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Michael Gray, Principal
Dear Parents, Guardians, Students, Staff and our wider School Community
Arts Week
As Forest said in the movie, Forest Gump; “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get!” Life is surprising! We do have choices, quality is available when you step out into something new we experience adventure, uncertainly, difference and achievement! Certainly, Arts Week was all of this and much more! The undoubted highlight for me was the Thursday night time safari through the “African Jungle.” Family, school and creativity all came together in a very ambitious project to create a whole school kaleidoscope of the colour, sights and sounds of Africa.
A very special thank you to the Arts Team for their inspiration and support of the week. The team were led by Mrs Kath McMeel and fully supported by our Arts Teaching staff of Cara Chisholm, Di Brown, Jo Barfus McCoy and Mary Lane. For the ideas of Arts Week to come to full fruition I acknowledge and thank all our workshop leaders, teaching staff, administration team, support staff, families and of course our wonderful students. Everyone has engaged in creative activities, shared ideas, built their talents to help create a wonderful vibrant learning week for all.
While I was absent from the Arts Week assembly due to our school's Kyoto, Japan Home Stay program I have received many comments about the quality, enthralling production and the heartfelt Sundanese Community assembly welcome. Staff and families reported this was special and indeed very moving. Colour, song and pride in country ensured we all celebrated our school’s diversity, cultural understandings and the part we all play in ensuring learning and community is the heart of what we do. I thank everyone for this astounding experience of what the Arts can bring to all our lives.
2019 NAPLAN
Coming home this week is the annual student NAPLAN parent report for the families of students in Grades 3 and 5.
This National learning assessment program is conducted in May each year by the Australian National Curriculum authority to:
- assess the fundamental skills – reading, writing, spelling and numeracy that are essential for all children to progress through school and life.
The results provide parents and educators with a snapshot in time of:
- how students are progressing – individually, as part of their school community, and against national standards over time.
Of course, your child’s teacher knows your child’s learning best and the NAPLAN results need to be interpreted in light of classroom monitoring and assessment, teacher feedback, school reports, student profile books, and if your child has special needs support, their individual learning plan. The NAPLAN information adds to your child’s school-based comprehensive learning profile.
St. Joseph’s school also reviews the NAPLAN results from an individual and whole school perspective. This work helps us monitor our teaching, evaluate learning outcomes, set school-wide goals, evaluate curriculum and improve the accuracy of our individual analysis of student learning data.
At St. Joseph’s all our students did the tests with paper and pencil. NAPLAN is progressively moving online and this year some schools did experience some connectivity issues. The idea of online is to deliver a better more precise and more engaging assessment for students and school. St. Joseph’s will continue to monitor the online option over the next few years.
This week we have posted each child’s report home. The report will have their results for numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation on an achievement scale. I encourage everyone to review this report with the learning and student’s disposition in mind. If you have any questions or are seeking clarification about the report in the first instance, please check in with your child’s teacher. Another support is also available via our Curriculum, Literacy or Numeracy Co-ordinators who can be conducted via our school office on 5561 1343.
130 Year St. Joseph’s Church Celebration
Fast approaching is a special celebration weekend for St. Joseph’s Parish. Our church is 130 years old and will be recognized this weekend coming. The celebration weekend commences on Friday 13th September with Mass starting at 7pm. Mass will be followed by refreshments. All are most welcome to attend. On Saturday morning at 10:30am there will be a commemorative tree planting in the grounds of St. Joseph’s followed by a tour of the Warrnambool Cemetery to honour the priests, religious and laypeople who served our parish over many years.
First Eucharist
This weekend we celebrate the children and their families who will receive First Eucharist. The families have all been working together to prepare for this celebration over the last four weeks. I appreciate everyone’s work in supporting this celebration and encourage your prayers and reflections to include the students from the Middle School.
Regards
Michael Gray, Principal
We wish to remind parents that in Term 4 there will be 2 school closure days, the first being on Monday 11th November as previosly notified to families.
The second day is Friday 22th November which is an additional day resulting from an opportunity for staff to participate in a PD day with Dan Petro.
Thank you to:
Andrea Welsh, Helen McKenzie, Martha Zekry, Anna Jenkins, Joel Saywell, Joelle Martin, Belinda Crichton, Mel McDonald, Joelyn Gibson, Carolyn Murrell, Anita Singh, Lauren Hoy, Georgie Eldridge, Elaine Gome, Daphne Ginley, Carolyn Cook, Julie Black, Melissa Happ, Maria Harper, Jane Russell, Anneliese Murfett, Helen Ambrose, Naomi Slape, Julie Black, Heather Maconachie, Rebecca Thornton, Kathryn Owen, Lauren Hoy, Sara Evans, Jo Nelson, Jane Russell, Anna Carroll and Cindy Joseph.
