St Joseph's Newsletter

Thank you to so many families for supporting our inaugural Arts Show.  Our Arts Show incorporated both an extraordinary gallery of visual art created by each student artist in our community, and an opportunity for our student musicians to perform in a ‘low stakes’ environment. Making the most of our beautiful ‘MacKillop Centre for Learning’, visual art was displayed through both break-out learning spaces.  We also had two performance areas for those students who are learning a musical instrument here at school.  Whilst the ‘stage right’ in the downstairs breakout space enabled the lovely sound of music to permeate the evening, sadly, students performing upstairs were disadvantaged by sound issues. In future events, we have taken note to only use one performance area. If you do have any feedback beyond the sound issues, please contact the office as your feedback does help us plan for future events.  

A massive thank you to our small but mighty Parents and Friends group who made available gourmet food boxes and drinks for families to enjoy on the evening. At least 50 of these were purchased which tells me that many people in our community enjoy the benefits of the planning and work of our P and F.  Please consider adding your support to this group in 2023.  With enough volunteers you may only need to provide help at one event throughout the year, allowing committee members to also enjoy socialising at our community events. 

With our Reception to Year 3 students attending the four-day swimming program this week, it is timely to ask families for feedback on this program and its inclusion in our school offerings. This program costs the school approximately $15,000 which includes the use of the pool, the swimming instructors and the bus transport. As families will be aware, for children to develop strong swimming skills, they need ongoing swimming lessons and/or opportunities to swim, which many families access outside of school. The Health and PE learning area does not specifically include swimming as a part of the mandated curriculum and so essentially this is an extra-curricular activity that we provide. The Year 4-6 students take part in a full day aquatics program and thus do not attend the swimming program.  

Please take a moment to comment via this survey to help us, along with the School Board consider the viability of the swimming program into the future. 

The Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care is investigating what can be done to better support families in South Australia so that our children can thrive, including offering 3-year-old preschool to all children. Research shows how crucial the years before school are to the rest of a child's life - 90% of adult brain development and growth occurs in the first 5 years. 

The Commissioner wants to hear from families, parents, and carers to hear your experiences with early childhood education and care. Your input will help the Royal Commission gain a deeper understanding of how the early years system can better support children in South Australia. The YourSAy survey asks:  

• What is important to you when thinking about early childhood services for your child?  

• What services or experiences do you want for you child?  

• What factors are informing the choices you have made/will make?  

• What do you think is important for children’s learning and development? 

👉 Visit the YourSAy website for more information. Here you can read the community guide and take the Parent and Caregiver Survey.  

Traffic around our school continues to be challenging during drop-off and pick-up times. 

Please do your part to ease the congestion by: 

• Being patient and courteous 

• Using the Kiss and Drop Zone on Albermarle Street only if your child is able to exit/enter the car safely on their own via the kerbside door 

• Stopping as far forward as you can in the Kiss and Drop Zone before allowing your child to enter or exit the car.  Students should not be exiting the car before it has pulled into the Kiss and Drop Zone.  

• Not making an illegal u-turn across a unbroken white line or within the safety crossing 

• Parking, where council signs permit, and walking your child to and from school 

• Driving around the block if a park or space in the Kiss and Drop Zone is not available 

Teachers are on duty for 20 minutes after school so consider either arriving early and parking nearby or arriving a few minutes later when the intense traffic has cleared. The responsibility of the duty teacher is not to direct traffic, but to ensure children are safely waiting inside the school gates.   

Please also take extra care when using the crossing on Grange Road.  Unfortunately, as is the risk with any crossing, road users do not always obey the red lights and this could have catastrophic results for students and families.  

With the worksite fences in place and vision to the street now impaired, collection of students from the Bertie Street gate has become very difficult.  We have taken the decision to cease providing supervision to the Grange Road crossing after school, and instead place a second staff member to supervise pick-up at the Bertie Street gate.  Students will now be asked to wait well behind the gate to avoid crowding the exit and staff will summon them as someone arrives to collect them.  Please be mindful that students should never be crossing the road alone to enter a car – if you do park on the opposite side of the road, we ask that you leave your car and come to the gate to collect them. While this may make collection take a little longer, we must put the children’s safety as the first priority.  

Given the construction work currently occurring on our site, the bi-annual Carols Night will be unable to go ahead this year. Whilst this is disappointing, we know that very soon we will have a wonderful open space where our community can gather for such events. Instead, our students will gather on Wednesday December 7 at approximately 2:10pm to sing carols together and celebrate the upcoming festive season.  Families and caregivers are welcome to join us in the Hall for this more informal event.  

St Joseph was the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus and a carpenter. He was a “righteous man” and an observant Jew who obeyed God’s law.

Mary referred to Joseph as Jesus’ father, honouring his role in caring for and protecting Jesus, and raising him in the Jewish faith.

The Solemnity of St. Joseph is celebrated on March 19 (or the next available date, if it falls on a Sunday). He is also honoured as the patron saint of workers on May 1.

St Mary Mackillop, also known as St Mary of the Cross, was an Australian religious sister declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Mary faced a number of challenges through out her life, yet she never stopped, and her faith remained strong. She continued to work tirelessly for the Josephite order and providing education for those who were poor. She died on August 8, 1909. After her death the Mother Superior of the Sisters of St Joseph’s at the time, began the process to get Mary declared a saint. After several years of hearings, close examination of Mary’s writings and a 23-year delay, the initial phase of investigations was completed in 1973. After further investigations, Mary’s ‘heroic virtue’ was declared in 1992. She was beatified on January 19, 1995, by Pope John Paul II and she was canonised on October 17, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, making her the first Australian Saint.

St. Mary MacKillop is the patron saint of Australia, Archdiocese of Brisbane, and the Knights of the Southern Cross. Her feast day is celebrated on August 8.

On the 3rd of November (Thursday), all students from Year 4-6 went to Port Noarlunga for an Aquatics excursion. The Year 6s got involved in stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking and body boarding. The teachers and parents had the great joy of seeing them consistently fall into the water!

The year 4/5s got introduced to water safety on the beach and participated in many fun activities.

Thank you to all parents for volunteering because we couldn’t have done it without you!

It was the first time that St Jospeh's participated in the year 3/4 tennis carnival. 

We competed against three other schools throughout the day and after 6 rounds of competitions we finished the day off with a tennis dance party - check out their dance moves in the clip below.

Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad for us and the school is very proud of all students who participated.

Just a reminder the school phone number has changed with the NBN upgrade.

☎️ The new phone number is 8424 6400.

Please update our number in your contacts as the old number has now been disconnected.

Science is all around us in our everyday lives and engaging with science occurred in many ways at Preschool last week.  A rainbow of light on the floor caused much interest for a group of our little scientists who used paper to trace over the rainbow and replicate the coloured strips of light. 

Painting and drawing is a way for children to convey ideas, explore colour, show creativity and create aesthetically pleasing pieces of art.

Children were inspired by the story ‘The Enormous Watermelon’ to paint and draw their own interpretations of a watermelon using paint, crayons and pencils. They identified the colours needed as well as deciding what shape the watermelon would be (round, half-circle, triangle wedge).