THE SJ VIBE

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Principal's Reflection

Monday 14th March 2022 Edition 3, Volume 3

SHELLEY'S REFLECTION

    I hope everyone has had a relaxing weekend and was able to breathe. The time of Lent encourages us to think about

  • Giving our whole selves to the Lord

  • Preparing ourselves for mission

  • Temptation

    In our mission in Catholic education, no matter what our role, we aim to serve on behalf of Christ. This I see on a daily basis, where I see parents, staff and students serving our students, our families, as well as the people who are serving those outside our school in our local community. For this I thank you. 

“Spirit of unity: Respect  Courage Kindness Responsibility”

In the last week there has been so much to celebrate. Friday was an amazing and emotional day, for many reasons. The most prominent reason was for our first event in 12 months. To be able to welcome parents onsite to attend onsite to watch and cheer for his or her child, competing in the inaugural  cross country. was special.  The thrill for families as well as the children was just so heart warming. The children displayed courage in getting up from a tumble and striving for the finish line,  as well as kindness in helping others. Thank you to the families for being so respectful and cheering on all of our students. Bravo and gracie!

Louise and her entourage of helpers are to be thanked for thorough preparation and excellent execution on the day. Everyone felt good vibes and I am sure there were very tired children (and adults) that went to bed early on Friday night. A big shout out to you Louise!

    Last week I saw first hand in the Year 1/2 C, where students of different faiths shared how they pray. They led us in prayer and it was so beautiful to feel the inclusivity of all. 

    We pray for the five Year 6 children, Kenzie, Korey, Noah, Rasmus and Ethan this week. They are confirmed at St Andrew’s on Friday evening by Bishop Martin Ashe, who visited St Joseph's last week. Love and blessings to you all as you complete the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

    We finish the week with St Joseph's Feast Day. This is a very important day in our school calendar. The day will be filled with activities, an excursion for the Years 3-6's and a liturgy at 1.00pm. Stay tuned for more information regarding the day.

Kind regards,

Shelley

ReLATE

We are pleased to announce that we will be implementing The MacKillop Institute’s Reframing Learning and Teaching Environments (ReLATE) model at our school over the next three years. This represents a school-wide commitment to positive cultural change and improved teaching, learning and wellbeing outcomes for all staff and students and is aligned to the Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools eXcel: Wellbeing for learning framework.

Students will be empowered to be part of the growth, with school-wide strategies designed to build their insight and resilience and enrich their engagement in learning.

More information on ReLATE and the MacKillop Institute is available here. We look forward to sharing more about our plans and progress throughout implementation.ReLATE includes four all staff professional learning days (two of which occur in year one). This professional learning is designed to build our capability to create safe, supportive, and predictable environments and enhance our understanding and responses to challenging behaviours. We will be introduced to the model and have access to new tools, including the ReLATE Circle, stress management plans, traffic light tools and much more.

A MacKillop consultant will be working with us throughout the three-year implementation starting with a Discovery Day. They will interview selected school community members and analyse baseline data and available policy materials. The collection of baseline data will be critical to the process, and to ensuring that we can measure and celebrate our success. 

Community Leadership Team (CLT)

Dear Parents and Carers,

As part of the five arms of  the CLT we invite parents to get involved.The School Advisory Council positions have been filled for 2022, with Andrew Matthewman and Kayla Johnson as Co- Chairs for 2021/ 2022.

  • The Fundraising Team will be meeting on Thursday 24th March at 2.30- 3.10 pm. Any parents are welcome. Please bring your WWCC if you have this.
  • We will be running A Parent Helper session towards the end of the term. If you wish to be part of Parent Helping in the Classroom or attending excursions attending this session is required. A certificate is given as completion of this. A Working With Children Check is required to Parent Help or attend excursions/ camps.  This is part of our commitment to Child Safety.
  • Grounds and Maintenance: Working bee for general cleanup 
  • Community Conversations: To be advised: We will be holding our first Community Conversation in Term Two where will discuss with the St Joseph's Community Stage Two build, Positive Behaviours for Learning ( PBL), ReLATE  and Reporting.

Thank you for your interest and your continued support.

YEAR 1/2 STUDENT VOICE

The Year 1/2s have had an excellent start to the year! We have been settling into our learning spaces and making new friends. We have been learning about what makes a great community and identifying the people who help keep us safe. There have been lots of stories shared by talented authors and we are trying our best to be just like them! 

 The beginning of Lent has us thinking of ways we can live like Jesus. Here are some of our Lenten promises: 

 My Lenten promise is to help my mum more (Dorothy - 1/2A)

 My Lenten promise is to be more kind (Katrina - 1/2C)

 What has Year 1/2 been learning? Here are our learners’ voices: 

 We've been learning about Lent. We had a liturgy on Ash Wednesday and got a cross of ashes on our forehead (Airlie 1/2J) 

 We ate pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. (Divija 1/2J) 

 We've been practising how to walk through our space quietly and calmly. (Kailah & Riyansh 1/2J) 

 We've been learning how to use kind words. (Sienna 1/2J)

E-LEARNING

Please check your OPEROO account to ensure you all have the information in regard to our acceptable use policy, user agreements, ipad permissions, photo permissions and Seesaw for Learning.

 Please also send your child with a pair of named, corded headphones to support their learning,

 ICON COMMUNITY PORTAL

All parents should be able to login to their ICON community portal. Please check that your details on the portal are correct. The portal is important for accessing school reports and financial statements. Please send an email to susan.millard@sjwerribee.catholic.edu.au if you are unable to access the portal through your introductory email. Check your spam.  The email is quite a plain looking email. A help sheet can be accessed here.

