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