ABOUT - Term 3 Week 8 - 12 September 2024

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

Before you talk - listen, before you react - think, before you criticise - wait,

before you pray - forgive, before you quit - try!

POLDING ATHLETICS

We wish our 4 super athletes the best of luck as they compete at the NSW Catholic Polding Athletics Championships to be held in Newcastle tomorrow, Friday, 13 September.  Our athletes and their events include:  Katie - Junior Discus, Junior Long Jump, 10 years 100m and  Junior 200 m, Layla - Junior Shot Put, Thomas - Senior MC Discus, Senior MC Shot Put, Rose - Junior High Jump.  A super achievement by all these students to reach this level of competition.

LUNCHTIME CRICKET SESSIONS

On Monday, we held the last of our four lunchtime cricket sessions.  Thank you to Matt and Lachlan from Cricket NSW who were wonderful with the 44 primary students who participated in the sessions, teaching them valuable skills for the upcoming cricket season.

YEAR 3 IS OFF TO THE ZOO!

“We’re all going to the zoo, zoo, zoo – how about you, you, you.”  Well Year 3 is going to Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo next Thursday, 19 September.  This excursion is part of their Science and Technology unit, ‘Living World Animals’.  All the students have completed projects about an animal found at the zoo and when they go, they get to see their animal live.  The children will also attend a lesson at the zoo’s education centre.  It should be a great day.

YEAR 1 LITURGY

Year 1 will celebrate a class Liturgy next Thursday, 19 September at 10:30 a.m. in St Joseph's Church.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  Morning tea will follow the Liturgy.  Please bring a plate to share.

GOOD LUCK OLI!

We wish Oli safe travels as he sets off next week to Western Australia to compete in the Australian Junior Motocross Championships.  Oli will race later this month in Bunbury WA in the 65cc 10-12 years and 85cc 9-12 years classes on the 1.8km sand-based Shrubland MX Park track, which we are sure will provide a challenge for all riders!  We can't wait to hear of Oli's adventures and wish both he and the rest of the team from NSW the very best of luck!

P&F WORKING BEE

The P&F Association will be holding a working bee at school this Sunday, 15 September from 2:00 p.m. to move all of the P&F gear into the newly built shed.  If you can assist, it would be greatly appreciated as many hands do make light work!  Just turn up on the day.

NEW STALL AT THE FETE - 'RAFFLE BASKETS'

The Fete Committee is excited to announce that there will be a new stall at this year's fete - Raffle Baskets.  This stall requires support from our families and we have today sent home a flyer with each child.

We are asking for donations of items from each child and the flyer your child has received today will detail the class theme for their raffle basket, eg. Kinder students have been asked to purchase a gift, of any value, that relates to 'Gardening'.  All items donated from each class will be made into a class hamper, meaning we will have seven different themed hampers (one from each year).

At the fete the hampers will be on display and children/adults can purchase tickets for $1.00 each.  They then place their ticket into the relevant box of the prize or prizes they would like to win.  Towards the end of the fete, the raffles will be drawn and the seven lucky hamper winners announced.

Donations can be brought in to school at any time between now and 25 October.  These items are to be placed in your child’s class basket.

WE ARE STILL IN NEED OF A COW OR PODDY CALF FOR THE FETE

We are still in need a quiet cow, or poddy calf, that can be led around the yard at this year's fete for the Cow Pat Lotto.  If anyone has a suitable cow, could you please let us know.

STATEMENT BY THE BISHOP OF BATHURST ON THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CEDB LTD

'GOIN' TO GIL' FESTIVAL

On Monday, we sent home a 'Goin' to Gil' Festival Weekend Program with each child.  We hope lots of our families will get involved in the festival.  On the back of the program is a form for those children who would like to participate in the Windmill Walk & Talk and Colour Run, Watermelon Eating Competition and/or the Coo-ee Call Competition.  You can register online for these events, or alternatively complete the form and return it to  Council or drop it back to school by Wednesday, 25 September.

'GOIN' TO GIL' STREET PARADE

Our school has been invited to participate in the 'Goin' to Gil' Street Parade, to be held on Saturday, 28 September commencing at 11:00 a.m.  A note was sent home yesterday with the eldest child in each family.  We would love to see many children from our school involved in this event.  If you would like your child to participate, please complete the tear-off slip and return it to school by next Wednesday, 25 September.

ST JOSEPH'S PARISH JUBILEE MASS

Sunday, 27 October - 9:30 a.m.

MORE COMMITTEE MEMBERS REQUIRED FOR ST JOSEPH'S DEBUTANTE BALL

Thank you to Jemma Burrell who has also offered to be on the committee for the St Joseph's P&F Debutante Ball.  We now have two committee members and to ease the workload, we still need more volunteers.  If you can assist, would you please contact the ladies in the office as soon as possible.

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 a 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 a 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

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Kohen Walker for trying hard to work happily in the classroom, Jack Jeffery for great enthusiasm in our concert practice, Eleanor Foran for great illustrations and sentence work and  Daniel Herbig for trying hard to remember his sight words.

YEAR 1: Clark Baker for being a positive participant in concert practice, Thomas Riley for working hard in Phonics, Becky Hutchison for trying her best in Maths and Piper Lummis for using interesting noun groups to describe the Gruffalo.

YEAR 2: Molly Adams for great grooving during concert practice and Evie Adams, Georgie Kirkwood and Lisa- Marie Vermeulen for creating a thoughtful blanket of her most precious things.

