St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Wandal Newsletter

Generosity of Sprit

I belong to the Emu Park Art Society, a small cooperative of artists who run a gallery in the township.  How do we survive? By working together and manning the Gallery ourselves.  Also, we offer workshops on our various skills to the wider public at relatively low cost.  Currently, we rent the premises from the family of the founder for a very low rent.  They have been generous but now we have to move on.  The local Council is building a new Gallery, funded by the Queensland Government - which really means the people of Queensland.  If you asked a hard-headed business person to rate the chances of our society surviving, they would put them at close to zero.  But we have, for many years.  How?  By pooling our gifts and talents.  We survive, indeed flourish because we share. 

And this is what we are made for.  In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about life within God – life between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  None of them ‘possess’ anything for themselves. Rather, all they have, they share.  One could say that the essence of God is to give in love.  We have an understanding of this because we know that is how good families operate, even if we sometimes fall short of the ideal. We also see it when school communities rally around families in need.  

In this Sunday’s Gospel, the word ‘mine’ is repeatedly used- not as a way of saying ‘I hold this for myself’ but rather as, ‘I am a conduit for passing this on.’ We also appreciate what a person with a generous spirit is like: open, vibrant and a sense of freedom.  We want to be like that.  In this coming week, think of one gift or talent you have and work out a way to give it away, in joy and generosity.

Loving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, your life is one of giving in love.  In this coming week, may we reflect your life and love in our generosity to each other.  We aks this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

Thank you to the many families who joined us to celebrate our Youth Mass at St Joseph’s Cathedral on Sunday morning. I was sorry to have missed such a lovely Eucharistic Celebration and heard our children did a superb job participating in the Mass.

My sincere thanks to both Mrs Starr and Mrs Gawne for deputising in my absence over the last few days whilst I have been attending professional development. Today, I spoke at CHRISTOS, a leadership development program run by the Catholic Education Office about what being a leader in a Catholic school in modern times is like. I feel very inspired to work with such dedicated and passionate educators.

Enjoy your Show Holiday tomorrow. On Friday, we will welcome Mr Mike Kelso, Assistant Director: Schools Rockhampton region to St Joseph's Wandal. I look forward to catching up with Mike and sharing with him all of the wonderful teaching and learning that is occurring in our classrooms.

Longratulations to our Year 4 Instrumental Music students and their Years 5 and 6 mentors. These children participated in a two-day band camp at The Cathedral College this week, which culminated in a debut performance last night. Our Year 4 students have made some impressive progress in the short time they have been learning their instruments! We thank the music staff of The Cathedral College for helping to provide this wonderful opportunity for our students.

Our Instrumental Musicians will perform for us, during morning assembly on Thursday 20 June. All are welcome.

The draw for the second week of Season B Sport can be found by clicking on this link.

Phone calls will not be permitted for students who have forgotten their uniforms or equipment (including water bottles and school hats) and instead, these students will remain at school to work. We love to see our SJW parents and grandparents at the games to support our students.

Year 6 Camp – Our camp is now 9 weeks away. Many of our families have started to make instalments towards the cost of this camp. If you wish to set up a direct debit, or a payment plan for the cost of this camp, please see the office staff at your earliest convenience. This amount has been invoiced separately to your school fees.

Semester One Report Cards will be available via Parent Lounge on Wednesday  of Week 10 (Wednesday 26 June). It is the responsibility of all parents to ensure that you have access (including your parent code and password) to Parent Lounge before this time. As always, school computers are available for parent use upon request. Paper copies of Report Cards will not be distributed. 

It would be appreciated if any outstanding accounts could be finalised before the end of the term. If your payment commitment cannot be met, please make an appointment to see me.

Stewardship – At the recent Diocesan Assembly, “Stewardship of time, talent and treasure” was mentioned several times.  If you would like to know more about this, you are invited to hear Joe McCorley talk about it and some possibilities for our parishes.   Please click on the link for further details. 

A reminder that the next workshops in preparation for First Eucharist will be held at the Kevin Castles Centre.

Tuesday 11 or Wednesday 12 June 5.30 - 7pm and

Tuesday 18 or Wednesday 19 June from 5.30 - 7pm.

A reminder that Children’s Liturgy is held most Sundays at St Joseph’s Cathedral at 9.30am during the school term.   Please click on the link to access Mass times.

Students in Years 3 to 6 will be travelling to the Pilbeam Theatre on Tuesday 18 June to see 'Billionaire Boy', based on the novel by David Walliams. 

Twelve year old Joe has everything a boy could ever want, from a golden underwater Ferrari to his very own cinema. Joe and his Dad have more money than you could imagine, but what Joe really needs is a friend.  Joe is about to learn that money might buy you a lot in Raj’s shop, but it can’t buy you everything.

This has been included on school fees.

I have been truly fortunate to have been able to attend four days of amazing professional learning, first at EduTECH and then at the Marzano New Art and Science of Teaching Workshop.  There were so many amazing things at both of these conferences, but an absolute highlight for me was listening to the wonderful insights of Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke about the importance of creativity in schools.  He has been an absolute inspiration for years!  Sir Ken argued that imagination and innovation are crucial for our students and that our schools need to be more diverse and creative.  We need to create classrooms that are places where everyone feels inspired to give of their best. Schools should be more balanced – the Arts, Humanities and physical education should be just as privileged as English and mathematics.  Creativity and critical thinking are vital for all of our learners – posing and solving problems, imagining possibilities and designing futures is what is all about.

Congratulations to our Award Winners. Follow this link for details 

Please follow this link for term dates.

The July Vacation Care break is approaching quickly and OSHC staff are all very excited! Our July Vacation Care booking forms are due back to the service by Friday 21st of June (2019) to avoid a casual booking fee being applied. Please hand these forms to either OSHC staff or to the school office. Alternatively you may prefer to email this form through to us, if so, to ensure we receive your emailed booking form and to secure a place for your child, please email to sjwl_oshc@rok.catholic.edu.au and title (in subject of email) ‘July Vacation Care Booking Form’. OSHC staff will always reply to your emails to confirm bookings, if you do not receive a reply within the day, please phone OSHC staff to confirm whether your booking has been received.

If your child has not attended OSHC throughout the school term, please be advised that you will need to keep an eye on your MyGov account the week prior to vacation care commencing, to re-confirm their attendance at OSHC for any rebate you may be entitled to, to be applied.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Note – Please ensure you read our vacation care requirements page attached to our program.

  OSHC staff are looking forward to seeing you all this coming vacation care break!

We would like to invite Year 1 families to view the learning celebration of our integrated English and Design Technologies unit. Come to see our exciting, fabulous, amazing, terrific, super, magnificent  ‘Adjective Showcase’ on Friday 21 June 2:15-3:00 in the year 1 classrooms. You will see a fashion parade of our costumes that students have created.