School Newsletter No.6 - 5th June 2024

Message from the Principal

There have been a lot of great things happening at St Joseph’s this term. I draw your attention to the “Term Planner” to note down upcoming events on your family calendar.

We enjoyed seeing so many of you at our Catholic Schools Week (CSW) liturgy and open classrooms during Week 4. It was also lovely to informally meet parents from our Year One cohort for a cuppa and a chat. In addition to this, we saw a huge take up of the invite to our Reconciliation Week liturgy.

During these special weeks we discussed the importance with being in friendship with each other and with Jesus, and of the partnership between home and school. We have such wonderful opportunities as parents and teachers to work together to form young people of faith who will grow into strong and hope filled people contributing to a positive world around them. At school we see this in our student’s positive and kind interactions with each other and with adults, by their demonstration of respect for themselves and for all and by striving to always do their best. Together with the teachers last week, I spoke to the students about our school values and reminded them of the expectations of behaviour, showing pride by wearing our uniform correctly and treating each other with respect and kindness. When home and school share the same messages, our children feel confident and secure and they know we are on the same page.

Thank you to our wonderful school councillors who attended the diocesan CSW liturgy at Sacred Heart Cathedral with Ms James. We are proud to have these articulate and confident young people with us at SJKB, representing our school with pride.

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of visiting St Paul’s Catholic College Booragul and meeting with their Principal Mr Nicholas Wickham. It was valuable time spent. I thank Nick and his team for the opportunity to tour their site and gain a deeper understanding of what our feeder high school and its pathway looks like for our students. Nick and I also met to discuss ways we can strengthen our partnership. I know our students will benefit from having older peers to model and support them particularly in the subject area of PDHPE. We are looking forward to this partnership evolving further.

Yesterday we held our Athletics Carnival. I would particularly like to thank Ms Goodhew and Mrs Fuller for organising this successful day for our students. We were very happy that the sun came out and despite the cool wind our students thoroughly enjoyed their day. A special mention of thanks to the parents who volunteered their time to assist; we a very appreciative of you braving the cold weather and supporting us.

Congratulations to the Briggs family on the arrival of beautiful young Billie, sister of Nate and Noah. We wish you much love and happiness with your new baby to cherish!

With every best wish,

Nikki Norley

Principal

Reconciliation Liturgy

Winter Uniform

All students are to be wearing full winter uniform. We are appreciative of the parents who have contacted teachers to let them know of any special circumstances. We are mindful of the cost of uniforms; we have a terrific clothing pool if you are ever in need please don’t hesitate to contact us. We will work towards reviewing our school uniform policy in the New Year. Thank you for supporting our uniform policy and ensuring your children are in correct pieces including hair ribbons, minimal jewellery (studs/sleepers etc) and leather polishable shoes.

Pupil Free Day

Please note we have a pupil free day booked for Monday 29^th July. Staff will be attending Professional Learning Day as part of our School Improvement Plan. The Professional Learning focus will be on Positive Behaviours 4 Learning (PB4L).

Message from the Assistant Principal

Our school is a Positive Behaviour for Learning School. The PBL framework assists schools to improve social, emotional, behavioural, and academic outcomes for children and young people.

Our PBL focus for this week is ‘Keep our Environment clean and tidy’.

Rock and Water

I am delighted to share the incredible progress we are seeing with our Rock and Water program. This initiative has profoundly impacted our school community, fostering resilience, emotional intelligence, and respectful relationships among our students.

The Rock and Water program is a dynamic approach to helping students develop self-awareness, self-confidence, and social competency. Through physical exercises, reflection, and discussion, students learn to balance 'rock' qualities (such as firmness and determination) with 'water' qualities (such as flexibility and communication).

Junior: I can respond to things I don’t like. I have to use flaming eyes, control my breathing and have a strong tone of voice. I need to stand strong. It takes more of a man to walk away then to fight.  

Juliana: I have learned how to say stop and protect myself. Rock and Water is so good.

Armani: I like it when we get to box with the punching bags. I have to listen to Mrs Albury’s instructions so I can learn stand up for myself in a strong and confident way.

Alexander: Rock and Water is so fun. We get to play Chinese boxing and tug of war. I must stand strong and use rock attitude.

Tell Them From Me

The TTFM^®®® survey window for our school has now reached halfway and is open until:

Friday 14 June 2024 4.30 pm (AEST)

If you haven’t completed the survey and would like to, please visit the link below.

Semester 1 Student Reports and Parent Interviews

Teachers have been involved in writing individual mid-year student reports that will be accessed via compass in week 9. Teachers put in an enormous amount of effort to provide accurate and meaningful student reports. They have continued to assess and evaluate student progress throughout the year, to provide parents with the most accurate account of student abilities.

Each student’s report in stage 1- 3 will continue to have an “A-E” rating scale to evaluate a child’s achievement against the state-wide standards, not against other students in your child’s class.

ES1 have a working above, at or below scale grade. For more information, regarding reports please visit:

A-E Grading Scale:

A: Outstanding achievement

B: High achievement

C: Sound achievement

D: Basic achievement

E: Limited achievement

The opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher to discuss your child’s report will be provided in week 10.

These will be booked online through Compass and will be made available shortly.

Message from the REC

News from the Leaders: Catholic Schools Week Liturgy at Sacred Heart Cathedral

On the 17^th of May this year, the School Captains (Kobe Jones, Matilda Burrup, Phoenix Davison and Lilly Kay) attended the Catholic Schools Week liturgy, called 'Follow Me'. Singer, Gen Bryant sang songs with the Aspire students and Teachers. There were also some students, who did a dance for 'Response to the Word of God'. Bishop Michael taught us the meaning of dignity, and how we can use ours to help others. We also wrote a commitment of how we would follow Jesus’ teachings.

By Lilly Kay

Mini Vinnies Winter Appeal

Thank you to every who donated to our Winter Appeal, and Stage Three for hosting a yummy cake stall!

This year, Vinnies NSW Winter Appeal focuses on the Working Homeless, an emerging group of people who are experiencing housing hardship and disadvantage despite being in employment.

The donations of food we have gathered in our classrooms today, and the money we have raised from the cake stall at lunch and from the colour-a-donations activity will all go to St Vincent de Paul. Vinnies NSW supports tens of thousands of individuals and families each year who are experiencing financial and housing insecurity.

Thank you to our Mini Vinnies for leading us in the Liturgy today. In attendance was, Steve Barnett from Vinnies Association, who thanked students for their donations and spoke about how it would help families struggling this winter.

Students from Stage 2 will continue to run the colour-a-donations colouring club and lunch times on Tuesdays and Thursday for the rest of June. Students are encouraged to bring 20 cents to participate, and pictures will be hung up in the hall.

Message from the Primary Coordinator

VCOP - Writing at SJKB

Our School Improvement Goal for 2024 is to 'Improve student outcomes in Reading and Writing through differentiated teaching practices'. To work toward acheiveing this goal, all teachers at SJKB attended Professional Learning about VCOP at the start of this term. VCOP stands for Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation - these form the keys to high-quality student writing. Students are encouraged to use VCOP strategies to ‘level-up’ (improve) their writing. 

In all classrooms at SJKB you will see a VCOP wall. This wall is filled with ideas from student’s own writing and talk, and the students can use the ideas from this wall to improve their writing. The ideas on the wall change as the focus text forms in classrooms change, and as the students’ writing skills improve.

Next term, we will have our first Big Write for 2024, and more information will come through to families as this time approaches. The Big Write (or Big Talk for Kindy) is held in all classrooms in the school and is a celebration of student learning and achievement. Students use the Big Write to showcase their VCOP skills.

See below some of our VCOP walls in our classrooms.

VCOP Walls

Class News

5/6 Blue

5/6 Blue has been really challenging ourselves in our learning this term. Here are a few of the things we have been learning: 

Reading

For reading we are learning about books having more than one genre.

We are also reading  Dry to Dry - the Seasons of Kakadu. We are reading informative books so that we can learn how informative books are set out and other things we need to know to create our own informative book/text. 

Writing

In writing we are learning about informative texts, and we are also writing our own. We are also learning how to summarise stories from Behind the News by identifying the key points in each story. Everyone learnt about portmanteaus from Mrs. Hawthorne. A portmanteau is created when we take parts of two different words and put them together to create one. We are also learning about similes, metaphors and alliteration. 

Mathematics

During our Mathematics lessons, we are learning about multiplication and division algorithms and how to use them efficiently. We are learning about decimals and how to divide and multiply them by 10, 100, 1000 and so on. We are also doing number talks in class to warm up for our actual challenges like word problems and other problems.

History

In History, we are learning about Canberra and Federation to prepare us for our Canberra trip later this term. Everyone is learning about the different levels of government and what each level of government is responsible for. We were all surprised that the federal government controls postage!

Science

During our Science lessons, we are learning about tsunamis, tectonic plates, floods, droughts and volcanos. We are learning that tectonic plates can cause tsunamis and earthquakes. Tectonic plates can move at any point in time, and you wouldn’t even know about it until after it happens. 

Religion

In religion we are learning about Jesus' journey. We are also learning what prayer is and how to write a prayer. Every morning, we share a student's prayer picked by a teacher. We have written some GREAT prayers.

KELL YORK

STAGE 3 TEACHER

Diverse Learning Team News

Lunch club is a space where all children are welcome to come and play in a quiet space. The children enjoy lots of activities including Lego, puzzles and drawing.

