ABOUT - Term 1 Week 8 - 21 March 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

Grandparents are the perfect mix of wisdom, love and a splash of magic!

WONDERFUL GRANDPARENTS DAY / OPEN DAY

We had a wonderful day today celebrating Grandparents Day.  Our Year 6 leaders were amazing welcoming all our visitors to the school.  This really did set the tone for the rest of the day.  After everyone enjoyed morning tea, our school captains, Oliver Peart and Claudia Harrison gave the acknowledgement of country, followed by the whole school singing "We Welcome You".  Year 6 then invited everyone to witness the coronation of the stars through popular music with Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift all 'wowing' the crowd with their guest appearances.  The students then performed a lovely rendition of the "Irish Blessing".  To conclude the day, our visitors joined the children for a tour of our school.  Congratulations to the students for making it such a fabulous Grandparents Day!

ST JOSEPH'S P & F DEBUTANTE BALL

This Saturday, 23 March - 7:30 p.m.
Presentation of Debutantes - 8:00 p.m.

Many thanks to those who have purchased tickets to attend the St Joseph's P&F Debutante Ball this Saturday evening.  It is sure to be a great night out!

Thanks also to those who helped at today's working bee, offered to help set up tomorrow, help at the ball, donate sweets for the ball or help at the clean up on Sunday. It's not too late to help - just turn up at the Shire Hall tomorrow between 9:00 a.m and 3:00 pm. to help with the set up, or on Sunday from 9:00 a.m. for the clean up.  Sweets can be taken directly to the Shire Hall on Saturday or dropped to school tomorrow.

Please see the Ball Helpers' Roster below.

MELANOMA MARCH - YEAR 6 FUNDRAISER

Each term our Year 6 leaders organise a charitable activity to raise money for a worthy cause.  This term, they have decided to support ‘Melanoma March’. 

Australia has the highest melanoma rates in the world.  One person is diagnosed with melanoma every 30 minutes and one person dies from the disease every 6 hours.  It is the most common cancer affecting 20–39-year-old Australians. Melanoma Institute Australia CEO, Mr Matthew Browne said, “Changing attitudes towards tanning and improving the community’s understanding about prevention, early detection, and year-round sun safety is crucial to stopping more lives being cut short by melanoma.” 

To show our support for this worthwhile cause, all students are encouraged to come to school dressed in something YELLOW and/or GREEN next Thursday, 28 March.  At 9:00 a.m. the whole school will walk a short course around town in recognition of 'Melanoma March'.  At lunch time a sausage sizzle will be held for those who have pre-ordered their lunch.  All money raised will go Melanoma Institute Australia.  For $5.00 students can purchase a sausage sandwich, a popper and a yellow wristband.  Extra sausages can be purchased for $2.00 each.  We have set up a special Flexischools lunch order for the fundraiser and orders can be placed from today until 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 26 March, to ensure we have enough time to order the food and drinks.  See flyer below.

TO BE SURE, TO BE SURE, IT WAS A FINE ST PATRICK'S DAY!

It certainly was a jolly St Patrick’s Day at Joey’s on Friday.  The whole school attended a beautiful St Patrick’s Day Mass which was prepared by Year 5. After Mass everyone enjoyed a yummy morning tea and it was then off to Cooee Lodge for the Year 5 class who performed an Irish jig and told some Irish yarns to the senior citizens.  We thank Miss Dobson and the Year 5 class for giving us a little bit of Irish cheer on Friday.

ST JOSEPH'S DAY CELEBRATIONS

We had a day full of fun and celebrations on Tuesday for St Joseph’s Day.  St Joseph is certainly a special saint for all of us at St Joseph’s and we like to honour him on this special day.  The festivities began with a lovely Mass in St Joseph’s Church.  During the Mass our newest members of the Junior Joeys received their badges.  We then went to the pool and enjoyed class parties in honour of St Joseph.  After the parties the Year 6 leaders were superb as they entertained us with their synchronised swimming routine.  Then the whole school joined Year 6 in the pool for some groovy dancing.  Finally, everyone got to have lots and lots of fun on the ski biscuits.  Wow, what a great day!  Many thanks to the Alchin, Altmann and Walker families for lending us their ski biscuits.

