Dear Parents, Carers, Staff, Students and the wider St. Joseph’s Primary School Community, welcome to the new school week.

Over this COVID-19 time we have not been able to gather as normal in one place to share news, recognise student success, have parents learn about our school or showcase what is happening in classrooms. Traditionally this has been done via our Friday assembly, classroom invitations, parent/student combined activity, and on-site parenting programs. In these COVID-19 times we have all missed this connection. However, both while we were home, and even now at school we have all been participating in a virtual mode to help us stay connected, informed and aware of our school diversity, interest, abilities and celebrations.

Importantly this has also been the case with prayer; we may not even be able to gather in our churches to pray together but prayer, spirituality and our faith engagement is alive and flourishing in our parish and classrooms. How do I know this? I see it in the lived examples of our students and the St. Joseph’s faith community.

Faith is ultimately about action of care, concern and support and the need to focus on people. In the midst of the upheaval and chaos that has taken over our society and our lives - we have witnessed many examples of creativity. Our Student Leaders are working on a ‘Green Day’ to support the local charity for Muscular Dystrophy. One of our Grade 6 students (Keira Byron, E5) shared her thoughts about remembering our environment. Keira said:

“We all need to improve our ways to help our oceans and marine life. Most of us use plastic on a daily basis. We need to start using reusable products such as material bags and containers instead. Doing this would not only help our oceans and marine life but all of our environment as well.”

Keira’s thoughts are wonderful sentiments. Keira has also produced posters to promote environmental care around school. With this in mind we also do encourage all families to try and limit plastic in lunch boxes and to use recycled containers. Plastic wrap can be a source of much waste. Last week I also shared by way of a video interview the work of our Middle School students collaborating on a Hiroshima Peace Project.

A local example of faith responding to our COVID-19 time is Fr John Fitzgerald, the St. Joseph’s parish staff and regional faith community; this group continue to make available each Sunday a local recorded YouTube mass. A link to mass two weeks ago is here. A special thanks to the many school staff who have helped Fr. John, especially with reading, music and prayers of the faithful over this time. 

One way we could also think of this pandemic is with the image of a boat. There is only one boat, and we are in it together. True, the image does not cover everything, and we know that many are more vulnerable than others, but as a Christian school community, it is an image that we might want to hold onto. It is an image given to us in many of the gospel stories and recorded over the millennia in religious art.

Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Galilee sharing food and kindness with friends; this is a Greek Orthodox Church painting from the walls of the church in Capernaum, Israel.

The boat image tells of Jesus the Teacher; challenging us all to care for everybody and share our bounty. The image of the boat takes us to the heart of Christianity and to the heart of the life of our call to show kindness to all. In our classrooms and school yard our students are always displaying care, kindness and thinking of others. While no one is perfect and we all make mistakes, impressively our students’ have an amazing capacity to show empathy, kindness and care. This is articulated in their classroom prayer, their circle time reflections, daily work journals and their help of each other in the classroom and across the school. I am inspired daily by this attitude and school culture.

COVID-19, Road To Recovery, Two Updates

Our Premier Daniel Andrews announced some cautious reopening steps this week for regional and metro Victoria and extra teaching support for student learning in 2021.

Grand Final Public Holiday, Friday: Gathering In Homes

I note this weekend is a public holiday and that the grand final is a major celebration event for many families. Regulations apply to gathering activities in homes. You can have up to two people visit you at home each day. Infants under 12 months are not included in this cap, and other dependents can also attend if they cannot be left unattended or cared for in another setting. The two people may be from different households. This replaces the current household bubbles.

Website of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) with the latest and up-to-date Health advice:

Tutor Support 2021

The Victorian Government announced that tutors will be deployed across Victorian government and non-government schools in 2021 to support students to thrive as they return to the classroom and ensure that students who need extra support in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic get the help they need.

The Executive Director of the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) says “Schools will determine how tutoring support is best implemented in their school. $30m is available for non-government schools and the funding will be distributed by the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria (CECV) with exact allocations made available at a later date. The funding is to support students to accelerate their learning in 2021 to compensate for the disruptions they have experienced this year and as such must be spent within the 2021 calendar year.”

Regards,