Friday 9th February, 2024

Matthew O'Brien, Principal

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

Student Leaders 2024

Congratulations to our new student leaders for 2024. At last Friday’s assembly they received their badges from their 2023 Foundation buddy and then made a speech to the entire school community introducing themselves and making some suggestions as to how we can all work together to make 2024 a great year for everyone.

Connor Greening, Paddy McKane, Isaac Brown

Roisin Handsford, Rhianna Gibbons, Logan Jones, Vivienne Smedts, Indi Smedts

Molly McNeil, Ava Gleeson Templeton, Sibella Evans

Absent: Billy Main, Archie Harle 

2024 School Improvement Foci

This year we continue to focus on improving academic and wellbeing outcomes for all children.

To achieve these aims we are undertaking two specific improvement strategies:

1. School Wide Positive Behaviour Support
2. Structured Literacy

School-wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS) is a framework that brings together school communities to develop positive, safe, supportive learning cultures.

SWPBS assists schools to improve social, emotional, behavioural and academic outcomes for children and young people.

When SWPBS is implemented well, teachers and students have more time to focus on relationships and classroom instruction. Students and staff benefit from:

• increased respectful and positive behaviour
• increased time focused on instruction
• improved social-emotional wellbeing
• positive and respectful relationships among students and staff
• increased adoption of evidence-based instructional practices
• a predictable learning environment with improved perceptions of safety and increased attendance.

Maryanne Evans and Liz Noonan will lead this initiative.

Structure Literacy is an approach to literacy instruction that applies a systematic, cumulative, explicit and diagnostic methodology to the teaching of phonology, orthography, morphology and etymology, syntax and semantics. In this project we are partnering with LaTrobe University and Catholic Education Office Ballarat (see below for more information).

Marlie Boyd in collaboration with our Year Level Learning Leaders will lead this initiative.

Regards
Matthew O'Brien, Principal

Happy Birthday to children celebrating their birthday this week.

Olivia Cerdena, Hugh Cugley, Jacob Dufty, Millie Hughson, Leo Rees, Mack Rees, Summer Hernan, James Robson, Leo Van Ginneken, Ari Coolahan and India Smith.

4pm - 6pm
Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th February, 2024

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.

Bookings are now open via Parent Access Module (PAM) on the school app or website. 

The PSA (Primary School Association) is a forum for all parents to become involved in the life of the School. It’s where we work to provide, improve and maintain the amenities available for the school students, including equipment and maintenance of School Buildings and grounds.

To provide opportunities for social meetings between parents, and promote a spirit of union and good fellowship. The PSA runs and supports several events throughout the year to raise money for the school and to support our school community.

What do we do? Mother’s Day Stall, Hot Cross Bun Drive, Father’s Day Breakfast, Pizza Days, Art Activities and Canteen support

Who can attend? Anyone and everyone, meetings are held at the school in Room C19 or the staffroom.

How often do they meet? Tuesday evening, Week 3 and Week 7 of each term. 8 meetings per year. Meetings commence at 7:30pm.

• Tuesday 13 February and Tuesday 12 March
• Tuesday 30 April and Tuesday 28 May
• Tuesday 30 July and Tuesday 27 August
• Tuesday 22 October and Tuesday 19 November
• Date TBA: Parent Committee Thank you evening

How can I help? Come along to the meetings, contribute to the discussion, share ideas, support events that enrich the school community.

We really need our school families to support this group.  It’s only 8 meetings per year! Hope to see you there, better still bring a friend!

New Shelving!

At the end of last year, the PSA agreed to contribute towards the purchasing of new Book Boxes to house our Picture Fiction Books.  This new look will give students greater access to their favourite titles and ease of finding books and re-shelving them too!  We would like to extend our gratitude to all St Joseph’s families who contributed to fundraising last year and could make this purchase for our Library.

New Books!

I have become a little guilty of finding book treasures in my school holidays and purchasing them for our library. I then become so excited when I promote them to our students, that I forget that we need time to add these titles to our Library Computer System and then we need to cover these books before we can loan them out with confidence. If you think you could spare some time to cover some of these books, either on-site, or at home, then please email me with your interest.

elloyd@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au

The students would be most grateful to get their hands on these great new books as soon as possible!

Scholastic Book Club Fundraiser

Your child should bring home a Scholastic Book Club catalogue this week. This is a great incentive to purchase books for your children whilst knowing the School Library receives a ‘kick-back’ bonus by earning Rewards that can be spent on new books for the library! Please make sure you read the attached information on how to pay for books online and the option to make them as secret gifts!  We will check every order before handing them out to the students to ensure any of the ‘GIFT’ orders remain a secret from your children!  We will then make contact with you to let you know when the order has arrived.

