ABOUT - Term 2 Week 9 - 26 June 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

One small positive thought can change your whole day

BEAUTIFUL FIRST HOLY COMMUNION CELEBRATION

A beautiful Mass was held on Sunday morning in St Joseph’s Church as the parish and school community celebrated with the First Holy Communion class.  The church was filled with family, friends and parishioners to share this special time with these children.  Following Mass a wonderful celebration breakfast was held in the school hall. Congratulations to the parents, Fr Greg, Mrs Colwell and Miss Dobson for preparing the children so well. It was wonderful to have the support of so many - the school community for attending Mass and decorating the church and hall, the Year 2 parents who assisted at the breakfast and the families and friends of the First Communion Class who joined in the celebration.  Congratulations to our 2025 First Holy Communion Class comprising: Evie A, Molly A, Aabel A, John Erick B, Charlie B, Thomas C, Annabelle F, Elsie H, Indiana J, Grace J, Georgie K, Samuel L, Frankie M, Parthiv Rajesh N, Isabelle S, Samson S, Caroline T, Piper V, Edward W, Billie T, Henry M.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES AT THE EISTEDDFOD

Congratulations to all our students who performed an individual item at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod last Thursday.  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: Annabelle F - 1st, George T - 1st, Thomas C - 1st, Piper V - 2nd, Harper W - 2nd, Caroline T - 3rd, Maci-Jae L - 3rd, Allie Claire W - Highly Commended, Henry F - Highly Commended, Isobel B - Highly Commended, Katie C - Highly Commended, Tiffany F.

PEPPERS ATHLETICS CHAMPIONS!

Congratulations to all the students for their participation, enthusiasm, skill and sportsmanship displayed at the athletics carnival last Friday at McGrane Oval.  It was a close competition between all four houses, with there only being 2 points between first and second, but the mighty PEPPERS were crowned 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. 

1500 M TRIALS FOR WESTERN REGION ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

As we don't hold a 1500 m event at our Athletics Carnival, but it is an event at the Western Region Athletics Carnival,  we will hold trials for the 1500 m tomorrow, Friday, 27 June at school.  It is open to any students from Years 3 -6 and at the carnival will be held as  Junior, 11 years and Senior events.

YEAR 2 RURAL MUSEUM VISIT

Our Year 2 students had a wonderful time at the Gilgandra Rural Museum this morning.  This excursion was part of their History unit, 'The Past In The Present' and was most interesting investigating the way things were in days gone by.

SOCCER GALA DAY & LUNCH ORDERS

St Laurence’s Dubbo is hosting a Soccer Gala Day next term on Friday, 8 August at Lady Cutler Ovals, Bligh Street, Dubbo.  Permission notes were sent home in Week 6 with children who would like to participate in the gala day and were due back at school in Week 7.  If your child would like to participate in this gala day and order lunch, please ensure the tear-off slip is completed and returned to school, with the money, by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, Friday, 27 June as we need to inform St Laurence’s tomorrow of the number of lunch orders we require.  WE CANNOT ACCEPT ANY FURTHER LUNCH ORDERS AFTER 9:00 a.m. TOMORROW.

SEMESTER ONE REPORTS

All Semester One School Reports will be published on Compass at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, 27 June. If you have any problems accessing your child's report on Compass, or would like a hardcopy of the report, please let us know.

PARENT / TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Parent/Teacher Interviews will be held next Monday, 30 June, Tuesday, 1 July and Wednesday, 2 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.  We strongly urge all parents to take advantage of this opportunity to discuss your child's progress at school.

NAIDOC WEEK ACTIVITIES

NAIDOC Week will be celebrated next week at St Joey’s. The theme for 2025 is "The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy".  Next Monday, 30 June at 9:00 a.m. we will have a flag raising ceremony and share a special NAIDOC cake for morning tea. On Tuesday, 1 July at 9:00 am, a NAIDOC Mass and during the day all students will participate in "Dot Art" paintings of hands and feet. We thank our Aboriginal Education Officers, Miss Tahlah Thompson and Mrs Swade Wilson for all their hard work in organising these activities to celebrate NAIDOC Week.  These NAIDOC Week activities are funded by the National Indigenous Australians Agency and Catholic Education Diocese of Bathurst.

RITE OF COMMITMENT FOR CONFIRMATION

During Mass on Sunday, 27th July, the Year 6 Confirmation candidates will be participating in a Rite of Commitment for Confirmation. During the Mass the students will be stating their commitment to prepare themselves for Confirmation. Their families and the parish are asked to support and pray for the Confirmation candidates.

EISTEDDFOD SHOWCASE

You are invited to join us at school next Wednesday, 2 July at 2:30 p.m. as our Years 1-6 students present their poems from the recent City of Dubbo Eisteddfod. This is a great way for families to see our amazing verse speaking choirs perform and we look forward to seeing you all next Wednesday.

