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- PRINCIPAL'S MESSAGE
- DEPUTY PRINCIPAL
- ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL PRIMARY
- ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL FORMATION & IDENTITY
- SchoolTV
- TERM 2 SCHOOL FEES
- YEAR 12 LEADERSHIP CAMP
- NEWS FROM THE YEAR 2 CLASSROOM
- YEAR 11 PEER SKILLS
- PREP STUDENTS PAMPER THEIR MOTHERS FOR MOTHERS DAY
- CHESS CLUB
- STITCH CRAFT SUCCESS AT STANTHORPE SHOW
- CORWIN PRESENTATION
- ART COMPETITION TIME
- SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD'S EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
- TRIVIA NIGHT -CANCELLED
- SCHOOL PHOTOS - UPDATE
- TUCKSHOP - WE NEED YOU !
- SCHOOL TRAVEL REBATE
- SPORT
- UPCOMING EVENTS
At every mass and liturgy we sing a special song, All are Welcome (All belong), written by American Catholic singer, songwriter, catechist, storyteller, humourist and evangelizer, Jesse Manibusan. The school was very lucky to host Jesse a few years ago for a workshop with students from around the Toowoomba Diocese. He made a lasting impression on all who heard him speak and sing. Jesse shares from his heart the love of Christ and his key message is that young people are the Church (not the buildings) and all are welcome; it's important to be a community of faith where everybody belongs.
All are welcome in this place.
Behold love’s amazing grace.
All are welcome! All are welcome!
Bring your hopes,
Bring your dreams.
Mercy flows and Love redeems!
All are welcome! All belong!
The full song, performed by Jesse can be heard at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3jeK-QdOXg
This song is very special to us because, at St Joseph’s School all are welcome and, importantly, all belong. Not matter where you are in your faith journey, you are welcome and you belong here.
We believe that all are made in the image and likeness of God.
Being created in the image and likeness of God accords everyone an equal and inherent dignight (human dignity); gives everyone unlimited potential; and opens to everyone the promise of fullness of life, a meaningful and fulfilling life.
In our "place" we apply our Mercy charism (from the teaching and practice of Catherine McAuley) to provide an opportunity for every student at St Joseph's School to say:
"I belong. I am valued. I will be successful here."
God Bless
On May 10, we saw students across Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 commence online NAPLAN testing. Students worked incredibly well in completing four tests across the week focusing on writing, reading, language conventions and numeracy. The data gathered through these tests will provide a valuable tool for teachers to analyse areas of strength and weakness for each individual student and allow us, as teachers, to target specific concepts and capabilities in the teaching and learning that occurs in classrooms. Well done to all the students for your great efforts in the NAPLAN tests.
Thank you to all the parents and students who attended the Secondary Parent Teacher consultations in Week 4. Parent Teacher Consultations are an important opportunity for parents, staff and students to have collaborative conversations to reflect on the students’ academic performance in Term 1 and refine future directions to build upon this success, as well as seek improvement. If you were unable to attend on the night, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teachers to seek feedback on the academic progress.
Live Jesus in our hearts
Matthew Brown
Deputy Principal
ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL PRIMARY
Learning should make you think .... hard!
The more you think, the more you will remember!
These were two of the key messages from a meeting that Johanna Campbell, Anna Jones, Lisa McPherson and I attended last Friday. The presenter was James Nottingham who created the concept of the Learning Pit which you may be familiar with as a result of conversations with your children. Many classrooms have these on display and we talk about children entering the pit when they are challenged by their learning. During the day we were encouraged, as teachers, to look for opportunities to take students out of their comfort zones to a place of productive struggle.
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with a learner in Year 6 who had just completed a PROBE reading comprehension assessment. These are completed twice a year so that we can monitor progress and determine the needs of each student moving forward. The conversation was peppered with giggles and sheer delight as the reality of their progress since October last year dawned on them. This is just one example of the many interactions I have during a week with students around their learning. To hear Prep students talk of ‘being on fire’ and to work with Year 4/5 students who have ‘aha moments’ when problem solving in Maths are also special times. Our teachers are seeing and hearing these things on a daily basis. It is the small steps that our learners are making each day that matter. I hope that you have had the opportunity to talk with your child’s teacher in recent weeks about the progress your child is making and how we can work in partnership to continue this development. I also encourage you to keep asking your child questions such as:
- what did you learn today?
- how were you a learner today?
- how can you be a better learner tomorrow?
- what was the best thing about school today?
Finally, well done to the students of Years 3 and 5 who have sat the NAPLAN tests this week. They have approached them with confidence and have done their best. No-one can ask any more of them. We have until the end of next week to catch up any students who have missed tests.
