ABOUT - Term 2 Week 8 - 20 June 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

The success of teamwork:
Coming together is a beginning,
Keeping together is progress,
Working together is success.

GUMS ATHLETICS CHAMPIONS

Congratulations to all the students for their participation, enthusiasm, skill and the sportsmanship displayed at the athletics carnival last Friday at McGrane Oval.  Despite the rather chilly conditions, the carnival went ahead with the mighty Gums being the winners at the end of the day.  Many thanks to the staff, parents, family and friends who organised and ran the carnival.  A team will now be selected to represent St Joey’s at the Western Region Athletics Carnival to be held in Dubbo next term. 

EISTEDDFOD EXCELLENCE

Congratulations to our verse speaking choirs who performed so well at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod yesterday.  It was a pleasure to watch the performances.  Thank you to the students for their great contribution and to the teachers for their fantastic preparation.  Well done!  Our results included:

Infants Verse Speaking Choir – SECOND

Adjudicator’s comments included: “Fantastic!  Lovely clean entrance.  Good start!  Excellent placement.”  "Focused from the top.  Incredible timing.  Good diction and projection."  "Again, fantastic timing.  Good actions, timed well.  Finished well and polished exit.  Incredibly exact timing and physicality.  Fantastic ensemble work!"   "Well done."

Junior Primary Verse Speaking Choir – FIRST

Adjudicator’s comments included: “Fantastic!  Precise work and entrance.  Good vocal range and expression.  Good story telling.  Expressive work.  Timing and diction both excellent."  "Nice use of timing and emotional range.  Good variation in pitch and volume." 

Senior Primary Verse Speaking Choir – FIRST

Adjudicator’s comments included: “Fantastic work.  Focused work.  Excellent diction and projection.  Impeccable timing and physicality. Kept focus."  "Fun and well executed group work.  Great to see and hear expressive vocals and storytelling.  Physicality precise throughout."

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES AT THE EISTEDDFOD

Congratulations to all our students who performed an individual item at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod yesterday.  It is a wonderful achievement to get up on stage on your own and perform – well done!  The students who participated and their placings are as follows:

Isabelle Peart - Second, Heidi Colwell - Highly Commended, Katie Colwell - First and Second, Regan Godber - First and Highly Commended, Billy Jeffery - Highly Commended, Tiffany Fong - Highly Commended, Thomas Colwell - Highly Commended and Highly Commended,  Indiana Jeffery and Allie Claire Williams.

'LITTLE WINGS' YEAR 6 FUNDRAISER

We had a wonderful day on Tuesday, as we all arrived at school out of uniform and some of us even wore 'wings', as we raised money in support of the 'Little Wings' charity.  Thanks to all of our families for supporting this charity and to Year 6 for their fundraising initiative.  We managed to raise $401.60, which is an amazing effort!

YEAR 2 RURAL MUSEUM VISIT

Our Year 2 students can't wait to visit to the Gilgandra Rural Museum tomorrow, Friday, 21 June.  This excursion is part of their History unit, 'The Past In The Present' and it should be most interesting investigating the way things were in days gone by.

GOOD LUCK AKHIRO

We wish Akhiro Baker the best of luck as he competes in the NSWPSSA Rugby League Championships in Wollongong next Tuesday 25 to Thursday, 27 June as part of the NSWCPS Polding team.  It is a fantastic achievement to reach this high level of competition.  Well done Akhiro!

MUSIC STUDENTS TO PERFORM AT SCHOOL ASSEMBLY

Next Tuesday, 25 June, our music students who attend weekly lessons at school through the Macquarie Conservatorium of Music, will come together to perform in an ensemble at our school assembly.  We look forward to hearing what the students have been learning during their music lessons.

SEMESTER 1 REPORTS

All Semester One School Reports will be published on Compass next Friday, 28 June.  A hard copy of the report will NOT be sent home.  If you have any problems accessing your child's report on Compass, please let us know.

PARENT / TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Parent / Teacher Interviews will be held during the last week of term on Monday, 1 July, Tuesday, 2 July and Wednesday, 3 July.  Interviews will be held from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. and are set at 15-minute intervals.  Interviews need to be booked through the Compass Parent Portal.  Please view the below instruction sheet on how to access and book your interviews.  If anyone has any difficulty, please contact the office.  All staff members are looking forward to meeting parents and discussing your child's progress.

Please note that Year 6 parents will need to select either Mrs Schier or Mrs Barry, depending on who is their child's main teacher.