Any order from the current issue #1 will close Friday 16th February. Online orders only, no cash orders accepted.

Emily Lloyd, Teacher-Librarian/Digital Technologies

Geelong Cats visit

On Wednesday 14th February we are lucky enough to have a number of Geelong Cats players visiting our school to run some clinics for our Year 1 and 2 students. These sessions will run throughout the day, and if going off last year's experience when they visited is anything to go by, it is sure to be a great day for all involved.

800m and 1500m trials

Our 800m and 1,500m trials will be held in Week 4 and 5. Students in Years 4 - 6 who wish to try out for these athletics events are encouraged to wear sports uniform on these days. 

Tuesday 20th February - Boys 800m

Wednesday 21st February - Girls 800m

Tuesday 27th February - Boys 1,500m

Wednesday 28th February - Girls 1,500m

District Tennis

The District tennis competition is scheduled for Friday 23rd February at Supergrasse tennis courts. Trials for Year 6 boys and girls are currently being held for this event.

Swimming trials are for those children who are competent swimmers in Years 3 - 6 wanting to compete in swimming.  

Once the trials are completed swimmers will be selected to represent the school. 

Closing date for submitting this form is strictly 3pm, Wednesday 14th February, 2024. Entries will not be accepted after this date and children will therefore not be considered for selection.

Trials for registered competent swimmers will be held on a Monday 19th February for the District Swimming to be held on Thursday 29th February, 2024.

If any parents are available to assist with time keeping on the day please indicate on the form. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Matthew McMillian, Physical Education and Sport Co-ordinator

Year 1 swimming commences on Monday 26th February.

A reminder to please complete the excursion permission via PAM.

A reminder to also complete the Year 1 Aquazone School Aquatic Education Program form to indicate your child's swimming ability. This enables Aquazone to group children according to ability.

The CASEA program has been designed to assist schools and families to support children with their social, emotional and behavioural development. It has been developed to help children in Foundation to grade 3 to understand and express emotions more effectively and to enhance problem solving and relationship skills.  CASEA is a free program and is not compulsory.  

The CASEA program will be offered at St. Joseph’s Primary School during Term 1, 2024. The program runs over an 8 week period and consists of a weekly children’s group (1.5 hours), a parent/guardian group (1.5 hours) and teacher consultation.    

If you have any questions or would like further information regarding the program please contact: Megan Hyland, CASEA Clinician, South West Healthcare CAMHS.  Telephone 1800 808 284. 

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)

  

We are very happy to continue our partnership with Catholic Care and have Helen Diamond share her expertise with our parents again this year. A parent meeting will be held with Helen on:

• 2pm at Tuesday 13th February (Cancelled)
• 7pm at Tuesday 13th February.

Child minding will be available.

This is Helen’s introduction: 

Hello! My name is Helen Diamond and I am delighted to be doing some work with your community.

I am a Parent Educator who has the joy and privilege of working with parents for over 25 years. I’m also a parent of three adult children and a grandparent.

One thing I know for certain is that every parent wants to be the best parent they can for their child/ren. The problem is that there is so much information around advising parents how to go about this, that it can be really confusing and confidence deflating.  Each generation of parents puts their own spin on parenting and new research overrides the messages of previous “experts” which can sometimes leave us not knowing where to turn when we hit a roadblock in our parenting journey.

I’m looking forward to facilitating a couple of parenting sessions where we will explore the latest research on building strong relationships with our children and why this is so important and what we can be doing to support our children to feel “safe, seen and secure”.

The information I’ll be drawing on will be from evidence based parenting programs: “Circle of Security Parenting”, “Bringing up Great Kids” by the Australian Childhood Foundation and “Turning into Kids” as well as the observations and experiences of parents I’ve met along the way.

Looking forward to meeting you and hearing your parenting stories.

Helen Diamond
CatholicCare Victoria

Senior Reconciliation is a Sacramental Program for Year 6 students who have completed their Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist Sacraments. 

Complete the registration form if your child would like to participate in this program. Please make $20 payment through CDFpay.

The Student and Parent Information meeting is held at St Joseph's church.

Contact Cara Chisholm at cchisholm@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au with any queries.

