ABOUT - Term 1 Week 5 - 6 March 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Grandparents are like angels, sent by God to unconditionally love you and look after you.
Happy Grandparents Day!

GRANDPARENTS DAY

We had a wonderful day today celebrating Grandparents Day.  Our Year 6 leaders were amazing welcoming all our visitors to the school, which set the tone for a great afternoon.  Jakirah, Braxten and Jackson gave the Welcome to Country, followed by the whole school singing "We Welcome You".  Year 6 then revisited a timeless classic from the 1970's as we welcomed Danny and the T-Birds and Sandy with the Pink Ladies from GREASE to our school for an amazing performance of "Summer Nights", "We Go Together", "Greased Lightning" and then everyone joined in the classic "You're the One That I Want".  The students then performed a lovely rendition of the "Irish Blessing".  To conclude the afternoon, our visitors joined the children for a tour of our school.  Congratulations to the students for making it such a fabulous Grandparents Day!

WESTERN REGION SWIMMING CARNIVAL

Congratulations to all the Joey’s students who swam at the Western Region Swimming Carnival held at Wellington last Thursday.  A special mention to the following two students who will now represent Western Region at the Diocesan Carnival to be held in Dubbo next Tuesday, 11 March:  Darcy Adams – 1st 13 years 50m Freestyle and Chloe Heffer - 2nd Senior 50 m Breaststroke. Well done to you both!

Well done also to those students who placed in the top 5 swimmers in their individual events:  Chloe Heffer - 4th Senior 50 m Backstroke, 4th Senior 200 m Individual Medley, 5th Open 100 m Freestyle, 5th 12 years 50 m Freestyle, 5th Senior 50 m Butterfly, Alice Peart - 4th 11 years 50 m Breaststroke, Hannah Peart - 4th Junior 50 m Butterfly, 5th 10 years 50 m Freestyle, Layla Walker - 4th 11 years 50 m Backstroke, 5th 11 years 50 m Butterfly.  What a wonderful achievement!

DIOCESAN AFL TRIALS

We wish Mitchell Beaton the very best of luck as he travels to Bathurst tomorrow, Friday, 7 March to participate in the Primary Diocesan AFL Trials.  We can't wait to hear how Mitch goes at the trials.

PROJECT COMPASSION

This is a Lenten Program that Caritas Australia focuses on each year.  Caritas Australia is a Catholic agency for overseas aid and development.  Project Compassion boxes have been sent home with the eldest child in each family today.  Whenever you are emptying your pockets perhaps you could 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 Project Compassion box back to school by the end of term so all our donations can be presented during the Holy Thursday Mass on 17 April.  Please encourage your child to give to this worthy cause as it is a wonderful opportunity for children to share what they have with those less fortunate.

YEARS 1 & 4 SUNDAY MASS

Sunday, 9 March - 9:30 a.m.

Our Year 1 and 4 classes are preparing the Mass to be celebrated in St Joseph's Church this Sunday, 9 March at 9:30 a.m.  Everyone is invited to attend.

YEAR 6 TO PERFORM AT SENIOR CITIZENS LUNCH

Our Year 6 students will be attending the Senior Citizens' Luncheon next Monday, 10 March at 11:30 a.m. to do a rendition of their performance from Grandparents Day.  We hope the Senior Citizens enjoy the Year 6 performance.

NAPLAN ONLINE TESTING

Students in Years 3 and 5 will participate in the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) online, commencing next Wednesday, 12 March with Writing and continuing in Week 7 with Reading Conventions of Language and Numeracy.

HEAR OUR HEART EAR BUS PROJECT

Representatives from the Hear Our Heart Ear Bus Project will be visiting our school during Week 7.  Yesterday, Kinder students were given a permission note and checklist with a letter from the Hear Our Heart organisation.  All other student notes remain current from previous years. We are working with Hear Our Heart to look at your child’s medical history, your checklist and the teachers' checklist to prioritise and target the children who we feel need a test according to the checklists.  However, if you are concerned about your child’s hearing at any stage throughout the year, please speak with your child’s teacher.

ST JOSEPH'S DAY CELEBRATIONS

We have planned a day full of fun and celebrations for Wednesday, 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 noon – Mass
1:00 p.m. - Class picnics at pool
1:30 p.m. - Year 6 Synchronised Swimming, 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.