With God’s blessings
Sarah Yates
Assistant to the Principal Primary
ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL FORMATION & IDENTITY
Praying with Our Children
Prayer is central to Christian life and one of the chief means by which Christians express their faith. Providing invitation and opportunities for children to witness and experience prayer allows children to find God in the ordinariness of life. It is a means by which children can enter into personal conversation with God and be transformed beyond themselves to a mission of mercy, justice and love.
Explore the following ideas for praying in the everyday.....
God's blessings
Megan Mahoney
Assistant to the Principal Formation & Identity
Screen Time
As a result of the global pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the amount of time people spend on screen-based devices. Families are transitioning back to pre-COVID routines but many are still struggling to re-establish the boundaries and rules around screen use. Some continue to deal with digital conflict and tech-tantrums on a daily basis. The latest research found that 77% of teenagers spend more than five hours on screens per day, but it is important to note that not all screen time is considered equal.
Parents play a crucial role in modelling a positive and healthy approach to using screens and assisting children to navigate the content they watch. It is better to model and mentor screen use, rather than monitor it. Children tend to do more of what they see us do, and less of what we tell them to do. However, it is still important to outline the risks and highlight the benefits of screen use to ensure you keep a balanced attitude. Encourage discussions around the issues that people experience in monitoring their screen time and be honest about your own difficulties.
Parents need to remain firm in their approach to managing screen time. Excessive screen time can be detrimental to a child’s overall wellbeing. Ensuring the correct privacy settings are in place is vital to prevent children from being inadvertently exposed to inappropriate content or online predators. Parents need to also be mindful of the potential impact screen time can have on a child’s social, emotional, educational, behavioural, and even physical domains.
In this edition of SchoolTV, care-givers will be provided with a range of guidelines and strategies to help manage screen time at home. We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this month’s edition, and we always welcome your feedback.
If you do have any concerns about the wellbeing of your child, please contact the school for further information or seek medical or professional help.
Here is the link to this month's edition : https://stjosephs.qld.schooltv.me/newsletter/managing-screen-time
Term 2 school fees have now been emailed to all families. Please contact the School's Bursar, Mrs Megan Hines on 4681 5903 or email Megan.Hines@twb.catholic.edu.au if you are yet to receive your statement.
If a concession is required, please contact the school on 4681 5900 to make an appointment to meet with Mr Andrew Kendall.
Payments can be made at the School Office or by direct deposit. Please ensure you supply your surname and your code staring with STA in the reference tab when paying.
The School's bank details are as follows:
Account Name : St Joseph's School
Branch : 064-431 (Commonwealth, Stanthorpe)
Account No : 1018-4376
Reference : Surname STA____
Please note that all extra curricular activities which students participate in, MUST be paid for in full prior to the event unless arrangements have been made with the School's Bursur, Mrs Megan Hines.
As part of their personal development programme, Year 12 students recently went to Leadership Camp from Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 May.
Held at Emu Gully in Helidon, students particiapted in a number of activities over two days, designed to educate leadership through the ANZAC values of courage, self-sacrifice, perseverance and mateship.
Students also participated in a 'hands on' history lesson and were involved in a number of fun games.
NEWS FROM THE YEAR 2 CLASSROOM
Year 2 students have been learning about mixtures, solutions and ingredients.
Lots of interesting discussion about the science, the vocabulary and examples and non examples of different items.
Since last newsletter, our Year 11 students have participated in a UnitingCare/Lifeline 2-day Peer Skills Workshop facilitated by our Pastoral Care Team, Mr Matthew Brown, Mr Jacob Steele, Mrs Karen Petrie and our school counsellor, Mrs Rachel Leslie.
The workshop aimed to provide our students with the confidence and skills they need to respond in the best possible way when a friend turns to them with a concern and/or problem.
Peer Skills is based on research that suggests that while many young people share their problems with their parents, often they turn first to their peers and friends. Research supports the idea that young people view their peers as an approachable and credible source of support, and that young people can successfully help each other. Help seeking and help giving skills are also significantly increased through training.
The recently conducted Peer Skills Workshop has trained students in support skills, communication and problem-solving skills and provided them with information about helping roles within the school and services in the wider community.
The students who nominate to become informal peer supports will be led by Mrs Leslie with regular supervision check-ins. We look forward to the students’ initiatives in building on our positive and supportive school environment.
Thanks go to Uniting Care/Lifeline for the funding of this program.
PREP STUDENTS PAMPER THEIR MOTHERS FOR MOTHERS DAY
On Friday 6th May, Prep students treated their mum’s to the ‘Mother’s Day Pampering Afternoon for some spoiling, relaxing and pampering for Mother’s Day!