Key Dates

3pm, Friday 16th February, 2024 - Registration and payment closes

7pm, Tuesday 20th February, 2024 - Student and Parent Information meeting 

Postponed: 5:15pm - 6:15pm, Wednesday 27th March, 2024 - Sacrament of Reconciliation

New Date and Time: 5:30pm - 6:30pm, Wednesday 16th April, 2024 - Sacrament of Reconciliation

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. Download, read and discuss this agreement with each of your children.
4. 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 2024 school year.
5. Parents & Guardians of Year 5 and 6 Students will be sent a survey for them to indicate if they wish for their child’s Chromebook to remain at school OR to be taken home and charged overnight. 

This is required to be accepted by Wednesday 14th February, 2024.

In addition to this action at home, all students will go through the Agreement in class with their teachers.  They will be required to sign a hard copy of the ‘Student’ sub-heading content only.  These contracts will remain with their teacher until the end of this school year.  Foundation to Year Two students will discuss the topic of Cyber Safety in their classrooms by using age appropriate language that they can understand and relate to.

We appreciate your support in helping us keep our students safe in a digital world.

Mrs Emily Lloyd, LRC Coordinator

Mr Pat Allen, Deputy Principal

During term 4 last year parents who visited the school would have noticed our new sign in system via the ipads.

Due to the changes to Child Safety the sign in procedures have been changed to collect more information from all visitors when entering a school.  You WILL need to bring with you your Working With Children Card or your VIT card the first time you sign in.  Once you have completed all sections of the sign in process you will create what is called a quickpin, which will be your mobile number as it is a unique number.  After that you will only need to enter your number to sign in & out and not everything else.

It does allow you to select the option that you just do not have your card on you, but a limit has been set for the number of times this is allowed.  If you have a VIT card, you can select that option at the start and use that number instead.  The sign in process does a live check with the Department of Justice and VIT to verify your cards are current and valid.  The most common reason for them to be rejected is because your card is in a different name to what you have signed in as e.g. shortened name (Cathy instead of Cathryn) or one is still in your maiden name.

We encourage all visitors to complete this process in full the first time you come in, if you need help, any of the admin team can assist you. I guarantee it will make it much quicker for you from then on.

Cathy Duynhoven, Business Manager

Firstly I need to thank every one of our St Joseph's families that has supported our little recycling center.  In 2024 we will continue to be able to accept the bread tags and batteries.

Unfortunately, we can no longer accept the printer cartridges as we have been notified by the company we return all of our large printer cartridges that the smaller home printer ones do not work in their machines. 

Also, Lauren Hose, who has been absolutely remarkable at collecting, sorting and forwarding on the bottle tops for the past 4 years is stepping back from this role. We can accept these up until the end of February when Lauren will finish, after that we will pause this program while we look into other options.

I have been so proud of the way in which our families have embraced the recycling program and hope we find a way to continue the bottle tops in the future. Once I have another option finalised I will let you all know.

For now I wish to pass on a HUGE thank you to Lauren for her work.  It was Laurens request to collect the bottle tops that inspired the creation of the recycling center as a whole. Lauren has been diligent for the past 4 years in checking in and collecting when needed, which is very time consuming for her as a volunteer. Lauren did not only look after our school, along with the support of a small volunteer group, she collected from many cafes around town, other schools that set up similar centers and also the Warrnambool City Council offices. 

Cathy Duynhoven, Business Manager

In September 2024, we hope to take a group of Year 6 students on a Cultural and Study Tour to Japan for approximately 8-10 days. Students from across the Warrnambool and District Network are invited to come. In November last year, we held an information meeting for parents at St. Joseph's in Warrnambool, giving an overview of what students could expect on the trip. Parents then submitted a deposit and confirmed their interest in December 2023. 

This is the last call for any parents who might be interested in their child taking part in the Japan Trip in 2024. Please fill out the attached form by Friday 9th February. You will then be sent information (including pricing) to help you in your decision. You can also email Catherine Lee  (St. Joseph's PS)  clee@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au for further information.

Confirmation of interest and a deposit, would then need to be submitted by Friday 16th February, so that bookings can commence. 

In March, we have Japanese students from Doshisha Elementary School in Kyoto, Japan visiting our school. Thank you to those who have volunteered to host children at their homes. We are still in need of some more host families.

If you are able to help, could you please email clee@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au

Who: St Joseph's Families with a Year 5 or 6 student

When: late Sunday 24th March – early Thursday 28th March

Children you will host: Either 2 girls OR 1 boy/2 boys

Note: All adults (over the age of 18) residing in the home must have a current Working With Children Check (this can be a free Volunteer WWCC).

Catherine Lee, Community Development Coordinator

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.  

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. A Working With Children check is required. This can be applied for through the Department of Justice website. 

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.

School Canteen Support