SCHOOL PHOTOS

The school photos which were taken in Term 1, were delivered to school today.  Photos packages were handed out to students this afternoon to take home.  Those people who ordered photos online and specifically indicated that they wished to collect their packs in person, can collect their photos from the school office.

POSITION VACANT: ASSISTED TRAVEL SUPPORT OFFICER

The Department of Education currently has a position to fill to assist with the transport of a student with additional needs to travel safely to and from school.  This position is for three days a week.

The Assisted School Travel Program (ASTP) plays a significant role in meeting the needs of eligible students with disability by providing free specialised transport to and from school where parents and carers are unable to provide or arrange transport for the student either fully or in part.

Benefits & Perks:

• Work reduced hours, twice a day and time to pursue other interests in your free time
• ‘Feel-good’ work opportunity while giving back to your local community
• Providing support to the disability community and their families
• Only work school terms and enjoy school holidays

As an ATSO you will:

• Play a significant role in meeting the needs of eligible students with disability by ensuring they get to school safely and ready to engage in learning
• Work with the school, parents, contractors and drivers to provide a high level of supervision
• Be provided training in Child Protection, Code of Conduct, Anaphylaxis, emergency care and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
• Be provided with individual training on the specific travel support needs of students on transport.

Further information on the role can be found at:

https://education.nsw.gov.au/public-schools/astp/atsos  

All successful applicants need to obtain a Working with Children Check, obtain the necessary proof of identity and complete the Expression of Interest form online.

HOW TO APPLY: The EOI and documents should be sent to ASTP at atso.astp@det.nsw.edu.au

PUPIL FREE DAY - Friday, 5 July

The last day of this term, Friday, 5 July, will be a pupil free day.  All Joey's staff will be engaging in a Religious Retreat in Dubbo.

TERM 3 CANTEEN ROSTER

We are starting to put together a Term 3 Canteen Roster.  If you can assist in the canteen during Term 3, please click on the below link and indicate your preferred day and also any dates that you are unavailable.  A Term 3 Roster will be sent home early next term.

ENROL NOW FOR KINDER 2025

We are now taking enrolments for our Kinder class of 2025.  If you have a child ready to start school next year, please call in and pick up an enrolment pack or phone the office and we can email a pack to you.

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Jack Jeffery and Freyer Williams for competing in the Individual Nursery Rhymes at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod.

YEAR 1:  Chase Hodges for wonderful work in Maths, Clark Baker for being an enthusiastic learner and Liam Mellor and Hamish Burrell for being kind and cooperative members of Year 1.

YEAR 2: Evie Adams for a fantastic information report about ‘Giraffes’, Molly Adams for producing a great information report with her super chrome book skills and Charlie Budworth for working hard to solve problems in Problem a Day and Operations.

YEAR 3: McKenzie Harvey for a great effort with arrays in Maths and Cruz Hazelton for great use of verb tense in his Sentence a Day.

YEAR 4:  Bella Hammond for approaching her work with a positive attitude, Oliver Buckley for working hard in Comprehension, Katie Colwell for great work in Maths Operations and Laycee Hazelton for using feedback to improve her learning.

YEAR 5:  Darcy Adams for an improved effort in achieving a high score in his Literacy Pro tests and Tex Mudford for great work writing poems in our Novel unit. 

YEAR 6:  Lucy Profke for using strategies to solve the perimeter and area of rectangles and triangles accurately, Heidi Colwell for great understanding of the sacraments and their purpose, Harry Thurlow for consistent improvement in his fluency sprints each week and Akhiro Baker for asking clarifying questions in Maths to better understand difficult concepts.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

This week Kinder has focused on pictures and words that begin with the 'Bb' sound in phonics and spelling activities. Everyone has been doing a great job writing an information report about sheep and discussing where wool comes from. We created some colourful and crazy cats in Art using oil pastels and paint after reading the story, “Mrs Dishy Washy’s Cat”. In the Literature units we continued comparing and revising adjectives, nouns and verbs as well as sequencing the beginning, middle and ending of texts covered so far this term. What we see in the church has been closely looked at during our Religion lessons. We’ve worked hard on Maths portfolio tasks covering number, time and measurement. Congratulations to all students involved in the eisteddfod this week. We are very proud of you! Thank you Year 6 for organising the out of uniform day on Tuesday to raise money for Little Wings. There were some beautiful wings around Joeys! Have a lovely weekend everyone.
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

Congratulations to all our Year 1 and 2 students on your fabulous effort at the eisteddfod yesterday. You all did a wonderful job and should be very proud of yourselves. This week in English we read the book, "The March of the Ants" by Ursula Dubosarsky. We looked at the sentence structure the author used in the text and identified prepositions throughout the story.  Year 1 then used this knowledge in their own writing as we took the ants on a new expedition. In Maths we explored halves. We identified that not all halves look the same and discovered that when we partition or share a whole into two equal parts, we have created halves. We continued our research on toys from the past in our History unit this week. We explored a number of popular toys from the past and began recording interesting information on each toy. During Science, we had fun planning and conducting an investigation on how to separate a mixture of solids. We discovered the finer ingredients were able to easily fall through the smaller holes in the sieve, while the larger ingredients could not. We hope you have a great weekend!
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

Wow, what a week! Congratulations to all of the Joey’s verse speaking choirs, especially our Years 1 & 2 students. We are so proud of you all, you ‘Gave of your Best’ and performed with great school pride. Well done to Indi and Thomas who also performed an individual item at the eisteddfod, you are very brave. We had fun on Tuesday, dressing up in our wings and raising money for ‘Little Wings’. In amongst all of the fun we have been learning about formal and informal units of measure in Maths. We read the fables, “The Lion and the Mouse” and “The Hare and the Tortoise” and discussed the important messages in these stories. We are going to write our own fables next week with our own special message. We are looking forward to our excursion tomorrow to the Rural Museum and will enjoy discovering all of the olden day items. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Congratulations to Years 3 and 4 on a fantastic eisteddfod performance yesterday. Every student practised hard and this showed on the day. In class this week we’ve learnt about the many letter patterns for the ‘aw’ phoneme. We also explored how metaphors are a type of figurative language that authors use to describe something as being something else and wrote some of our own to describe objects from the text, “Piano Fingers” by Caroline Majerl. We also learnt that authors use symbols to represent ideas, add meaning and emotions in a text. We identified and recorded the symbols Caroline Magerl used in "Piano Fingers" and wrote a paragraph explaining why we think Caroline Magerl included the symbol in the text, how it enhanced the meaning and the impact it had on the reader. During Maths we modeled square numbers and recorded them in numerical and diagrammatic form. We also modeled and applied the commutative property of multiplication. We finished off an eisteddfod themed artwork by adding watercolour paints to the background and during Relgion we wondered about the emotions the women experienced when they visited the tomb on Easter Sunday. We hope you have an enjoyable weekend.
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

What a fabulous day we had at the eisteddfod yesterday. We were so proud of how well the children recited the poems, used expressive faces and the discipline they showed to keep their eyes on the conductor. Well done to each and every student! Hut Day is fast approaching and it seems everyone is busy working on their hut or about to start! The children have been working on their speeches both in class and at home for homework, they should all be finished early next week so they have time to practise delivering them. In Maths we have been learning about factors and multiples and also doubling and halving. During our Literature unit we have been looking at similes and had a go at writing some of our own.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the Athletics Carnival last week. It was wonderful to see Year 4’s enthusiasm and participation in events. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

Another week has whizzed by! It was amazing to see everyone dressed in wings on Tuesday to support the ‘Little Wings’ organisation. In our Novel unit this week we have been learning about Haiku poems and have been writing our own, while in Text Types we have been working on our Planet information reports. We will be presenting these to the class in Weeks 9 and 10. During Maths we have looked at coordinates and how to read them and place them onto maps. We played battleships against each other as a fun way to support this learning. All our hard work and consistent practices have paid off. Years 5/6 placed first at the eisteddfod yesterday. It was a competitive round with lots of great poems but together we worked as a team and took home gold. Congratulations to everyone who participated in the eisteddfod, you all performed wonderfully. Have a great weekend!
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

What a fantastic day we had yesterday at the eisteddfod! All our practice and hard work paid off with a 1st place trophy. Congratulations Year 5 and 6. In Maths we are solving addition and subtraction problems with decimals and are identifying adverbial phrases in Grammar. In preparation for our Canberra excursion we have begun researching places we will be visiting and we will be using this information to create a group report. In  Digi Tech we had fun creating code to drive and draw using Sphero robots and in Science we are researching an individual element from the periodic table. Today we celebrated our class Mass ‘Love One Another’ and thank all our family and friends who could join us. Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Haylee Barry & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER