our 2nd Hand Uniform system allows for parents to puchase and sell items all year round with options to purchase online or in person (once COVID restrictions are lifted).

Items for second hand sale can now be dropped into the school office at any time of the year.  

Uniform items MUST be:

• current uniform items only
• very good to excellent quality
• washed and free of stains
• have any naming labels crossed out
• labelled with either the printable Pricing Label template or similar.

Items that are NOT suitable are:

• school bags more than 2 years old
• library/book bags
• stained or torn clothing
• non-current school uniform
• sports shorts without the school logo
• shoes
• secondary school uniform items.

Unsuitable items will be returned to the seller/donator.

Pricing of Uniform Items

Price uniform items accordingly and receive 70% of the amount (when the item is sold) with 30% of your sale going to the school’s PSA.

Items are kept in the second hand uniform shop until they are sold. We will notify via text of any monies to be collected, this may be after a family has left the school.

Alternatively you can donate items to be sold. We will label and price donated items. 100% of these sales go to the school's PSA.

Refer to suggested pricing guide linked below.

Purchasing of Uniform Items

Parents are able to complete an online form indicating the uniform item and size required and it will then be sent home with your child or made available for collection.

Payment to be made in cash the following day. Items can be returned if they aren't the correct size or quality.

Port Fairy Marathon

Circle of Security Parenting

Circle of Security Parenting

Circle of Security Parenting 551.35 KB

Warrnambool Community Garden

Families are encouraged to subscribe to our newsletter in order to be informed on school, student and parent related topics. Both parents/guardians can subscribe and grandparents too. Newsletters are sent on a Monday each week with a Principal column in every second newsletter. Reminder emails are often sent towards the end of a busy calendar week.

For families no longer wishing to receive the newsletter they can unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of any newsletter.