The students set up a variety of stations for their loved one to be spoilt for the afternoon. Parents were treated to having their nails painted, their hands massaged with lovely scented hand creams, head and back massages, were read stories by their child, colouring in, puzzles and the famous photo booth!
All the mums, grandmothers, aunts and dads were pampered for almost an hour before they were served afternoon tea with some delicious treats.
The students were very excited to pamper their loved one and there were lots of laughs, cuddles and massaging done throughout the afternoon.
A very enjoyable, relaxed afternoon was had by all and we are sure that all the visitors enjoyed their pampering and left relaxed and feeling very spoilt from the afternoon’s session!
Each Thursday a group of like-minded individuals from Years 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9 meet to play Chess. The main point to the Chess Club is to challenge each other to become better strategists and thinkers. The range of players is from a couple of complete novices who are learning the basic moves, those developing knowledge and skills around openings and defences to one student who has studied under the tutelage of a Grand Master! (Needless to say, he hasn’t been defeated for three years).
There are also some limited opportunities to compete in tournaments over the course of the school year. The first of these will take place at Assumption College Warwick on Friday the 20th of May, when the students will compete with students from across the Darling Downs. Later in the year, the Primary students have the chance to compete as a team in the Granite Belt Chess Challenge.
What do you like about Chess Club?
Greta – "I love learning a new game."
Hannah – "I love learning new skills."
Portia – "I like the taste of victory!"
Jeremy - "I love strategic games and I would like to beat Mr Fleming again."
Paddy - "You can play lots of different with different strategies."
Jye – "You can learn to play a better game of chess."
STITCH CRAFT SUCCESS AT STANTHORPE SHOW
Congratulations to all students from Years Four, Five and Six who entered the Stitch Craft Section of the Stanthorpe Show.
Our judges from Toowoomba were amazed at the number of youth entries we had, and at the commitment of all students. I hope all students enjoyed learning new skills and will continue working to improve these skills. I’ll look forward to seeing your progress and entries in future Stanthorpe Shows.
Well done everyone.
Wendy Hine
Stitich Craft Steward
A special mention and thankyou to Mrs Mary McLucas who initiated this project as part of Visual Arts learning.
Congratulations to Year 4 student, Ivy Hill on receiving 2nd place for her stitich craft and to Year 5 student, Amity Buscher who received the Overall Prize for all grades.
Our Year 7 students also proudly displayed and entered their stitch craft from 2021 (Year 6). Congratulations to Luca Pompetti on receving 3rd prize and to Charlotte Pompetti on receiving 2nd prize.
On two occasions now, Amanda, Lisa and I have had the privilege of sharing some of our work in an online forum created by Corwin.
We have shared the work around collaboration between learners to enhance learning, including the reasons for embarking on this area, the strategies used and the results seen. We were keen to be very authentic within our presentation and so we have shared the struggles as well as the successes and there were many of both.
Interestingly, there were many commonalities between the stories shared by Amanda and Lisa despite the fact that they were talking about different cohorts of students which emphasises that fact that Visible Learning is about good pedagogy, regardless of the age of the learners. Student voice was a significant part of the presentations and this is probably one of the biggest gains we have seen in the last four years of our VL journey.
Another point that we were keen to emphasise is the improvement we have also seen around staff collaboration and this has benefitted not only us but the learners also.
The recent presentation we did was recorded for use by Corwin and by the time you read this, the video will have been shared with 1500 schools in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region.
Mrs Sarah Yates
Assistant Primary Principal
- All year levels are welcome to enter
- One artwork per person
- Art works may be painted, drawn, collage work, sculpture or photographic work
- 100cm x 60cm maximum
# Need Help ?
# Ideas ?
# Space to make your artwork ?
See Miss Mason
--ooOoo--
SUPPORTING YOUR CHILD'S EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Everyday our children face difficult or uncomfortable situations. One of our goals as parents and educators is to help children to navigate these moments with appropriate emotional regulation.
A strategy that can be used at home, is to talk to your child about negative thoughts, and how these can influence our emotions. In turn, our thoughts and emotions can influence the behaviours we then engage with.
Helping our children to identify coping thoughts, or growth mindset thinking then results in well-regulated emotions, and the types of behaviours that we would like our children to undertake when faced with a difficult moment.
Discussions around emotional regulation are best done with our children when they are facing small adversities. This way they can practice their thinking, and build up their ‘thinking muscles’ and the ability to switch to coping thoughts instead. That way, when they face a really challenging time, they are more likely to automatically move to a coping thought, rather than a negative one.
We are having a photo catch up day on Monday 6 June.
If your child was absent on School Day earlier this year, and you would like to avail of the opportunity to have their individual photo, or a family photo taken, please contact Academy Photography direct on 1800 816 224.
The catch up day is only for individual and family photos and will not be for class photos.