YEAR 4 EXCURSION TO OLD DUBBO GAOL & WESTERN PLAINS CULTURAL CENTRE

Next Thursday, 3 July, our Year 4 class will be travelling by bus to Dubbo where they will visit the Old Dubbo Gaol and Western Plains Cultural Centre.  The day will commence with a fully guided tour of the gaol. Our students will then have a picnic lunch in Victoria Park, followed by a visit to the Western Plains Cultural Centre, where they will have a guided tour through their 1950's classroom.  This excursion is part of the Year 4 History unit and should be a fascinating insight of times gone by.  Students need to bring a packed recess and lunch.

YEAR 6 MATHS ESCAPE ROOM

Our Year 6 students are looking forward to travelling to Dubbo next Thursday, 3 July to take part in a "Maths Escape Room" challenge at St Johns College.  Students will work in teams of four to solve a series of mathematical challenges as they try to escape from the room.  Thank you to the CEDB and Felstead Education for organising and St Johns College for hosting this event.  As Year 6 will be travelling to Dubbo on the same bus as our Year 4 students, we have organised some fun activities for them at Sportsworld, to fill in time before they tackle the escape room!

PUPIL FREE DAY - Friday, 4 July

ICAS ASSESSMENTS

We will again be offering our students in Years 3-6 the opportunity to participate in the ICAS Assessments this year. ICAS is an online academic competition that gives the students the opportunity to challenge their higher order thinking and problem-solving skills in Digital Technologies, Writing, English, Science, Spelling and Mathematics.  These assessments are voluntary.  Parents can go online to order the assessments they wish their child to complete.  Full details are in the attached note.  A hard copy of this note was also given to the eldest child in each family from Years 3-6 today.

P & F TEA TOWEL FUNDRAISING

Over the last few weeks, all students have drawn a self-portrait, which will be collated into a "2025 St Joseph's School Tea Towel", as a fundraising initiative of our P&F Association. 

A note was sent home with each family yesterday with regards to the Tea Towel Fundraiser and a digital copy is available for download below.  If you would like to purchase 1, 2, 3, or even 10 tea towels, please complete the tear-off slip at the bottom of the note and return it to school by Friday, 25 July (Term 3 Week 1). 

Why not purchase a few and put them away for Christmas gifts!  Tea towels are $17.00 each or 3 or more for $15.00 each, with all profit going to our fabulous P& F Association!  Please ensure your payment is returned with the tear-off slip, or call into or phone the office with your credit card details.

SCHOOL FETE - "SAVE THE DATE"

TERM 3 CANTEEN ROSTER

ENROL NOW FOR KINDER 2026

We are now taking enrolments for our Kinder class of 2026.  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.

FOOD HANDLER TRAINING LINK FOR CANTEEN VOLUNTEERS

Please click on the below link to undertake the Food Handler Training required to be completed by all of our canteen volunteers. 

www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/training/food-handler-basics-training 

CANTEEN POLICY

Please find below a link to the St Joseph's School Canteen Policy.  Due to various changes with Food & Safety Handling, we have been required to update our school's policy.  Would all of our canteen volunteers please take the time to read through this document to ensure they are aware of the changes that are now in force.

WHAT'S ON IN WEEK 10

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Oliver Harland for great work telling the time to the hour on an analogue clock, Sophie Howard for super work in Phonics lessons and Isaac Antaw for reading with great focus during morning reading.

YEAR 1: Saddler Newton for expertly identifying the pronouns needed to help sentences make sense, Arthur Peart for applying new skills with enthusiasm when drawing his tree in Art and Molly Armstrong for her determination and focus during Phonics when working with irregular words.

YEAR 6: Darcy Adams for fantastic leadership during Peer Support and Sophie Lacey for her amazing school spirit and always “Giving Of Her Best”.

Congratulations also to the following students from Years 2-5 who were fantastic, performing an individual item at the City of Dubbo Eisteddfod last Thursday:

YEAR 2:  Henry Foran.
YEAR 3:  Annabelle Foran, Piper van den Ende, Thomas Colwell, Caroline Taylor.
YEAR 4:  Tiffany Fong, George Taylor, Allie Claire Williams, Isobel Barry, Harper Wykes.
YEAR 5:  Maci-Jae Lomax, Katie Colwell.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Kinder has been very busy this week working on the ‘Bb’ sound during our spelling activities. We completed lots of fun tasks to help us recognise, say and write the sound in words. We also read the children’s classic, “Rosie’s Walk” by the talented author, Pat Hutchins and enjoyed exploring the illustrations, which helped tell us so much about the story. In Maths we began learning all about positional words. We practised describing the position of objects using words like ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’, as well as directions such as up and down. In Science we continued learning about animals and how they provide food for us. We learned about cows and how they produce milk. To finish off the lesson, we made some very yummy milkshakes with Mrs Jeffery, they were delicious! It’s been another fantastic week of learning in Kindergarten and can’t believe we are nearly at the end of Term 2! Have a wonderful weekend.  

