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Michael Gray, Principal
Dear Parents, Guardians, Students, Staff and our wider School Community
Thank You For Your Help
Halfway through the last Term of 2019 is a wonderful opportunity to pause to take stock before the run home to the end of the school year. Why pause one might wonder? By pausing we take stock, it gives us a chance to recognise effort, reflect on what is important and re-set on priorities to ensure we are all doing our best for each other.
From my perspective, I would especially like to thank students, staff and families for your support and focus. In this note, I am focusing on families. Every time our school has sought parent support to help learning everyone has “jumped on board” enthusiastically. Examples I can think of go across our school; including help with the swimming programs, attending as “helpers” in the school camping program, supporting our staff with learning by supporting school closure days, help with transport in sporting programs, supervising and helping with home tasks, packing healthy lunches, walking to school; your support, commitment and help allow all to be engaged, supported and cared for.
Our school leadership staff spent two hours examining our specific student progress this year. We have looked at Naplan results, testing data, progress on pre/post-test, reports and seen wonderful student growth; especially in mathematics and spelling.
Other stunning areas of success your children have demonstrated is on the sporting fields, committing to mathematics competitions and having a go at community speech programs and district spelling events. Individual examples include Ava McKenzie (Senior School) being awarded the “Best Debater” of the 132 entrants in the 2019 Warrnambool Eisteddfod Debate program. Further, the 21 students entering the Australian Mathematics Competition achieved 2 distinctions, 13 credits, 5 proficiency and 1 participation certificate. Theses efforts are great to celebrate.
Above and beyond many individual and team achievements are your children’s amazing commitment to their classrooms, each other, our families, their faith and the wider community. To me, this is awe-inspiring and important to recognise and celebrate. We see this come to the fore in events like assemblies and classroom activity. Each student is learning about right from wrong, meeting individual challenges, building their social skills and striving to do their best. Examples of this work have been on display over the assemblies this year. The last two assemblies were lead by our Foundation classes. They have been supported by their Senior School buddies, families attending and our staff’s ability to lead growth in a supported challenging environment. This work has been stunning, brave, determined and enjoyable.
Thanks all; lets now stay focused as we head to the end of the year knowing that more invitations to be involved will come and that this support is what makes young people strive to grow, learn and be involved.
Invitation to Open Space
St. Joseph’s Parish is supporting, and invite our community to a gathering where you can talk about issues and solutions around healing. The event title is ‘Healing and Health in Our Community.’ The theme of the gathering will focus on time to Listen. To Share and Act. It will be held at Emmanuel College Centre Foyer, Botanic Road, from 10am to 2 pm on 23 November 2019. The session will have open activity hubs focusing on dialogue, healing and information. All welcome.
Regards,
Michael Gray. Principal.
We wish all our Foundation Children a great extended play at school today.
A reminder to parents to please collect their child from the school hall at 5:00pm.
Monica Currer, Literacy Co-ordinator
At this time of the year, teachers begin to assess what their students have learnt during the year and it is this growth in each student’s learning, that gives a sense of achievement to students, teachers and parents. The assessments we use at the end of the year are summative assessments, as they ‘sum up’ the students’ knowledge and skills. These assessments can also be used as formative assessments, in that they inform us of what students need to learn next. Assessment and monitoring of students, is of course, an ongoing process throughout the year.
In our Catholic School we have two formal designated Assessment Periods. At the moment we are beginning Assessment Period Two, which runs during October and November. All students from Foundation to Year 6 will be completing a PAT Reading (Progressive Achievement Test) and PAT Maths. These are completed online. Students in Year 2 to 6 complete a spelling assessment and a writing task. There is a full 12 months between each assessment, so we expect to see each student achieve at least 12 months’ growth.
Our Foundation, Year One and Year Two students have an individual time with their teacher to complete some reading and writing tasks. Teachers are released from their classroom to assess each student.
The Numeracy Interviews in December and the Literacy interviews in January are formative assessments, which makes them very valuable for informing us, as teacher, what each child needs to learn and therefore what we need to teach.
Numeracy Interview Dates
- Tuesday 17 December
- Wednesday 18 December
- Thursday 19 December
Literacy Interview Dates
- Tuesday 28 January
- Wednesday 29 January
- Thursday 30 January
You need to book a time for Numeracy for one day in December and on one day in January for your children.
Bookings will be made via PAM and will open on Wednesday 11 December which is the day after Orientation Day.
Please mark on your calendar the dates for these interviews as they play an important part in your children’s education and please watch future newsletters for information about booking times online.
Please contact the office or your classroom teacher if your child will be unable to attend either of these interviews.
Congratulations to our participants in the Australian Mathematics Competition
21 of our senior students participated in the Australian Mathematics Competion this year. They achieved 2 distinctions, 13 credits, 5 proficiencys and 1 participate certificate.
Congratulations to our Year 6 students: Max Collins, Jamieson Mueglitz, William Callaghan, Marco Mentha, Rory Baulch, Sam Niklaus, Joseph Brown, Zoe Graham, Ava McKenzie, Kaitlyn Cust and Hannah van de Camp.
Regional Golf Finals
After playing some wonderful golf against the best players in our region last Monday; Sam Marris, Joseph Brown and Olivia Porter will now compete against the best golfers in the State at the Victorian Golf State Championships. Our school congratulates the trio on their outstanding efforts. Well done!
5/6 Future Stars Regional Basketball Finals
Our mixed boys and girls team competed in Werribee last Friday in the Hooptime Regional Basketball Finals. They played really well on the day and just missed out on making the finals winning 2 out of their 4 matches played. A great effort by the team and all involved.
5/6 Boys and Girls State Basketball Finals
Our boys and girls compete in the State Basketball Finals this week and will hopefully play their best basketball against the top teams in the state. It has been wonderful to have a large number of parents willing to attend and assist with scoring and cheering the team on. Good luck teams!
Sports Practice this week
| Monday |
| No practice today - State Basketball Finals (Boys) |
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Tuesday |
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No practice today - State Basketball Finals (Girls) |
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Wednesday |
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3/4 Hooptime Training @ Lunchtime |
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Thursday |
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No Practice today- Regional Cricket Finals (Boys) |
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Friday |
|
School Closure Day |
Andrew McCombe, Physical Education and Sport Co-ordinator
Just a reminder to Parents to attend our special Graduation Mass choir practice.
7pm Wednesday 20th and 27th November in the Len Hogan multipurpose area outside the junior classrooms. All voices of all types and qualities are needed. The more we have the better it will be! We will be supported by some members of staff and the St. Joseph’s church choir with Gary Price accompanying us.
Just to clarify a couple of things:
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during the actual mass students and parents will sit with their families.
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At the time of the song we will be singing, students and parent choir will move to the front of the church and sing as a mass group.
Looking forward to seeing as many parents as we can. Dads too!
Kathy McMeel
Message from Pope Francis for World Day of the Poor
The third World Day of the Poor, to be observed on Sunday 17 November, will focus on the theme “the hope of the poor shall not perish for ever”. The Church in Australia is recognising volunteers who work to bring hope to those in need.
Proposed Network Japanese Language and Culture Study Tour 2020
You can either download and print the expression of Interest Form or complete it electronically below.
A reminder to please label your school coats clearly to ensure we can return them to your child. Could you please check that your label is CLEAR for someone else to read.
Coats are often taken off at school as the day warms up and left in the playground, drama room, hall, etc. Labelling the coat will ensure it is returned to the child.
We currently have two unlabelled jackets, contact the office if you think it may be your childs.
Hot Jam Donuts!
Some families have already discovered that Hot Jam Donuts are now on the lunch order list. Jam Donuts are $2.20 (the same price as all donuts) and come warmed but NOT sugared.
Only 1 icypole/ice cream
A timely reminder as the weather warms up that children are only allowed to order one icypole/ice cream per day.