YEAR 3: George Taylor for always completing his work quietly and diligently, Bridie Moeris for trying hard each week with Problem A Day and Operations and Mary Lesslie for using different strategies to solve division problems. 

YEAR 4: Georgia Riley for a fabulous effort in Maths Operations, Regan Godber for great commitment to home reading, Katie Colwell for terrific work identifying sounds in Spelling and Charlie Cruickshank for working diligently with Mrs Stewart.

YEAR 5: Mitchell Beaton and Oscar Medd for writing great letters from the perspective of the main character from our class novel.

YEAR 6:  Connor Jones-Copelin for seeking clarification and support when completing complex tasks, Lucy Profke for receiving feedback  and taking on extra responsibilities with a positive attitude, Lily Johnson-Honey for trying hard to master the long division strategy and Kurt McBurnie for great improvement in his Literacy Pro Lexile level.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

This week Kinder focused on words and pictures that began with the sound 'Z'. We all agreed that a zebra was the best example. We watched a quick video clip containing some interesting zebra facts and used some of these  in our imaginative story. Our stories will be published in the Year Book at the end of the year. During Maths we completed our portfolio task and dived into exploring measurement and the concept of heavy and light objects. We created a supermarket in our classroom and predicted the weight of shopping items from heaviest to lightest. In Religion we researched information about the Bible and learnt that it is made up of over 70 books divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. We used watercolour paints to complete a beautiful castle in Art and we are continuing to practise for our concert. The costume note will also be sent home today. Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Alison Newstead & Miss Lisa  Harvey

Year 1

This week in Science with Mrs Spora, Year 1 has been investigating light. We explored where light comes from and how it creates shadows. In Grammar we learnt about commas and how we use them correctly in lists and ideas and during Phonics we looked at the ‘ai’ sound. During Maths Year 1 has continued to work with arrays and looked at how we can use arrays to measure area. Year 1 has also been busily rehearsing for our concert, it is starting to come together and we are getting excited to share it with you next term. The costume note was sent home this week, let us know if you haven’t received it or if you are having difficulty finding the required items. We are looking forward to celebrating our Liturgy next Thursday and invite everyone to bring a plate to share for morning tea. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Julia Jeffery & Mrs Prue Best

Year 2

Year 2 have been learning basic coding during Digital Technology sessions and the students are picking it up really quickly. We finished building our mini houses last week during Science and were surprised with the results of the experiment when the hair dryer was used to try and blow them down! We started looking at 2 new texts during our Literature unit, “The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” and “The Heart and the Bottle”. We have enjoyed the storyline of the two books. During Personal Development and Health we discussed safe places and people we can trust. In Maths our focus has been volume and we have also been looking at the value of money. Students have been looking at sentence structure during Sentence A Day and then transferring this knowledge to our writing tasks. Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Year 3 celebrated a beautiful Mass this morning to finish off our Religion unit for this term, ‘Called to be Saints’. Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us. In English we rewrote the ending of "Rowan of Rin" from the perspective of a different character. We focused on using dialogue and saying verbs to develop characterisation and used varied sentence types such as declarative, exclamatory and interrogative, along with simple, compound and complex. We published these stories and you will be able to read them in their portfolios. We also drew a storyboard of images of 6 key moments that highlight Rowan’s personality and character traits, attempting to focus on how Rowan changes throughout the text. In Maths we linked multiplication and division fact families using arrays and generated multiplication fact families for multiples of 2 and 4, 5 and 10. We wish everyone a great weekend.
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Swade Wilson

Year 4

We only have 2 chapters left to read of our novel and whilst we are excited to continue reading to find out what happens, we also don’t want it to end. Definitely a sign of a good book! We have experienced a range of emotions in the latest chapter and some of us even had happy and sad tears. We have watched the relationship between Quin and Davinia strengthen as they work together to free Allie and right the wrongs of their family. In Writing we’ve written another diary entry, however this time it was from Davinia’s perspective. We are trying to include exclamatory and interrogative sentences in our writing to engage the reader.  The concert costume note has been sent home. Please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy the weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

Another busy week has flown by! In Maths we are exploring different angles. We used protractors to calculate angles we found in our name which was a bit tricky but fun. In Digi Tech we continued to play with the micro bits, programming them to play scissors, paper, rock. During our novel unit this week, we watched an interview with the author of our novel, Pip Harry. This gave us context as to why she wrote the novel and where her ideas came from. During Religion we are looking at the Creation story. We read about the days of Creation and drew images to help us remember. Our concert is slowly coming together, we are working hard perfecting our dances and look forward to performing for everyone. Have a fabulous weekend.
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 6

Wow, it’s hard to believe we are already at the end of Week 8! We have been very busy practising our concert dances and while we can’t give anything away, they are spectacular! As a conclusion to our novel study, we have been watching the action-packed movie, “Stormbreaker” and are all thoroughly enjoying seeing the story come to life on screen. In Maths we have continued focusing on interpreting and applying 24 hour time. During Grammar we have been building our knowledge of figurative language and have been focusing on identifying and using idioms, alliteration and hyperbole in our writing. Our Writing this week has continued to focus on the power of persuasive texts. We have been fact finding and brainstorming about a variety of negative social impacts in society and will continue to create our persuasive texts about our chosen topic. In Religion we have been focusing on the Rosary as we move through our unit of focus about Mary. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Meichelle Schier, Mrs Donna Colwell, Mrs Haylee Barry

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