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

Life at school

This week brings into focus three important areas of our school life; nurturing faith formation, studying a language and celebrating reading, learning and books.

 Fr. John Fitzgerald, Fr Bill van de Camp and Fr. John Corrigan will visit Tuesday in support of our students completing the optional Senior Reconciliation Program. The liturgy has been filmed for our Year 6 students to engage with in classrooms after completing their home program over the COVID-19 lockdown time. Our supporting parish priests will visit on Tuesday to hear the individual student confession. The reception of reconciliation will be held in the open shared area of the Senior School building. This open area is safe, very visible, as well as reflective to contemplate.

This week we will also involve staff and students in some fun Japanese lessons. Next week is Book Week which will also be supported by library activity and a dress up class experience. The key focus of these support programs is to continue to enthuse students with a love of reading, learning and language learning.

Three Senior School students (Rorie, William and Chloe) started our Japanese Week this morning sharing the following Japanese messages with classrooms:

Mina-san, ohayo gozaimas (Good Morning, everyone!)

Ogenki deska? (How are you?)

Kyou wa, getsuyoh-bi des. (Today is Monday)

Nihongo no activity o tanoshimi mashoh (Let’s enjoy our Japaneses activities)

School Governance

Diocese Of Ballarat Catholic Education Limited (DOBCEL)

Last Friday Fr. John Fitzgerald signed the official ‘School Transfer Agreement’ for our Parish Schools of St Joseph’s and St Patrick’s (Port Fairy and Koroit). The agreement is the transfer of governance from the Parish Priest to DOBCEL, effective 1st January 2021. The transfer is at a governance level (policy, employment, system transparency and accountability) and doesn’t impact the day to day running of the school; this work will continue to be delegated to the School Principal. All Catholic Primary Schools in the Ballarat Diocese have, and or will continue transitioning to this new arrangement over the coming months; including our other local Network Warrnambool Catholic schools. Fr. John Fitzgerald (Parish Priest, St. Joseph’s Parish).

School Closure Day

This Friday St. Joseph’s will have a ‘Student Free Day’ to focus on 2020/2021 planning, student assessment and individual report writing. There is no school for students while staff complete these tasks either on-site or off-site. I once again thank everyone for your support with this arrangement.

School Raffle

Supporting those who support our community

Our PSA Association and School Advisory Council have continued to meet regularly this year despite the COVID situation; this has been achieved via very productive virtual ‘zoom’ meetings. Attendance, conversation and decision making has been exceptional. I thank our parent members for this continued support. Our next meeting is a planning session and will be held virtually on Tuesday 17th November starting at 7:30 pm. All welcome, access is via zoom (see details in this newsletter).

 With the above in mind our parent association have worked on two additional programs; the introduction of a sports/physical education uniform addition which will be in place for 2021. As well the group has continued our pizza days and are keen to support school fundraising. Given the loss of this year’s Annual Fair our PSA have established a new idea leading into Christmas. Funds raised will support our canteen, school grounds and student programs. The idea behind the raffle has been to support local businesses that have supported our school and the broader community. It is a small way our school can direct financial support to the many local businesses, authorities and associations finding it tough during the pandemic shutdown.

Details are in this newsletter, first prize will be a TM6 Thermomix supplied locally including in-house demonstrations. Second prize ($300) and third prize ($200) are with a school sponsor. The winner of these prizes can choose which sponsor their voucher will be based with. Tickets arrive home soon, along with the sponsor booklet with the choices for 2nd and 3rd prizes. The raffle books only contain 3 tickets of a value of $10 each; this is matched to what the average spend for families is at our Fair. First prize is designed to attract interest from beyond our school. Extra books will be available as needed. Have a great week everyone!

Regards,