Community Base Resources to Support Families

Northcott is a community-based service that supports families may need access to information, direct provision of early intervention strategies, family-based education and parenting support and linkages to community and mainstream services. If it is identified that a child would be better supported through an individual funded National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) plan, we can assist families through the access process.

CALM is a government program that provides purposeful programs and collaborative services to support families that need to link into services to support them.

Gifted Education News

Minecraft Education Edition Primary Schools Challenge

As you may aware, Audrey, Zac, Harry and Kobe from Stage 3 have been working on their entry in the Minecraft Education Edition Schools Challenge Competition for quite some time. In short, they had to design and build a community that matched a detailed set of criteria.

Our SJKB Minecraft  Project has now been submitted to the Australian eSports League (AEL) for judging. We look forward to receiving feedback on our project. Watch our three minute video overview of our submission here:

John Hession

Aboriginal Education Teacher / Stage 2 Teacher / Gifted Education Mentor

02 4959 1355  

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

140 Wangi Road Kilaben Bay 2283

Sport News

Athletics Carnival 2024

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School Fees Information

The Fee Statements are sent home by Head Office monthly.

It is important to get your payments established early in the year, so we suggest you organise your automated payments with your Bank, with whatever fee frequency you have nominated. Your Bpay details can be seen on your statement and remain the same as last year.

If you would like help calculating amounts to pay on a weekly/fortnightly/monthly basis please phone the school office and we can provide you with a Fee Calculator Report.

The payment of school fees is crucial to our ability to effectively provide quality education for our students.

To assist families with limited resources, discounted tuition fees are provided to Health Care and Pension card holders. Please contact the school office if you have not already made this arrangement..

Additionally, any family experiencing financial difficulty is most welcome to contact Mrs Norley for a confidential discussion.

Linda Garreffa
Administration Officer

P & F News

Volunteering at SJKB

We regularly need volunteers for various roles within our school. This may include reading in the classroom, helping in the canteen or supporting teachers on excursions. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer at our school, please follow the instructions on the link below.

https://www.mn.catholic.org.au/people/volunteer

Once you have been cleared by the CSO, you will need to come into school for a one off site specific induction (approx. 40mins).

If you have been a volunteer in the past and your WWCC has expired, you can renew it for free at Service NSW.

Our planned site induction dates for Term 2 are below, please email Courtney Porter with your attendance or if you would like any additional information. There will be additional inductions dates throughout the year.

Site specific Induction date for TERM 2:

Friday 28^th June at 3.30pm

courtney.porter@mn.catholic.edu.au

PLUS

The PLUS Second hand clothing shop runs on Monday and Friday mornings from 8.20am to 8.50am during school terms. 

We have wide selection of secondhand uniforms available all uniform items are $5 and jackets are available for $10. All payments can be made via QKR! after your order has been received, we will attach the amount owing to the order.  

Alternatively you can order online and we will send your order home with your child via the link/QK code above. 

Hats can also be ordered via our system please specify new or used in the comments.

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR CHILD'S NAME AND CLASS in the message as our volunteers do not have access to the different family surnames to make connections to students - therefore use your child's name first, then your name, especially if different surname.  Payment is via the Qkr! app. 

Thank you!

THE PLUS TEAM

Canteen News – Including Volunteer Roster

We continue to encourage you to establish a routine and reminders to ensure your child has recess and lunch food (either packed at home or ordered from the canteen using Qkr if Wed - Fri).
We will continue to contact parents if food has not been supplied. Uncertainty with food creates anxiety for your child on the day.
Qkr cut off times have been changed this term, please ensure Qkr orders are placed before 8.00 am each day.

I am seeking new volunteers to help in the canteen.  We ask any new or current Parents or Grandparents if they could offer a couple of hours once or twice a term in the canteen.

If you would like to volunteer please call or email admin@kilabenbay.catholic.edu.au

Term Planner

Good For Kids

Guitar Lessons

From the Parish

Dear Parish Family,

St Vincent De Paul society are running as part of their winter appeal a blanket or doona drive. Any spare blankets gratefully received can be left at the back of the churches in the marked tubs.

CatholicCare still need any dry goods food items. They have a new person in their office so the collections will resume more efficiently. The food items need to be in date and can include tea, coffee, long life milk, cans, pasta and other items that have a longer life.

Kind Regards, 

MARYANNE BARRY 

Parish Secretary 

Boolaroo, Warners Bay & Booragul Parishes

A: 7 Milson Street Charlestown NSW 2290

P: PO Box 14 Boolaroo NSW 2284 
T: (02) 4947 3301     

W: www.boolaroocatholicchurch.com

Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9.00AM to 3.00PM

Community Notices