KINDER WELCOME LITURGY

Thursday, 20 March - 10:30 a.m.

We cannot wait to officially welcome our Kinder class of 2025 at the Kinder Welcome Liturgy which will be held during Week 7 on Thursday, 20 March in St Joseph’s Church at 10:30 a.m.  Everyone is invited to attend, especially the family and friends of the Kinder children and their Year 6 buddies.  It is a fantastic celebration where we get to learn a little more about the newest members of the Joey’s family.  Morning tea will follow the Liturgy and we ask Year 6 parents to please bring a plate.

COLLECTION NOTICE FOR PARENTS/GUARDIANS

On Monday, a collection notice from the Department of Education was sent out on the Compass Portal to all of our families.  The purpose of this note is to advise families that the Department of Education will be requesting the school to provide residential addresses and other information as detailed in the note.  We have attached a further copy of the notice below.

ST JOSEPH'S P & F DEBUTANTE BALL

Saturday, 22 March - Only Two Weeks Away!

Mark your calendar and spread the word!  Get your friends together for a great night out at the St Joseph's P & F Debutante Ball.  Attending the ball is a great way to show your support for what is one of the P & F’s biggest fundraisers of the year!

The ball will be held on Saturday, 22 March with doors opening at 7:30 p.m and the debutantes being presented at 8:00 p.m.  The dress code is black tie. 

Tickets will be available for sale to the general public from this Friday, 7 March at 5:00 pm. and can be purchased online at 123tix by clicking on the below link or searching "Debutante Ball" on 123tix .

https://www.123tix.com.au/events/47376/2025-st-josephs-pf-debutante-ball 

Tickets are $50 per adult, which includes a seated supper and one complementary drink (beer, wine or soft drink).

Spectator tickets may be purchased online at 123tix or at the door on the night. The cost for a spectator ticket is $12 per adult or child.  Spectators must leave the premises at the conclusion of the formal proceedings.

There will be live music by Brad Haling and full bar facilities with EFTPOS available.

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 FOR THE BALL

A working bee will be held to clean and set up tables and chairs and to hang fairy lights for the St Joseph's P & F Debutante Ball on Sunday, 16 March in the Shire Hall from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

A further working bee to decorate the hall and set up the smoker's tent will be held on Friday, 21 March from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

We are also in need of volunteers to to help out on the night of the ball in the bar (must have a current RSA), to help finish and serve food platters and helpers to wash and clean up.  The following day from 9:00 a.m. we need helpers to clean up and pull down the smoker's tent.

We are also asking for donations of sweets for dessert at the ball.  These can be dropped to school on Friday, 21 March, or delivered directly to the Shire Hall on Friday 21 or Saturday, 22 March.

It would be wonderful to have as many volunteers as possible to help at the working bees and to donate some sweet treats - many hands make light work!  You don't need to come for the whole time, even if you can help out for an hour or two it would be appreciated.

A Ball Helper's Roster has today been sent home.  If you can help out, please complete the relevant sections of the form and return it to school by next Wednesday, 12 March.  

2025 CITY OF DUBBO EISTEDDFOD ENTRIES

INDIVIDUAL ENTRIES

Individual entries for the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod are now being received.  A number of our students choose to perform an individual poem at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod each year.  This is separate from our school verse speaking choirs in which all children from Years 1 to 6 participate. The teachers will assist any children wishing to enter the eisteddfod with their selection of a poem.  Transport to individual events must be arranged by the parents.  The proposed dates for the eisteddfod are 16 to 20 June.

KINDER/YEAR 1 NURSERY RHYMES

At the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod, Kinder and Year 1 children (six years and under) are invited to enter the singing section – Nursery Rhymes in Costume.  In the past, children who have entered have enjoyed it greatly and gained much from the experience.  If your child wishes to enter you must be prepared to take your child to Dubbo on the day and prepare the costume.  Parents are to help their child select a nursery rhyme and we will then assist them practice at school. The proposed dates for this section of the eisteddfod are 3 to 5 June.