FUNDRAISING

We welcome any existing and new parents/ carers to be part of the Fundraising Team. The first Fundraising Meeting on will be held on Thursday 24th March from 2.30pm - 3.10pm  (School pick up). This will be held under the shade sail picnic tables. We look forward to seeing you!

KITCHEN GARDEN

Students have been learning how to plant and care for vegetable seedlings. They have been practicing how to use tools safely and taking turns at weeding. Students have been doing a wonderful job of remembering our Garden Guardian rules and caring for our environment. Each time we work in the kitchen garden there is something new to see.

Middle and senior students have been working towards achieving their wheelbarrow licences, shoveling soil, steering safely through a course and depositing the soil into new garden beds.

Some students experienced our first rainy day Kitchen Garden session where we still had fun, learning outside undercover. Students painted pots that we will grow flowers in to attract pollinators to our garden.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

In Environmental Education, we have continued to look at the problem of waste. Students have been learning about compost and how to minimise waste in our environment. 

“Care for Compost” by Kenzie

“This term we have been learning to care for our garden by composting. We have compost bins in every class and every afternoon, the 5/ 6 monitors take the small compost bins to the big compost bin in the garden. Last year we did a compost experiment by putting compost in a bag with a straw. Elizabeth kept the bags and they turned into rich fine soil. There are some rules though. Dairy, bread and meat can’t be put in the compost! This is because they don’t have the nutrients that fruit and veggies do and they attract rats and possums.”

“Compost” by Mehtab 

“We have jobs for compost to give the compost to the worms. We put things like apples and fruit in the compost. We don’t throw chip packets in it or the worms will die.”

“All About Compost” by Khush

“Hi, my name is Khush and I’m here to tell you about having a rubbish free lunch box and about the compost. It is important to have a rubbish free  lunch box, we have to take care of our school environment. We should avoid chip packets and one time yogurt pouches, also juice boxes; only bring water to school. We’re going to jump over to compost now. Every single class has a  compost bin where you can put in apple cores, banana peels etc. but you can’t put in wheat, dairy and meat. There are two main layers, brown (egg cartons, cardboard, paper, sticks, dry leaves) and the green layer.

Foundation students worked together to learn about what goes into our school compost bin and everyone has been doing a great job of remembering to put their fruit and vegetable scraps into the class compost buckets.

For Clean Up Australia Day, some students chose to make pledges, thinking about small changes they can make to reduce waste and help the environment. Children were given the opportunity to participate in the schools clean up day on Friday and I’m happy to say that there was almost no rubbish in our school grounds.

SCHOOL PHOTO DAY - Tuesday 5th April 2022

It's that time of year again!

Our School Photo Day has been scheduled for Tuesday 5th April, 2022

All students are required to be in full school uniform.

Please be advised that you do need to pre-order school photos from the online portal with Advanced Life Photography.

FAMILY/SIBLING PHOTO orders need to be ordered online by 04-04-2022.

The site is now ready to order your preferred packages online.

 www.advancedlife.com.au

Please find attached information to assist with the ordering process:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1paIK-J6xFPDHZ-8A5FM8t6dFUbkD_Tnf/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CUigXj9oCTSa4EkrEBM8ZJ6EKE6vIDwk/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yJIraGkvIp3Yvs1qgIMAS2G8PrLSdlAN/view?usp=sharing




MacKillop College OPEN DAY

Families of year 5 students, you are invited to attend Mackillop College's Open Day:

Wednesday 23 March 2022

4.00pm – 6.30pm

Final Tour at 5.45pm

All are welcome to attend and tour the College. 

For further information regarding the College please visit the College website: www.mackillop.vic.edu.au

Please note that year 7 enrolment applications close on Friday 19 August 2022

Please talk to Hayley if you require support with your application.

2022 SCHOOL TERM DATES

TERM 1: Wednesday 2nd February – Friday 8th April

TERM 2: Tuesday 26th April – Friday 24th June

 TERM 3: Monday 11th July – Friday 16th September

 TERM 4: Tuesday 4th October - Thursday 15th December

Please note: Maths Online Interviews Assessment Days: Friday 16th December & Monday 19th December

ADMINISTRATION UPDATE

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE PROCEDURE - SkoolBag or Voicemail (Attendance Line - 8742 3381)

If your child is absent from school please communicate this with the school office. SkoolBag has an attendance e-form which can be filled out and submitted. This will be sent directly to the office.

Alternatively, please use the school phone number (8742 3381) and select the attendance line option. When leaving a message please ensure you clearly state your child’s full name, class and the reason for their absence. We must have a valid reason for marking your child/children absent.

If your child needs to be collected early from school, please also communicate this with the school office. The SkoolBag attendance e-form can be used and this will be sent directly to the office.

Thank you for your co-operation as it is much appreciated.

The SkoolBag app is the easiest way to keep up with school events, last minute notices, access the attendance e-form, view newsletters and receive all school communications. For those new families who have joined our community in 2022 please downloaded the App, and request access to your child's class group.

IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

Friday 18th March: Years 3-6 Excursion to St Andrew's Church

Friday 18th March: Sacrament of Confirmation 6:30pm

Saturday 19th March: St Joseph’s Feast Day

Thursday 24th March: Fundraising Meeting 2.30pm - 3.10pm

Tuesday 5th April: School Photo Day - Whole School

Thursday 7th April: Family Easter Picnic 5.30- 7.00 pm (To be confirmed)

Friday 8th April: Term 4 concludes for all students

Monday 2nd May: School Closure Day (no students)

Monday 3rd October: School Closure Day (no students)

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Werribee

"Spirit of Unity: Respect,  Courage,  Kindness"

St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Community promotes the safety, wellbeing and inclusion of all children