JUNIOR JOEY'S

With the guidance of the Sisters of St Joseph our school is part of a national program where students from Years 5 and 6 can choose to become junior members of the Josephite Association – Junior Joeys!  The purpose of this program is to:

• LEARN about Mary MacKillop and the Sisters of St Joseph.
• PRAY for those in need.
• PRACTISE some form of outreach in the community.

Congratulations to our new members of Junior Joeys who were presented with their badges at the St Joseph’s Day Mass on Tuesday.  Our new Junior Joeys are:  Darcy Adams, Mitchell Beaton, Jarvis Glennister, Estelle Hazelton, Chloe Heffer, Charlie Howard, Mack Hutchison, Sophie Lacey, Clancy Larkin, Jakirah McKenzie, Oscar Medd, Hannah Meers, Tex Mudford, Braxten Towns, Jackson Towns, Neve Walker and Caitlin Younghusband.

YEAR 6 TO PERFORM AT SENIOR CITIZENS' LUNCH

Next Monday, 25 March at 11:45 a.m. our Year 6 students will be attending the Senior Citizen's Luncheon to do a rendition of their performance from Grandparents Day.  We hope the Senior Citizens enjoy the Year 6 performance.

SUPER SPELLERS!

Our school Spelling Bee Finals will be held next Tuesday, 26 March for Years 3 and 4 at 11:20 a.m. and Wednesday, 27 March for Years 5 and 6 at 11:20 a.m.  Congratulations and good luck to these super spellers who have qualified for the school’s finals.  The Years 3 and 4 finalists include Ben Ryan, Alice Peart, Mia Buckley, George Taylor, Oliver Buckley, Regan Godber, Pearl Mudford, Georgia Riley, Archie O'Connor and Tiffany Fong  while the Years 5 and 6 contestants will be Mitchell Cosier, Claudia Harrison, Tom McIsaac, Neve Walker, Kellie Hutchison, Akhiro Baker, Kurt McBurnie, Alana Spora, Lucy Zell, Archie Valler and Lottie Duffy.  Well done to you all!

KINDER COOEE VISIT

Our Kinder class will visit Cooee Lodge next Tuesday, 26 March at 10:30 a.m.  It is a wonderful opportunity for the children to spread some Easter cheer to the elderly residents.

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

Primary students will attend Stations of the Cross in church next Thursday, 28 March.  This is a Liturgy that helps us reflect on the journey that Jesus made with the cross to Calvary.  In most Catholic churches you will find a set of pictures depicting the last few hours of Jesus' life.  We pause at each Station or picture and remember what Jesus went through.  This is an opportunity for the children to consider the true message of Holy Week and Easter.

PROJECT COMPASSION

At the beginning of Lent a Project Compassion box was sent home to each family.  Project Compassion is a Lenten program that Caritas Australia focuses on each year.  Caritas Australia is a Catholic agency for overseas aid and development.  We hope that whenever you have been emptying your pockets you have been able to drop a few coins into your Project Compassion box.  Your donations could go towards improving health and education or aiding an emergency crisis somewhere in the world.  Send your boxes back to school during next week so that we can present all our donations during the Holy Thursday Mass.

HOLY THURSDAY MASS

All children are invited to join the Offertory Procession during Holy Thursday Mass next Thursday, 28 March at 7:00 p.m.  This Mass is where we will offer our Project Compassion boxes.

MASS TIMES DURING HOLY WEEK

Following are the Mass times at St Joseph's Church next week during Holy Week:

Sunday, 24 March - 9:30 .m. - Palm Sunday Mass

Tuesday, 26 March - NO Mass or Communion service

Wednesday, 27 March - 5:30 p.m. - 2^nd Rite of Reconciliation

Thursday, 28 March - 7:00 p.m. - Holy Thursday Mass.  During this Mass, students will present our Project Compassion donations.