Children who wish to enter one of the above sections for their age group should fill in the tear-off slip that was sent home with last week's About and return it to the school office no later than Wednesday, 13 March.  The age of the child shall be taken as at 31 December, 2025, ie, the age the child is turning this year. 

2025 PARENT/COMMUNITY CHARTER

There are still a number of families who haven't yet approved the 2025 Parent/Community Charter that was sent by the CEDB to all families in the Bathurst Diocese in Week 3. 

Please follow the below instructions on how to complete and agree to the Charter through the Compass app on your mobile phone:

• Open the Compass App.
• Click 'More' in the bottom right hand corner and then click on the 'Course Confirmation' icon.
• Click on the '2025 Parent/Community Charter' (you will need to do one for each child).
• Follow the instructions on the screen, then click on 'I have read and accept the agreement above'.
• Type your full name into the box and click on 'Next'.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

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 were 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.

CATHOLIC SCHOOL PARENT SURVEY

Tell us about your experiences as a Catholic school parent and what you'd like to know more about.

We value every parent's thoughts and opinions!

The Council of Catholic School Parents (CCSP) would like to know how involved/engaged you feel you are in your child's learning at a NSW/ACT Catholic school, how connected you feel in your child's school, and your thoughts on how schools could enhance family-school partnerships.

This data informs the CCSP parent learning program and will provide them with valuable information about how the dioceses and schools are engaging with families.

Thank you so much for taking time out to provide  your feedback.

Please click the below link to go to the survey:

https://ccsp.schoolzineplus.com/survey/71

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Oliver Harland for sharing some great ideas about how to show kindness to his friends, Lottie Melhuish for reading her home reader with beautiful expression and enthusiasm and Elisha Robin for making an enormous effort to colour her grandparent’s picture with care. 

YEAR 1: Harry Harvey for adding great detail when retelling his favourite memory of his grandparents, Kyro McKenzie for always being a helpful member of our Year 1 class and Angel Dinto for using her creative flair to add detail to her writing.

YEAR 2: Becky Hutchison and Ally Wykes for creating some delicious ice cream artworks, Maka Matekenya for great sounding out in Phonics and Alex Moeris for being a super keen worker. 

YEAR 3: Molly Adams for great work identifying the correct homophones, Samson Starr for super partitioning of large numbers in Maths and Billie Toomey for fantastic work identifying the long ‘A’ phoneme in Spelling.

YEAR 4: Allie Claire Williams for a fabulous effort writing a paragraph about arriving at Aunt Janine’s, Madeleine Foran for great work writing tension building events from Oliver’s perspective and Hannah Peart for working diligently in all areas.

YEAR 5: Rose Howard for asking clarifying questions in Maths to improve her understanding and Olivia Yates for always being willing to help others.

YEAR 6: Chloe Heffer for challenging herself in Maths and answering tricky questions with confidence and Charlie Howard for correctly identifying declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

It was so wonderful to perform today during our first Grandparents Day at St Joey's! We wish all of the grandparents and special elderly people in our lives a very happy Grandparents Day!  On Tuesday Kinder enjoyed some delicious pancakes to celebrate Pancake Tuesday. We also reflected on ways we could prepare ourselves for Lent. We began by making our Lenten promises followed by Mass to mark Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. During Maths we focused on the numeral '3' and investigated patterns in the environment. The children have all received a reading for the Kinder Welcome Liturgy in Week 7. It is stapled in the front of their homework book. Please practise this reading with your child each day. During Science we are exploring what happens to our environment when it rains…hopefully this will happen on the weekend!! We had fun creating a puddle with paint. Have a great weekend. 
Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery

Year 1

Thank you to all our lovely visitors who attended our school today for Grandparents Day. It was fantastic performing for you and showing you around our classroom and the work we’ve been doing so far this year. This week in English we have enjoyed writing a narrative journey about where we would go if we put on a magic hat that could take us anywhere, real or imagined. We worked hard to write sentences that not only told our audience where we would go, but what we would do there. We also completed a directed drawing of the main character of the book, "The Great Rabbit Chase" and wrote predictions about what we  thought this character would be like. We then read the book and discovered 'Gumboots' was a pet rabbit who escaped and went on a journey to find his babies in the park and then travelled home again. During Religion we learnt that Lent was a time of praying, giving and fasting and wrote some Lenten promises that were offered up during our Ash Wednesday Mass yesterday. During Maths we made all possible number combinations to ten with the help of two sided counters. Have a nice weekend!
Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