Thank you also to all our parents who have assisted in the canteen at special events this year including toastie sandwich days, school fair, father's day breakfast and school sports days.
Our school community is very fortunate to have a fully furbished canteen facility that operates 5 days a week and is also available for special events. We rely on canteen volunteers and appreciate the time and effort that they contribute to our school.
Table Tennis
Good luck to our table tennis teams competing this Friday at the Warrnambool Table Tennis Stadium. Parents are more than welcome to attend on the day to cheer on our teams.
AFL 9’s
Coming up on Tuesday 17th September, the year four children will be involved in an AFL 9’s tournament to be held at St Joseph’s. Other local Warrnambool schools will participate in the Round Robin Tournament and parents are more than welcome to attend on the day. The first matches commence at 11am and all the information about the day and draws are found on PAM.
Sports Uniform Returns
We still have a number of sports uniforms that need to be returned. This includes all basketball uniforms from last Friday and football jumpers used for Aussie Footy Program and State Footy Finals.
Sports Practice this week
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Monday |
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Girls Tee Ball @ Lunchtime |
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Tuesday |
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5/6 Regional Hooptime practice in the Hall @ Lunchtime |
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Wednesday |
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State Tee Ball Finals |
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Thursday |
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3/4 Regional Hooptime practice in the Hall @ Lunchtime |
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Friday |
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Table Tennis competition 3/4 Cricket Trials @ 2:30pm |
Andrew McCombe, Physical Education and Sport Co-ordinator
As part of our Professional Learning Community journey, we have been developing our spelling essential learnings, scope and sequence and learning cycles across all grade levels, Foundation to Year 6.
We have also been involved in professional learning which is an important part of the Professional Learning Community process. We have learnt that;
- spelling is a thinking activity.
- students need far more opportunities and time for the explicit teaching and learning of spelling.
- students need to be taught spelling strategies e.g. breaking words into sounds, using syllables, breaking words by identifying prefixes and suffixes and base words.
- English words are spelt the way they are, because of how the English language has evolved throughout a long and complex history.
- There are many conventions and generalisations of spelling that have developed over time.
Spelling knowledge and strategies needs to be explicitly taught and our students need many opportunities to learn about, and spell the words in our English language. Teachers are concentrating on providing explicit teaching and learning of spelling each day in the classroom, with the intention of improving student learning outcomes.
As part of this process teachers have been discussing the value of students having an activity related to their current spelling learning cycle, rather than lists of spelling words for homework. Teachers have decided that learning lists of words is not the most beneficial task for students to have for homework.
An expert in Language and Literacy Misty Adoniou says this about the learning of spelling;
‘Learning to spell through rote learning is not only impossible; it is also unnecessarily difficult. When we give students lists of words to be learned by heart, with no meaning attached and no investigation of how those words are constructed, then we are simply assigning them a task equivalent to learning ten random PINs each week. That is not only very hard, it’s also pointless. We bring a lot more than our memory to the task of learning to spell.’ (Adoniou, Misty. (Year). Spelling It Out - How Words Work and How to Teach Them, p.43)
Congratulations to the children who will celebrate the Sarcrament of Eucharist this weekend.
Families are asked to bring a plate of food to share after the Mass. Eucharist candidates should sit on an aisle seat and are reminded to wear their stole.
Parents are advised to contact the Parish with any queries or if they are able to assist during the Mass.
Key Dates
| 8:30am, 10:30am and 6:00pm - Sunday 15th September 2019 | Celebration of the First Eucharist Sacrament (nominate your preferred time at the Parent Meeting) |
A Family Prayer on the theme of EucharistJesus, we come before you in gratitude as family. We thank you for the gift of uniqueness of each member of our family. Nourish us so we may see the gifts you have given us and so encourage the gifts in those around us. Response: Jesus, nourish us. Jesus, we come before you in sorrow as family. We ask you to forgive the times we have hurt you and each other. Response: Jesus, forgive us. Jesus, we come before you in need as family. Assist us in our journey with each other. May each of us be a sign of your love by the way we love each other. Response: Jesus, send us your light. Jesus, we come before you as community. May the example we live out in our homes be a reflection of the love you have for us all – that we may all be one. Response: Jesus, make us one. |
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm, Monday 16th September, 2019.
This evening is for parents and we also welcome grandparents and extended family members. We currently have over 100 parents registered for this event.
To assist with venue planning please follow the link below to indicate how many from your family will attend.
Saturday 19th October and Sunday 20th October
Once again the PSA are offering parents the opportunity for family photos through Vision Portraits. Bookings are now open.
Thank you to all our canteen volunteers. We are in need of a few more volunteers for Term 3 and 4. Training is provided and one shift a term is all you need to commit to.
A note that our roster can cater for parents who work on a rostered basis with the ability to swap canteen shifts if necessary.