Friday, 29 March - 10:00 a.m. - Stations of the Cross
Friday, 29 March - 3:00 p.m. - Veneration of the Cross and special collection for the Holy Places

Saturday, 30 March - 6:00 p.m. - Easter Vigil at Tooraweenah

Sunday, 31 March - 9:30 a.m. - Easter Sunday Mass at Gilgandra.

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.

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Harry Harvey for fabulous work in Mathematics, Arthur Peart for trying hard in Writing activities, Ellis Starr for being a super 2D shape sleuth and Jackie Gronow for his cheerful, well mannered greetings each morning.

YEAR 1: Clark Baker for fantastic work with equal groups in Maths, Hamish Burrell for creating a wonderful hot air balloon artwork, Mae Ryan for presenting her bookwork neatly and Ally Wykes for putting outstanding effort into all learning tasks.

YEAR 2: Elsie Howard for working well on sounds in Phonics, Samuel Luckie for brightening our day with his sense of humour and storytelling and Isabelle Sandry and Edward Woodrow for creating super ‘Wild Things’.

YEAR 3: Charlie Jones-Copelin for good work using grid maps to locate position, Tom Mudford for carefully locating informative and imaginative language choices within a text, Ben Ryan for top work following routes using directional language and James Riley and Allie Claire Williams for painting lovely artworks of an aurora.

YEAR 4: Will Luckie for great work in Maths Operations, Lleyton Lummis for working diligently to complete tasks and Michael Vermeulen for great work identifying adverbial clauses.

YEAR 5: Braxten Towns for great work identifying equivalent fractions in Maths and Chloe Heffer for a great contribution in identifying the characteristics of Roz, the main character from "The Wild Robot".

YEAR 6: Lily Johnson-Honey for being a kind and caring class member and working conscientiously at all times, Lottie Duffy for displaying a thorough understanding of fractional quantities, Bayley Dent for accepting feedback with a positive attitude and Claudia Harrison for applying knowledge of fractions quickly and accurately.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Congratulations everyone for a fantastic Grandparents Day celebration. We had a wonderful time entertaining our families and showing them around our classroom. St Joseph’s Day was another great day for Kinder. We loved all the fun activities at the pool and a big thank you to Harry and Freyer’s Mum, who made us delicious cupcakes. Next week we're off to Cooee Lodge to visit the elderly and wish them Happy Easter. In our classroom we are working hard to write stories and are continuing to work on sounding out words. In Maths we are exploring triangles and ordering numbers. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

What a lovely morning we had this morning celebrating Grandparents Day! It was fabulous to see so many family and friends at our school. This week Year 1 has been focusing on the ‘ai’ sound in phonics and our English unit allowed us to investigate nouns and noun groups and build compound sentences with conjunctions. In Maths we have been superimposing shapes to compare the area and ordering them from smallest to largest. We had a fabulous time on Tuesday celebrating St Joseph’s Day. A huge thank you toSemmler, GIlmore and Foran families for our delicious cupcakes, we certainly enjoyed them! We hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

 What a great week we have had! We all enjoyed celebrating our patron saint, St Joseph on Tuesday. He is a fabulous example for us to live our lives by and we enjoyed celebrating his special day. A special thank you to Piper’s mum Racquel, Georgie’s mum Dannielle and Caroline’s mum Kristy who made absolutely delicious cupcakes for us to enjoy on the day. We also thank the Year 6 children for entertaining us with their synchronised swimming and providing the fun in the pool. We were so excited to welcome our family and friends along today for Grandparents Day, we enjoyed performing for you and showing you what we have been up to in the classroom so far this year. Thank you to all of the special people who were able to take time out of their day to join us today, we really appreciate it. Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

What a week it has been at Joey’s. We enjoyed a special Mass and activities at the pool for St Joseph’s Day on Tuesday. A big thank you to Jodie Peart for preparing our scrumptious cupcakes. Today was Grandparents Day. Year 3 had a wonderful time performing for all our visitors and showing them around our classroom. Our spelling focus has been the long ‘o’ phoneme and we are continuing to learn the many spelling rules associated with making plurals. We wrote didactic cinquain poems about our grandparents which you may have seen displayed in our classroom today. In Mathematics the students have been learning how to locate positions by coordinating horizontal and vertical references. We also sat the Reading, Language Conventions and Numeracy components of NAPLAN. Year 3 completed these tests with diligence and we commend them for 'Giving of Their Best'. Well done!   
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

What a wonderful day we had today celebrating Grandparents Day! It was wonderful to see so many family and friends in attendance. Congratulations to Year 6 on their fabulous entertainment. We also enjoyed a fun filled day on Tuesday celebrating St Joseph’s Day. A huge thank you to the Riley, Godber and Alexander families for making delicious cupcakes for us to enjoy. In class we’ve been writing narratives and trying hard to follow the structure we learnt whilst reading "All About Oliver". In Maths we’ve been exploring chance and data. We’ve been looking at column graphs and the elements needed to create a successful column graph. We are looking forward to gathering donations and participating in the ‘March for Melanoma’. This is a great opportunity to raise awareness and funds to support this great cause. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

It has been another busy week here in Year 5! Congratulations to all Year 5 students for completing their NAPLAN assessments this past week. I am so proud of you all and truly believe you all ‘gave of your best’. I also want to congratulate you on how well you performed at Cooee lodge last Friday. You all were wonderful and put a smile on lots of faces. Thank you to all those who brought in something to share. In Maths we have continued to learn all about fractions and have started to learn about adding and subtracting them. In Religion we are learning all about the Easter Story and the events that led up to Jesus’ crucifixion. We had so much fun on St Joseph’s day. We received our Junior Josephite certificates and had lots of fun at the pool. Thank you to Caitlin and her mum, Gai-Maree for our yummy cupcakes!  They were delicious!  Thank you also to all those who came along to Grandparents Day today, we hope you enjoyed our performance and walking around our classroom. A special thanks to Year 6 as well - what a fantastic performance of the Pop King, Queen, Prince and Princess. Have a fabulous weekend.
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

WOW! What a week at St Joeys! As you may know, we have been busily preparing for some very special events which were held this week! St Joseph’s Day on Tuesday was celebrated with a beautiful Mass, followed by celebrations at the pool. What a fun time! The Year 6 students are to be congratulated on their fantastic synchronised swimming performance! We hope you all had a wonderful time participating in our novelty pool activities, it is always a fun and fabulous day! Thank you to Lucy Zell, Jocelyn Altmann, Lucas Riley, Oliver Peart, Holly Wykes, Chloe Alexander, Mackenzie Skinner, Claudia Harrison, Isabelle Peart, Alana Spora, Mitch Cosier and Bill Ryan for providing some yummy cupcakes for us all to enjoy!  In the classroom we have been finishing off our Greek God research projects, learning about nominalisation in Grammar and learning about quantity chance in Mathematics. In PDH we have begun further exploring the vital skills that help us succeed in school and in life. These include: empathy, communication, perspective taking, respectful disagreement, assertiveness, emotional management and problem solving. All really relatable topics for our Year 6 students. Finally, one of the biggest celebrations of the year, ‘Grandparents Day’ has finally come and gone and we were absolutely thrilled with the number of grandparents, parents, family and friends who attended. It is such a wonderful celebration for every student of the school and we absolutely enjoyed all of the dances and songs performed today. Well done to all those involved. Thank you! Have a magnificent weekend!
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

Dubbo Junior Rugby Club

The Dubbo Junior Rugby Club's 2024 Saturday Competition now has registrations open and is looking for players aged from 11 years of age.  Training is Monday and Thursday from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

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