What a busy week we have had! It was so lovely to have so many family and friends at our Grandparents Day this afternoon. We hope you enjoyed our little performance, we certainly enjoyed showing you our classroom and all of the hard work we have been doing so far this term. We made Lenten promises and presented these at the Ash Wednesday Mass.  Now the hard part is to try to carry out and stick to the promises we made! Year 2 has completed some testing this week and achieved super results. We began preparing for our St Patrick’s Day Mass. Please keep practising your readings at home. Our Grammar focus has been verbs and we have been identifying and using action, saying and feeling verbs. During Maths we have been collecting data on various topics and using this to create different types of graphs. Thank you Year 6 for our delicious pancakes on Tuesday, you did a great job preparing and serving them with a smile.  Have a relaxing weekend!
Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

What a busy, but productive week we've had in Year 3! The students enjoyed the yummy pancakes that our Year 6 leaders topped and served to us for Pancake Tuesday. Yesterday, we attended the Ash Wednesday Mass in St Joseph's Church and thank Year 3 for their reverent behaviour. It was great to see all our loved ones at Grandparent's Day this afternoon and we hope you enjoyed our performance as much as we loved performing for you.  Have a wonderful weekend
Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

It was lovely to see so many people here to celebrate Grandparent’s Day with us this afternoon. The children enjoyed performing and showing off our classroom. In class, we’ve reached the complication of our novel and we are all riding through the emotions with the characters. I continue to be impressed by the conversations we are having around the plot and characters. We shared a lovely Ash Wednesday Mass yesterday, where we presented our Lenten promises. During Art we drew a wonderful coral reef artwork inspired by our novel character, Tilly and her love for the reef. We are looking forward to celebrating our class Mass this Sunday. Thank you to those children who will be joining us.  Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

We all had a wonderful time this afternoon for our Grandparent’s Day celebrations.  Thank you to all of our family and friends who attended and watched our mini concert and then looked through our classrooms. This week in Digi Tech with Mrs Jeffery, we are exploring the computer language of binary code, which uses only '0' and '1'. The students then endeavoured to write their names using this complicated language. In Maths we have begun extending our knowledge of fractions with a particular focus on equivalent fractions, whilst  Geography saw us writing about the Aboriginal people's cultural obligation to country through the care and nurturing of the land, water and sky. We then brainstormed additional ways we can care for our school environment using sustainable resources. Some great ideas included a rainwater tank, tap timers and a compost bin for food scraps. On Tuesday, we enjoyed some pancakes in preparation for the beginning of Lent with the money raised going to our foster child. Thank you Mrs Fuller and Year 6 for providing such a delicious treat. Have a great weekend.
Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

WOW! We can’t believe it is Week 5 already! Firstly, we would like to say thank you to everyone who came to celebrate our Ash Wednesday Mass with us. Welcome to Lent! We have been busy practising for Grandparents Day this week and it sure was a special gathering this afternoon. In the classroom we have been focussing on writing narratives, writing complex sentences and revising our past spelling words. In Religion we have continued discussing the Beatitudes and how we demonstrate these in our everyday lives. We also took some time to write our Lenten Promises and we encourage everyone to remember these throughout Lent and continue to work towards them. Maths has been quite tricky, revising decimals, percentages and fractions. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

DE-ESCALATION & OCCUPATIONAL VIOLENCE & AGGRESSION TRAINING COURSE

Sport NSW is providing a de-escalation and occupational violence and aggression training, with multiple courses to be rolled out across 2025.  This course is best suited to Club/Community Development Managers, Coordinators and Officers, Competition Management and Operations staff including venues, ground managers and key volunteers at the community sport level.  There is a face to face training session, facilitated by Resolution Education, to be held on Tuesday, 1 April from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Dubbo RSL Club, 178 Brisbane Street, Dubbo.  The cost is free and there is a maximum of 25 places in each course.  For more information please contact Paddy Rees, Project Coordinator, Sport NSW - Programs@sportnsw.com.au.