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery

Year 1

Year 1 has revised what a narrative is this week by reading “Rosie’s Walk” by Pat Hutchins. By using a narrative mountain we can summarise the orientation, build up, complication, resolution and ending of the text. We also discussed how some narratives use words and pictures to tell the story. The students had fun acting out “Rosie’s Walk” with the girls playing the part of Rosie, told by the words of the text and the boys playing the part of Fox, told by the pictures of the text. They then rewrote the text telling Fox’s story using past tense, sequencing it in a logical order and using prepositional phrases. We further explored narratives by reading “The Wall in The Middle of The Book”. Our phoneme focus this week was ‘er’, ‘ir’ and ‘ur’ and we practised implementing the spelling rule where we change the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ and add ‘es’ for nouns ending in ‘y’. During Maths Year 1 enjoyed playing a game where they rolled a 10 sided dice twice to make a 2 digit number. They then identified the numbers before and after the number they rolled. Hundred charts were used for reference by the students when needed. In Religion the students were told the story of the Mass. We named our church and our new priest, Father Diep. We then identified the parts of the Mass. We explored prayers of thanksgiving by praying for something or someone we are thankful for and drawing a picture to illustrate this. We put a lot of effort into these illustrations and they are displayed in our classroom. Enjoy your weekend. 

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

What a day! Year 2 had a fabulous time at the Rural Museum exploring the olden day relics. Thank you to the men for showing us around and Mr Gibbons for driving us in the Gilgandra Shire mini-bus. We have been studying the book, “The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name” during Writing and looking at the use of figurative language and imagery used as well as characterisation. We made beautiful Aboriginal artworks in preparation for NAIDOC Week using paper chipping and line skills. Year 2 had an important discussion during PDH about keeping safe online, this is a discussion that you could extend around the dinner table. We are looking forward to performing for our family and friends who are able to make it to the Eisteddfod Showcase next Wednesday. Have a fabulous weekend!

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

A huge thank you to all those who helped out with the preparations for First Holy Communion last Sunday.  It was a beautiful Mass and I thank the students for their diligent preparation and reverent participation. It has been another busy and exciting week in Year 3! In Maths we’ve kicked off our final unit for the term, all about three-dimensional objects and volume. We’ve been learning to draw 3D shapes and identify their properties – it’s been a fun challenge! In our Literature unit we’ve been exploring metaphors through our class book, “Piano Fingers”. It was a bit tricky at first, but with some teamwork and perseverance, we’ve made fantastic progress and created some beautiful metaphorical writing. During Art we began painting our Aboriginal-inspired artworks and they’re looking bright, bold and beautiful. We’ve also been busy preparing for NAIDOC Week by completing our collaborative artwork, which will be proudly displayed in the church during Mass on Tuesday. The students are excited to be part of such a special celebration. With the holidays just around the corner, we’re all looking forward to a well-earned break. Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend full of rest and relaxation!

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

Congratulations to our First Holy Communion class on your reverence at Mass on Sunday. It was a lovely celebration! In class we have been exploring indigenous language through our novel, “Bindi”. We have revised onomatopoeia and examined the way writers combine this with repetition for effect. We brainstormed onomatopoeic words to describe our afternoon trip home from school and incorporated these into a poem, inspired by Bindi’s poem, “Going Home”. In Art we have created beautiful indigenous artworks in preparation for NAIDOC week. We have taken inspiration from Aboriginal artists, Miimi and Jiinda  to create an artwork resembling ‘love, connection and unity’, perfect values for our classroom. We are looking forward to performing our eisteddfod poems at the showcase next week. We hope to see you there. Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

This week, Year 5 students have been completing portfolio tasks and preparing information reports for their class presentations next week. In Maths we continue to investigate Geometric Measurement by measuring 100 metres and attempting to run/jog 1000 metres. We also consolidated our learning of perimeter by measuring the perimeter of the handball, netball and basketball courts. During Religion we discussed each of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and completed sentences using nominalisation in Grammar. In Geography we used Google Maps to locate a satellite picture of our school and home and defined and identified vertical and oblique aerial images. Have a great week.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

What a fabulous week in Year 6! We have been eagerly continuing on with our novel, hoping to finish it by the end of term! We especially love listening to the audio version as the reader uses a great expressive voice. In Maths we have continued practising the skill of calculating the area of composite/irregular shapes and began our new unit ‘Additive Relations and Data’. During this unit we will continue to strengthen our skills involving multi-step word problems, including problems that require more than one operation. We will also be comparing, evaluating and communicating strategies used to solve addition and subtraction problems. In English we have finished off our descriptive writing pieces which will feature in our portfolios. We were required to use similes, metaphors and personification throughout our writing and ‘show’ the reader the battlefield rather than ‘tell’ using different sensory language. In Religion we have started our Saint projects and are currently in the research phase of finding out all of the wonderful attributes our chosen Saint has and why we admire them. Not long now … the countdown is on until holidays! Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER