Michael Gray, Principal

Dear Parents, Guardians, Students, Staff and our wider School Community

Our Catholic Tradition

The fifth week of our school term ushers in the Christian calendar’s Lenten Season. The concepts of Lent support our focus in classrooms about building strong personal relationships. The Lent themes invite personal reflection, actions of kindness and consideration of giving up something as a sacrifice. The concept of sacrifice for young people alerts us to the needs of others, delaying gratification and building to an endpoint. In Lent, this might be going without a treat and putting the money aside for another. At church on Sunday Fr. John will have available the Lent Caritas Fundraising program to support needy communities across Australia and the wider world.

Healthy Moves Program (The Inner North)

This program, managed by the Warrnambool City Council and supported by St. Joseph’s Primary School Is a community-wide approach to enhancing the social, economic and environment health and wellbeing of children attending Warrnambool schools. The program is having a very positive impact on environmentally friendly travel, young people's sense of wellbeing and their general health.

As part of the further development of this program St. Joseph’s is working with Nicole Wood (Healthy Moves Coordinator) to develop a Neighbourhood Plan and complete a Local Area Traffic Management Plan - Botanic Precinct. This project will work on safe travel, car movement etc; all with the objective of safer travel movement for our students. Further grants become available with good data and research.

Therefore, to support this project St. Joseph’s would like to provide to the Warrnambool City Council the resident address/location of each family at St. Joseph's to the mapping team. This information, once supplied, will be placed on a city travel map which will be then identified. In support of privacy/transparency of information if you do not want your residential location supplied could you email our School Business Manager at cduyn@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au and indicate so? As outlined in our school privacy policy and information sharing policies we do from time to time provide data to third parties (That is Catholic Education, Australian Government and St. Joseph’s Parish) in the interest of a safe, accountable government-funded enterprise. The email needs to be sent by this Wednesday 26th February, 2020.

Regards
Michael Gray, Principal

A reminder to School Advisory Council members that the first meeting for 2020 will be held on Thursday 12th March from 7:30pm - 9:00pm. 

Division Lawn Bowls, Wednesday 26th February

We would like to wish our Lawn Bowling team and their coach, Mr Guinan, best of luck at the Division Lawn Bowls Competition this Wednesday.  They have been training hard and I am sure they are more than ready to represent our school on the green.

Tennis District competition, Friday 28th February

The District Tennis Finals will be held this Friday commencing at 9:30am at the Supergrasse Tennis Complex.  Congratulations to the following students who made the team for St Joseph’s.  

Boys: Austin Lloyd,  Tomm McKane, and Sam Anderson.

Girls: Lila Evans, Claire Benson, Mia Slater and Tahlia Vesey. 

Athletics

Next Week will be the Middle/Senior School Sports Carnival to be held on Monday 2nd March. Parent helpers are welcome on the day.  Please fill in the online volunteer form as soon as possible to ensure that we have enough helpers to assist to make Sports Day run smoothly.

The day commences at 9:20am and runs all day with House Winners and Age Champions announced at 3:00pm. Please note that some times may alter on the day due to weather and/or other unforeseeable reasons.

Middle/Senior School Sports - Requesting Parent Helpers

Monday 2nd March, 2020 is the date for this year’s Senior School Sports (Years 3-6), held here at St Joseph’s Primary School on the Allen Oval.  This event cannot operate without volunteers from our school community.  If you think that you might be able to spare a couple of hours to support us at one of the stations, then please complete the form below as this will enable us to create a more organised schedule of events for the day.

Emily Lloyd, Sports Co-ordinator

sport@sjwarrnambool.catholic.edu.au

Sign your child out

A reminder that if you are taking your child home early on sports day, they must be signed out at the office.

If, by arrangement, you are taking another person's child we must receive either verbal or written permission (note in diary) from the child's parent.

A reminder that the Parent Information evening is to be held at the Parish on Tuesday 25th February at the church.

Contact Leanne at the Parish on 5562 2231 with any queries.

Key Dates

Friday 21st February 2020 - Registration and payment closes

7:30pm, Tuesday 25th February 2020 - Parent information meeting

5:30pm, Tuesday 24th March 2019 - Sacrament of Reconciliation

The Australian Catholics Young Journalist Award offers students in Years 5 to 9 the opportunity to get creative, learn about the media and have their work shared with a national audience.

This year, for the first time, the award is open not just to young writers, but also to students interested in photography and digital journalism

The theme is ‘Living it up: Stories of celebration’. Inspiring stories students might explore for their entries include sporting, academic or arts achievements, personal milestones, cultural and religious celebrations, or community events. 

Please view their website for further information.  Entries close Friday 22 May.

"The World Day of Prayer is a global ecumenical movement led by Christian women who welcome you to join in prayer and action for peace and justice. Through preparation and participation in the worship service, we can come to know how our sisters of other countries, languages and cultures understand the Biblical passages in their context. We can hear their concerns and needs and can feel ourselves in solidarity with them as we pray with and for them. In this way, it is possible to enrich our Christian faith as it grows deeper and broader in an international, ecumenical expression."

Term 1 Canteen Roster

We rely on our volunteers and are also in need of more parents to assist. Training is arranged by our Canteen Co-ordinator Tania Hughes. Please consider volunteering, even if only once per term, all help most appreciated.