31 July 2018

Newsletter Articles

Principal’s Message

Jim Guinan, Acting Principal

The theme of this newsletter is one of celebration with many events happening around our school and globally expressing and embodying this sentiment in recent times. I refer of course to the events of Thailand occurring over the school holidays, where twelve boys and their coach lived in hope of being saved. The world came together to assist and rightfully celebrated the saving of the boys lives.

Next is that, at the time of writing, we can celebrate the safe return to Australia and Warrnambool of our Principal, Michael Gray, from his study tour in Israel. Michael has returned refreshed and spiritually richer for the experience and is looking forward to his eventual return to school in two weeks. It is timely to thank all staff for continuing their great work and support in Michael’s absence, particularly Nick Murrell and Belinda Wrigley for their Assistant Principal work.

Also at the time of writing we are preparing for Grandparents Day. Children are so looking forward to spending time in their classrooms with their grandparents showing their work and participating in regular classroom activities. Our thanks goes to Catherine Lee, Community Liaison Coordinator, for organising the event on or near the Feast of St Anne and Joachim, grandparents of Jesus.

We are also preparing to celebrate the School Disco next Friday, 3rd August. Tickets are still available via CDFPay (online ordering) for $5. This is an annual event promoted by the PSA and lead by Leah Johnston and team. It is a chance for the children of St Joseph’s to celebrate being a student at our school in a safe supportive environment. Our thanks to Leah and her team of parental volunteers for proving this opportunity for our children. Poster competition winners were announced at assembly last Friday and I’m sure will enjoy their limousine ride to the disco.

A reminder to parents that next Friday 10th August is a school closure day. Staff will working on the new program Respectful Relationships and doing further work with Integrated Catholic Online Network (ICON).

Till next newsletter.

Regards,
Jim Guinan, Acting Principal.

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Teacher Awards

Week 1

Week 2

Gold Box Winner

Congratulations to Gold Box winners Jaali Lang for being brilliant at Assembly and Quinn Madigan for being helpful.

Congratulations to Gold Box winners William Callaghan for being very nice to Vivienne the school crossing lady and to Cigi Lual, Ava Van Rooy, Makayla Snell, Ellie Holden, Regan Squires, Elle McDonough and Jess Hovey for brilliant attention at Assembly.

Winners of our gold box get to go for a swim at the pool.

No Smoking Policy

A reminder to all parents, visitors and staff that St Joseph’s Primary School has a “No Smoking” Policy. Smoking is not permitted within 4 metres of an entry. Entry to the school starts from the school boundary entries i.e. from Queens Road, school loop, staff car park, Allan Oval and the Bromfield Street Tennis Courts.

Numeracy at St. Josephs

During third term, Students across the school address some of the more challenging components in the Number and Algebra dimension of the mathematics curriculum.

Foundation: The focus centralizes on modelling groups of 2 to represent a story, count those groups by 2 and arrange a collection of items in groups of 2 and skip count by 2 to get a total. Students will also be able to record a mathematical sentence that represents their groups of 2.

In division, students will share a collection of up to 12 fairly by 1’s or greater, predict how many will be in each group and check to see if correct knowing to try again if not.

Year 1 and 2: For year one students that would typically mean students can make, draw and count a collection by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. They can build arrays (rows and columns) using materials to show these numbers. With regards to division, the curriculum advocates the beginning of sharing up to 10 items equally into groups.

The focus on multiplication at Year 2 encourages the exploration of skip counting - counting by 2’s, 3’s 5’s and 10’s and making the link to forming several groups of objects into equal rows and columns to form an array and recording a matching multiplication statement using the x symbol to means groups of. Students gain experience at understanding the phrase ‘times as many’ - meaning I have two lollies. You have three times as many as me. How many do you have?

The focus on division at this level is to be able to divide a collection of materials into equal groups, where possible.

Year 3 and 4: Students are delving into fractions and decimals. They start out by acknowledging the concept of equal parts is pivotal in developing an understanding of fractions. Students begin by recognising fractions of a shape, a group of objects and a position on a numberline up to 1 whole (Year 3) and 2 wholes (Year 4) involving thirds, fifths, sixths and tenths. Year 4’s begin counting by halves, thirds, quarters, fifths and tenths up to 2 wholes. They begin to read, write, count by and order numbers involving tenths (Year 3) and hundredths (Year 4). Year 4’s encounter mixed numbers, equivalent common fractions and recognising common fractions and their equivalent decimal fraction.

Year 5 and 6: The focus in the Senior area will be on common and decimal fractions after they complete a learning cycle on Multiplication and Division. The tasks involve reading, writing in digits and words, recognising images of, locating on a numberline and counting by common and decimal fractions. This leads to adding and subtracting common fractions of same denominators (Year 5) leading to related denominators (Year 6). This culminates in students being able to compare, order, and solve word problems involving common and decimal fractions.

So there’s some serious learning opportunities ahead. Ask your children what they’ve been learning in maths this week. Get them to show you what they’ve been doing and how they’ve been doing it. Finally, if you have the chance, ask them some similar questions once they’ve shown what they’ve been up to. Remember, it takes a child of average ability up to 100 experiences of the same skill to begin to have that skill as an accessible tool in their maths toolkit.

Sacramental Program – First Eucharist

Registrations for this program are now closed with the Parent Meeting to be held tonight at 7pm at St Joseph’s Church.

Key Dates

An Engaging Curriculum for Students

Louis O’Connor, Curriculum Coordinator

In the Junior years at St. Joseph’s student have been enjoying participating in Japanese lessons twice a Term. This is to engage them in the language prior to more regular learning based around Japanese in the Middle School. During this time student are exposed to the Japanese language through games, songs and books.

Grade 1/2 students playing a Japanese word recognition game.

The Inquiry learning units across the school for Term 3 have been focused around; Science and History. In Week 6 of this Term ‘National Science Week’ takes place across the country. While the Senior School students will have the opportunity to further explore their History focused Inquiry when on camp in Ballarat in Week 9.

In Week 3 the ‘Fizzics Education Country Tour’ will be presenting ‘The Big Science Show’ to each area of the school. This is to give the students exposure and engage them in Science learning. As part of the Grade 1/2 student learning they will visit Logan’s beach and take time to feel the wonder and awe of such an incredibly beautiful water environment.

The Inquiry questions engaging student learning this Term are as followed -

Foundation - How do we use our senses to explore the world around us?
Junior (Grade 1/2) - Why is it important to use water wisely?
Middle School (Grade 3/4) - How can forces be exerted and used?
Senior School (Grade 5/6) - How does Colonial Australia Help us Understand our Nation's Identity?

School Disco

Friday 3 August

Junior School 6:00pm – 7:30pm, Middle/Senior school 7:30pm – 9:30pm

Ticket Sales close 3pm, Thursday 2 August

Ticket sales for the Disco are made via CDFPay (online ordering).

How to have fun at the disco

Please read this to your child/ren

The following rules are also in place at the disco:

• Dancing at the disco should be fun and is encouraged, but no running up and down the hall.
• Be careful of one another – we don’t want people getting hurt.
• The chill out room is again in the drama room, so that if anyone needs to take a breather from the disco they can go and sit down in that area – however it is a quiet area to relax, no dancing or being loud in this room.
• No throwing of food, particularly lollies – please put rubbish in the bins around the hall.
• No lingering in the toilet areas – please use the toilet then go back out into the disco.
• No glow sticks or glow bands – when these break they stain the floor so we do take them off the children, so please do not bring them.
• Reminder, that mums and dads cannot come into the disco unless they are on the volunteer roster so please do not be offended when we ask you to stay out of the disco as this is due to child safety laws.
• Most of all, have a fun and safe night with your friends!

School Disco Poster Competition

Congratulations to everyone who entered the poster competition. We had 133 entries and it was such a tough decision choosing the winners. The standard was so high this year, so well done for all that entered.

Volunteer Roster

Thank you to everyone who has volunteered to help out at the disco. The final roster is attached. If your name is not on the list, you will not be required at the disco as there is a cut off of volunteer numbers in the hall and we always have so many willing to help in the junior section that not all can be accommodated!

Term 3 Pizza Day

Wednesday 8 August, 2018, Orders close 3pm Monday 6 August

Once per term the PSA run a Pizza Day as a ‘’special occasion’’ lunch option and to raise money for the PSA.

Children can choose from either Garlic or Hawaiian pizza (Gluten Free options available) which are ordered via CDFPay (Canteen ordering system) and provided by Pinkie’s Pizza who are one of our major school sponsors.

There are no canteen orders on Pizza Days and children not wanting to order pizza should bring their lunch from home.

Tip: Don’t leave your order to the last minute. Sorry, late orders cannot be accepted.

The Resilience Project

7:00pm, Thursday 23rd August, 2018

Over 150 parents have registered their interest in attending the Resilience Project “Parent Information Night”.

This program is being fully funded by via funds raised by our Parent Association. Feel free to invite aunties, uncles, grandparents and other family members who may be interested.

Please register your interest in attending this FREE parent Information

Father’s Day Breakfast

Young Vinnies – Food Share Fundraiser

Friday 7 September, 2018

The Young Vinnie’s team are working to promote and support the work of Warrnambool and District Food Share. Food share has a Fruit for school initiative which allows all schools in Warrnambool and district to collect a box of fruit for students to access during the school day. At St. Joseph’s many students enjoy and appreciate this when they don’t have fruit to eat at school which can be for a variety of reasons.

Food Share also provides hampers of food for families who may find themselves in crisis. Families at our school have appreciated this support as well.

We understand that many families in the area need support not just our families here at school.

We would like to invite all students at St. Joseph’s to bring along a Gold coin on Friday 7th September, to raise funds to support the work of Food Share. This is in week 8 of term. The Young Vinnies will be promoting this Fundraiser in classrooms as well.