The Primary and Secondary tuckshops are provided as a service to assist students and their families. In order to provide this service, we employ Sarah Fleming as our Tuckshop Convener. The profits raised from the tuckshop cover Sarah's salary.
As well as Sarah, the school relies on families volunteering their time to assist on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's. This allows us to provide the service at an affordable price for families. Many thanks to those who have helped out and have volunteered for future dates.
However, at this stage, we do not have enough volunteers. If you are able to spare some time to do one or two days, it would be appreciated.
Please contact Sarah Fleming on Sarah.Fleming@twb.catholic.edu.au or 0498 663 609 if you can help.
Student travel rebate applications are now for Semester 1. Visit SchoolTransport.com.au to check if you are eligable.
Futsal
Week 2 of this Term, St Joseph’s sent a number of Futsal teams in both boys and girls divisions to Toowoomba for the annual Southwest Queensland championships.
Both boys and girls teams competed favourably against some high-quality schools from Toowoomba City and more than held their own claiming a few victories along the way.
At the completion of the Championships, teams were selected to represent Southwest Queensland at the Queensland Futsal titles at Nissan Arena in Brisbane later in the year.
A huge congratulations to the students who were successful in being named in the south west teams in their respective age groups.
13 Year Boys | Kael Einam |
14 Year Girls | India St John |
15 Year Girls | Mia Everson |
15 Year Boys | Nichols Jr Gallego |
Luke Webb | |
19 Year Boys | Coen Taylor |
We wish all the students the best in their future endeavours on the futsal court.
The Granite Belt Cross country was held at Severnlea State School on Thursday 5th May. On a wet day and a muddy track, we had 29 students attend with many of these students qualifying for the Darling Downs trials to be held in Toowoomba on Tuesday 17th May.
The following students placed in the top five and have qualified:
Age Group | Name | Place |
10 Year Girls | Ella Morello | 4th |
Imogen Staley | 5th | |
10 Year Boys | Ned Robinson | 2nd |
11 Year Girls | Georgia Petrie | 1st |
Hannah Petrie | 2nd | |
11 Year Boys | Will Favaro | 2nd |
Lyndon Morello | 3rd | |
Aiden McCosker | 5th | |
12 Year Girls | Margaret O'Dea | 1st |
Faith Lancaster | 3rd | |
12 Year Boys | Ted Bonner | 1st |
Thomas Telfer | 2nd | |
Isaac Brown | 4th |
Monique Barker placed 5th in the 9 yrs Girls however 9 year old’s do not progress to the Darling Downs level.
Congratulations to all students on your outstanding achievements.
The boys got off to an excellent start having a win in their first match of the day. Unfortunately two defeats in the next two matches after some back-and-forth play saw the boys eliminated, not making it to the next stage of the knockout competition.
However, with a very young squad who have another few years of competing at the Under 15 level, the future looks bright for junior boys football at St Joseph’s.
Well done to all students who participated !
Rugby League
Congratulations to Ted Bonner, Jason Haynes, Liam McPherson and Lachlan Doyle who participated in the Darling Downs rugby league trials a few weeks ago. Mr Fleming reported that they all played well.
Granite Belt Soccer
Congratulations to the following students who will competed in the Darling Downs Football (Soccer) Trials on Monday 9th May 2022 : Digby Hennessy, Will Favaro, Lyndon Morello, Jye Marino, Isaak Brown, Kobe Shatte and Sasha Kendall.
Well done also to Kayleb spiller who participated in the Granite Belt Trials.
Congratulations to Alex Stefanon who was selected as shadow player for the Darling Downs softball teams.
12-13 May | Life Education Van Visit |
12 May | Ascension of the Lord |
13 May | Do It For Dolly Day |
14 May | P & F Trivia Night |
16-20 May | National Careers Week |
17 May | Darling Downs Cross Country |
19 May | Broncos Cup - Round 1 |
22 May | Vicki Wilson Netball Cup |
24 May - 3 June | Eisteddfod |
25 May | National Simultaneous StoryTime 11am |
Stanthorpe turns 150 this year, and to celebrate, an exciting calendar of events is happening!
Upcoming events include:
# Heritage Market Day at Stanthorpe Railway Station – 14 May
# From Tin to Town : A Living History of Stanthorpe at the Stanthorpe Little Theatre – 15 May (Council’s Signature S150 event)
# Tin Experience at the Amiens Legacy Centre – 21 May
# Italian Community Celebrations – 4-5 June
# Granite Belt Art and Craft Trail (@GBART) – 28-30 October
See attached flyers for several of the abovementioned events and for more information, or to submit your event for the official S150 event calendar, visit ? https://southerndownsandgranitebelt.com.au/stanthorpe150/.