St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Wandal Newsletter

My niece works at Ballina Hospital.   You may have heard how, to escape the flood in the middle of the night, they recently moved the 55-bed hospital to the local Catholic School.  She wrote to her mother: It’s insane how they have moved everything overnight: we have a triage, ed bay and general ward, medications, fluid bags, narcotics, oxygen, paperwork for notes, beds, linen.    That is, they successfully moved 55 sick and infirm people in the middle of the night in horrendous conditions and set up a working hospital.  It wasn’t insane – someone had thought it through.  The evacuation plan, drawn up possibly months or even years ago, had worked.  These administrators had thought ahead and asked: What can go wrong? What is our goal? How do we get to it? We need to ask ourselves similar questions in our lives.

Lent has begun and this is a good time to do just such soul searching.  In last Sunday’s Gospel, we saw Jesus tempted in the desert – feeling all the liabilities and weaknesses of being human.  In next Sunday’s Gospel, we see him bathed in glory, showing just what is the goal of human life – living in the love and glory of God.  If we want to come to the richest of lives, we need to ask what we want and how we would deal with difficulties and challenges

Consider an area in your life where you sense there could be a problem, maybe your child having reading difficulties, maybe a problem with communication in your family.  Ignoring it won’t help, jumping in impulsively will probably make it worse.  But thinking and praying about it could give you a strategy to deal with it.  Start by asking, what do I ultimately want?  What is stopping it happening? What can I do to make it happen in spite of the difficulties? Do I need to get help?  If Jesus had to strategise, as he did in the desert, we can be pretty sure we need to do the same.  Just stopping, thinking and praying makes us open to possibilities for change, and gives God room to move in our lives.

Loving Father, you know I want and rich and full life for myself and my family.  You also know the challenges I face.  Let me stop, pray, think, and plan how I could, with the wisdom of your Spirit, work through the challenges to live a full and loving life.  I ask this in Jesus’ name confident that your will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

Lent is upon us, a penitential season of prayer, abstinence and fasting.

The 40 days that Jesus spent praying and preparing in the wilderness is reflected in the season of Lent. It has been traditional that during the time of Lent Christian people renew their efforts in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. All three of these practices are actions of preparation. Just as Jesus prepared for his ministry in the wilderness, so too is Lent an opportunity for us to be deliberate about our reflection on what we are called to do in this world. What will you take up during Lent?

If your child is participating in the Parish Sacramental program, please add the dates below to your diary. Workshops for families preparing their children to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance and the completion of Christian Initiation will be held as follows:

Tuesday 8 or Wednesday 9 March, Workshop 1, commencing 5.30pm at the Kevin Castles Centre in West Street.

Tuesday 14 or Wednesday 15 March, Workshop 2, commencing 5.30pm at the Kevin Castles Centre in West Street.

Thanks for taking the time to read about the big ideas that we are focussing on this year.  Place value is a huge concept in mathematics, and generally our students have this idea consolidated by the end of Year Two.  Place value focusses on the importance of moving beyond counting by ones, recognising the structure of the base ten numeration system.  Place value is all about the value of each digit in a number.  For example, the 5 in 458 represents 5 tens, or 50; however, the 5 in 5,020 represents 5 thousands, or 5,000. It is important that children understand that whilst a digit can be the same, the value depends on where it is in the number.

We use place value grids, number expanders and MABs (blocks) to help develop these ideas.  Bundling sticks (paddle pop sticks) and also a great way to explore these ideas.

We wish to advise you that, during the past week, we have been notified of positive cases of COVID-19 in our school community. 

St Joseph’s regularly consults with the Catholic Education Office and relevant authorities and continues to follow the advice of Queensland Health regarding cleaning requirements.

Queensland Health has advised that no quarantine of students or staff is required.

As COVID-19 remains active in our community, we ask you to continue to monitor your child’s/children’s health and if they develop any flu-like symptoms:

• Keep your child/children at home
• Seek a PCR or Rapid Antigen test where it is recommended and notify the school of positive results. Please be aware, a negative COVID test does not change the requirement to be symptom free to attend school.
• Follow the advice of Queensland Health

As we continue to navigate the pandemic, please remind your child/ren to: 

• maintain good hand hygiene at all times
• cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue or the inside of their elbow and dispose of tissues in the bin immediately.
• practice social distancing from others where possible
• wear masks when required

We will continue to work closely with health authorities to keep our school community informed of any developments and advice. Thank you once again for your ongoing support.

School Fees for Term 1 were due last Friday, 4 March 2022. Please see the attached Fact Sheet – School Fees which may answer some questions you have. If you wish to set up or edit a direct debit for the payment of school fees, please contact our Finance Secretaries on 49948230 or email sjwl_finance@rok.catholic.edu.au

Rockhampton District Selection Trials

Term 1 - NOTE UPDATED DATES

Below are the Rockhampton and District Trials (RDS) for the following Primary School sports happening in Term 1.  If your child has the prerequisite skills and you wish for them to trial in the following sports you can contact the school office to obtain the appropriate trial forms. Alternatively, the forms can be downloaded in the Sport Information section of the Skoolbag App.

*Forms must be returned to the office, at least one day before the trial 

 Please be aware that for your child to attend these trials as a 10-year-old student that they would need to be exceptional as they will be competing against students up to 12 years of age.

School dates are in the EVENTS tab on Skoolbag