ABOUT - Term 1 Week 7 - 14 March 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

 "St Joseph was just a man, a tireless worker, the upright guardian of those
entrusted to his care. May he always guard, protect and enlighten families."
- St John Paul

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK 2024

'Experience The Spirit Of Community'

Our school will be celebrating Catholic Schools Week next week. This annual event is an opportunity for schools to promote the special ethos of Catholic schools and to highlight the great things that take place in these schools every day. The theme for this year’s celebrations is ‘Experience The Spirit Of Community’. There are 33 Catholic schools in the Diocese of Bathurst that educate around 9000 students and most will celebrate Catholic Schools Week in some way.  We will be celebrating Catholic Schools Week with St Joseph's Day, Grandparents Day and our annual St Joseph's P & F Debutante Ball.

DIOCESAN WINTER SPORTS TRIALS

Congratulations to those Years 5 and 6 children who represented the school at the Diocesan Winter Sports Trials held in Bathurst last Friday. Well done to Akhiro Baker (Rugby League) and Harrison Newton, Heidi Colwell, Lucy Zell and Isabelle Peart (Soccer) who were selected in their respective Possibles vs Probables matches.  

Akhiro Baker, Heidi Colwell, Lucy Zell and Isabelle Peart were then selected in the diocesan teams in their respective sports and will go on to represent the Bathurst Diocese at the NSW Catholic Primary Schools Polding Championships to be held next term. Well done Akhiro, Heidi, Lucy and Isabelle!

Special mention to Mitch Cosier who was injured during one of his rugby league games and unable to continue, however has been named as first reserve for rugby league. 

ST PATRICK'S DAY MASS

All students will attend the St Patrick’s Day Mass that will be celebrated tomorrow, Friday, 15 March at 10:30 a.m. in St Joseph’s Church.  This Mass is being prepared by Year 5.  All are most welcome to attend.  Please bring a plate to share for morning tea which will follow the Mass.

Our Year 5 students are also looking forward to visiting the residents of Cooee Lodge tomorrow, to give the residents a little bit of Irish cheer!

NAPLAN ONLINE TESTING

NAPLAN will continue next week for students in Years 3 and 5 with Reading on Monday, 18 March, Conventions of Language on Tuesday, 19 March and will conclude with Numeracy on Wednesday, 20 March.

SCHOOL PHOTOS CAN STILL BE ORDERED

School photos were taken on Monday. Group and portrait photographs can still be purchased by following the link below for 7 days from the day photos are taken, after which late fees/additional charges will be incurred.

Visit: www.advancedlife.com.au and enter online order code: 7Q9 5JT KQZ

School photography information:

• Online orders - do not require an envelope returned to your school
• Late fees - a late fee will be applied to each package purchased more than 7 days after photo day due to the additional cost of producing these packages separately
• Package delivery - School photographs will be returned approximately 6 weeks after the day of photography. Please note this delivery timeframe is dependent on proofing.
• Previous Years’ photos - Past years’ photographs are also available to order under the 'previous years or group photo' tabs at our school’s advancedorder site when you click on the above link. You can also order past packages, portrait images and gifts from your child’s unique, individual and secure advancedyou image archive site using the unique 9 digit image code found on packages you have ordered in the past.

ST JOSEPH'S P & F DEBUTANTE BALL

Saturday, 23 March
Only 1 Week Away
*TICKETS ON SALE NOW*

Thank you to those who have purchased tickets fore the St Joseph's P & F Debutante Ball.  We would still like to see many more tickets sold in support of what is one of the P & F’s biggest fundraisers of the year!

The ball will be held on Saturday, 23 March with doors opening at 7:30 p.m and debutantes presented at 8:00 p.m.  Tickets are $40 per adult, including appetisers.  There will be music and full bar with EFTPOS facilities.

Tickets can be purchased from the school office, Tooraweenah Prime Lamb at 25 Miller St, Gilgandra (during business hours) or from the Shire Hall each Tuesday from 5:30 – 6.00pm.  There will be NO tickets sold at the door.  If purchasing tickets from school, you can use the EFTPOS facilities or alternatively transfer the money directly into the following bank account:

Account Name:  St Joseph's P&F Association
BSB No:  066 781
Account No:  100008639
Ref:  Your Name - ball tickets

This event is open to the whole Gilgandra community so organise a table and come along for a great night out whilst helping raise some funds for our school!

DEBUTANTE BALL WORKING BEES & DONATION OF SWEETS

Thank you to those who have offered to help out with the running of the Debutante Ball.  We are still in need of helpers in the following areas:

• WORKING BEE on Thursday, 21 March - we only have three helpers - we need YOU!
• WORKING BEE on Friday, 22 March - we only have four helpers - we need YOU!
• SWEET DONATIONS - we only have seven people donating - more are needed!
• BAR - we only have ONE helper - we need MORE!
• CLEAN UP ON SUNDAY - we only have two volunteers!  Please spare an hour or two if you can!

The Volunteers Form and Ball Roster are below.  Please click on the link to offer your help.

ST JOSEPH'S DAY CELEBRATIONS

We have planned a day full of fun and celebrations next Tuesday, 19 March to celebrate St Joseph’s Day.  St Joseph is certainly a special saint for all of us at St Joseph’s and we want to honour him on this special day.  So if you would like to join us for part, or all of the day, you are most welcome.  Our timetable is as follows:

12:00 p.m. – Mass
1:00 p.m. - Class picnics at pool
1:30 p.m. - Year 6 Synchronised Swimming, followed by dancing in the pool, biscuit fun and a free swim. 

SKI BISCUITS AND ROPES are required for St Joseph’s Day.  As in the past, we hope to have lots of fun on the ski biscuits at the pool.  If you are able to loan us a biscuit with ropes, could you please let us know as soon as possible.

GRANDPARENTS DAY / OPEN DAY

Next Thursday, 21 March 2024

One of our most anticipated and exciting days of the year is approaching and that is when we host Grandparents Day next Thursday, 21 March.  Everyone is invited from the very young to the very old to celebrate Grandparents Day with us.  The day begins at 10:30 a.m. with morning tea in the weather shed. Following morning tea the students of St Joseph’s will entertain you with a mini concert.  To conclude the activities everyone is invited to inspect the classrooms.  So, if you have a grandma, grandpa, nan, pop, an elderly next door neighbour or in fact know any person, young or old, please invite them to our Grandparents Day.  We will be needing cakes and slices etc. for morning tea, so please bring a plate to share.

PARENTS' WEBINAR

An eSafety Commissioner webinar will be held next Tuesday, 26 March from 7:30 - 8:00 p.m. This event for parents and carers is titled ‘Understanding Parental Controls to Safeguard Your Child’ and is all about different types of parental controls and how to set them on smart devices and computers, in apps and on gaming platforms, for your child’s safety. It’s suitable for parents and carers of primary school-aged students. Please click the below link to register.

SUPERVISION AT SCHOOL BEFORE 8:30 a.m.

We ask that where possible, families refrain from dropping children off at school before 8:30 a.m. due to limited supervision.  We understand that this is not possible for all families and any children dropped off at school before 8:30 a.m. will be asked to quietly sit in the square until there is supervision on the playground.

MERIT AWARDS

Congratulations to the following students who received Merit Awards at Assembly on Tuesday:

KINDER: Eleanor Foran for drawing a beautiful picture of her family, Darcy Morrissey for making great patterns in Mathematics, Jazmyn Aberley for super work writing her sounds and Kobi Hammond for groovy dance moves during lesson breaks.

YEAR 1: Ellie Merrett for creating a beautiful ‘bucket filler’ artwork, Chase Hodges for working hard to identify past and present tense, Liam Mellor for fantastic work creating a column graph to display data and Becky Hutchison for being an enthusiastic and cooperative learner.

YEAR 2: Georgie Kirkwood for always providing great answers during Maths discussions, Madeline Merrett for working hard to sound out tricky words and Lisa-Marie Vermeulen for always completing her work quickly and with great care.

YEAR 3: Bridie Moeris and Amelia Altmann for super work completing data investigation, Lochie Thomas for great improvement in weekly Spelling test results and Mary Lesslie for working well in a pair to complete Mathematical tasks. 

YEAR 4: Bella Hammond for always giving 100% effort, Dusty Jordan for trying hard in Maths Operations, Jack Howard for working efficiently during Maths and Rose Howard for asking for help when needed.

YEAR 5: Jackson Towns for working hard to improve his handwriting and Caitlin Younghusband for writing an engaging narrative about an emergency. 

YEAR 6: Akhiro Baker for his excellent typing skills on Typing Tournament, Milla Morris for being a super grapheme detective in Spelling, Indy Thomas for great understanding of equivalent fractions and Archie Valler for reading clearly, fluently and with great expression.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Another busy week has flown by in Kinder. We have read the Bible story of the Good Shepherd and discussed how Jesus is like a shepherd and we are his sheep. He will always help, guide and protect us if we trust and believe in Him. In our Maths unit we are exploring 2D shapes. We learnt that when a line bends a shape begins and we practised with a partner making shapes using a piece of plastic string. We then went on a shape hunt in our classroom finding different shapes and naming them. Next Thursday is Grandparents Day and Kinder is very excited and the children can’t wait to show everyone all their hard work. We have written lots of great stories and completed some beautiful artwork in preparation for this wonderful celebration. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

It has been another busy week in the Year 1 classroom. This week in English we have begun learning about informative text. We have started reading Eric Carle’s Book of Amazing Animals and studying different animals. We discussed the importance of illustrations in informative texts and identified different topics which we could incorporate in our writing, including the animal’s characteristics, habits, and behaviour. In Mathematics we used skip counting to solve multiplication problems. In History we discussed the features and purpose of a family tree and used our knowledge of our families to create our own family tree. During Science we continued working on our unit, ‘Earth and Space (Land and Sky)’ and investigated the changes in our weather and discussed how we can measure rainfall. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

We can’t believe it is Week 7 already! We have had another busy week and completed revision activities during Phonics, where we have looked at all of the sounds we have covered this term. We began looking at our new text, ‘Sophie Scott Goes South’ during literacy which is a true story about Alison Lester’s voyage to Antarctica but written in the perspective of a child called Sophie. We are getting our room ready for our special visitors next week, we can’t wait to perform for our family and give them a guided tour of our room on Grandparents Day next week. During Problem A Day & Operations we have been working on two times tables, addition, takeaway and division. We looked closely at the ‘Our Father’ and the old language used. We related this to today’s words. Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Year 3 sat for the writing component of the NAPLAN assessment on Wednesday and are gearing up for the remaining three NAPLAN assessments next week. In Spelling the students have been divided into three spelling groups based on their ability levels and have been working on learning words centered around the long ‘o’ phoneme. Our Grammar focus has been different sentence structures such as statements, questions, commands and exclamations and their appropriate punctuation. We began an English Unit around the picture books, "Iceberg" by Clair Saxby and "Earth’s Incredible Oceans" by Jess French by exploring genre and analysing the text in "Iceberg". In Mathematics, we’ve been interpreting graphs and completing chance experiments involving flipping coins. We’re looking forward to celebrating the St Patrick’s Day Mass tomorrow with Year 5. Have a stupendous weekend. 
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

Year 4 is excitedly getting organised for Grandparents Day next week. We’ve been practising our songs and creating artworks to proudly hang in our room and show our grandparents. In Mathematics we have finished our unit on Place Value and have started our Chance and Data unit. We have been revising using the terms certain, impossible, likely and unlikely to describe the chance of events happening. In Religion we have looked at the organisation, Caritas and the work they do to help the most marginalised communities. We all agreed that donating to Project Compassion this Lent is a wonderful way to support Caritas and help make a difference. We are all looking forward to celebrating St Joseph's Day next week! Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

WOW! Week 7 already! Year 5 has been busy preparing for our St Patrick’s Day Mass tomorrow and our performance for the residents of Cooee Lodge . We can’t wait to show the residents and staff our dance and tell them our jokes. In Mathematics we have been learning all about fractions and how to identify equivalent fractions. We will continue to learn about fractions and how they can be represented. We took a look at characterisation this week in relation to our novel, "The Wild Robot”. We discussed and wrote about Roz’s characteristics and how her actions, thoughts and opinions shape who she is. In Grammar we have been learning about punctuation with an explicit focus on brackets, apostrophes and commas. Grandparents Day is just around the corner. We have been practising our performances and can't wait to see what Year 6 present. Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

Year 6 has had another jam-packed week, with lots happening both in and out of the classroom. We have continued to enjoy our Literacy Unit and our novel is really starting to heat up! If you can imagine secret quests and a war between Greek Gods, then you’ve nailed our book, "Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief". We have delved further into the story with a focus on foreshadowing and how the author uses little hints to help us predict what may happen next. In Mathematics we have continued learning about fractions, fractional parts and adding and subtracting fractions, which has been challenging but fun! We have lots of special celebrations coming up that we are really looking forward to, such as St Patrick’s Day, St Joseph’s Day and Grandparents Day. We look forward to welcoming our family and friends into our school and performing lots of different little items for you all. Have a safe and wonderful weekend.
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

Dubbo Junior Rugby Club Wallaroo Friday Night Competition

The Dubbo Junior Rugby Club's 2024 Wallaroo Friday Night Competition now has registrations open and is looking for players aged between 6 and 10 both boys and girls.

For further information, please click on the below link for their flyer.

Soccer Come and Try Afternoon

Do you have a child interested in playing soccer in the 2024 season?  If so, we are holding a 'Come and Try' information afternoon on Friday, 15 March at Ernie Knight Oval from 5:00 p.m.  If you are unavailable to attend but interested in finding out more information, please contact Andrew on 0428265074 or Mark on 0427470436