ABOUT - Term 2 Week 10 - 3 July 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that He, in His goodness, sends to us day after day.”

– St. Gianna Beretta Molla

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

We wish everyone a happy, safe and restful holiday. School resumes for staff and students on Monday, 21 July. 

PUPIL FREE DAY - Tomorrow, Friday, 4 July

Today is the last day of term for students. Tomorrow, Friday, 4 July, is a pupil free day with all Joey's staff engaging in a Religious Retreat in Dubbo.

PARENT / TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Many thanks to all those parents and carers who have come to school this week to meet with the teachers. Working in partnership is a vital part of each child's education and we value your input. 

NAIDOC WEEK CELEBRATIONS

 "The Next Generation:  Strength, Vision and Legacy"

We have had a most enjoyable time celebrating NAIDOC Week. On Monday, 30 June we began with the flag raising ceremony and Welcome to Country before cutting the NAIDOC cake. Everyone received a piece of the yummy cake for morning tea. On Tuesday the whole school celebrated with a beautiful Mass in St Joseph's Church and  activities continued during the day with students creating 'Dot Art' paintings of hands and feet.  We thank our Aboriginal Education Officer, Miss Tahlah Thompson for all her hard work in organising all 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, 27 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.

BOOK FAIR

Our annual Scholastic Book Fair will be held on Tuesday, 29 July (Week 2) in the school hall. There will be a wonderful selection of books for all ages including picture books, junior novels, non-fiction, budget buys and our very popular posters and novelty items. Catalogues will be sent home with your child during the first week of next term so that you can see some of the books that will be on offer. Students will be given the opportunity to explore the books and stationery on offer prior to the book fair. More details regarding wish lists and ordering will be provided during Week 1 next term. 

BOOK FAIR COMPETITION

This year, the school library is running a 'Disguise a Gingerbread Person Contest' and everyone has today taken home details about the competition, as well as a gingerbread template.  If your child would like to be in the running to win a voucher for the Book Fair, please ensure their entry is returned to the library by Friday, 26 July (Term 3 Week 1).  All winners will be announced on Monday, 28 July.

YEARS 3-6 FANCY DRESS SOCIAL

Theme:  'In the World of Spies, I'm in Disguise!'

Our Year 6 leaders have decided that 'In the World of Spies, I'm in Disguise' will be our theme for this year's fancy dress social for all students from Years 3-6.   You can come as anything, but make sure you are 'disguised' from the 'real you'.  You could dress up as Where's Wally, a Detective, a Teacher.....anything really, but make sure you are in disguise!  Let your mind run wild and have some fun with this theme. The social will be held in the school hall on Thursday, 31 July (Week 2) from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. The cost is free and supper is provided - just bring yourself and get ready to dress up in your 'In the World of Spies, I'm in Disguise' outfit! 

WESTERN REGION ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

St Joey’s will send a strong squad to the Western Region Athletics Carnival to be held in Dubbo on Tuesday, 5 August (Week 3).  A permission note was sent home yesterday, as well as a schedule of events.  Please ensure the tear-off slip is completed and returned to school by Wednesday, 23 July (Term 3 Week 1). Participating schools include St Joseph’s Gilgandra, St Brigid’s Coonamble, St John’s Baradine, St Lawrence’s Coonabarabran, St Mary’s Dubbo, St Mary’s Wellington and St Pius X Dubbo. 

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 last week.

When entering the 'Parent Payment System code' of UBI626, please ensure you use the letter "I" for "Igloo" and not the number 1.

P & F PARENT SURVEY

On Monday, a short 3-minute P&F Parent Survey was emailed to all of our families.  Our P&F Committee has asked that all of our parents and carers take the time to complete the survey to give them a better understanding of what can be done to improve and support our school community.  The link to the survey is below and paper copies are available from the school office.

P & F TEA TOWEL FUNDRAISING

A note was sent home with each family last week with regards to a Tea Towel Fundraiser being held by our P&F Association.  A digital copy of the note 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 2 or more for $15 each, with all profits 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.

TERM 3 PLANNER

A Term 3 Planner is going home to each family today.  It is possible that there may be changes throughout the term, with additions or changes.  Any changes or additions to our Term Planner will be advised in our weekly newsletter.

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Levi Anderson for great running, jumping and throwing skills during Sport, Joe Barry for always showing kindness to others and being willing to help and Annlitta Anoop for always taking the time to finish her work neatly.

YEAR 1: Jazmyn Aberley for her focus and drive during Phonics, Matteo Alcala for confidently using time connectives in his writing, Chase Copelin for creatively using dry spaghetti to design and recreate an anvil in Science and Napoora Rahul for experimenting with skip counting during 'Number of the Day'. 

YEAR 2: Maka Matekenya and Thomas Riley for trying to use the ‘f’ and ‘j’ home row to improve their typing skills, Joel Ndlovu for lovely manners and greeting us each day with a cheery ‘good morning’ and Duncan Semmler for working hard in Problem A Day and Operations.

YEAR 3: Grace Johnston for working hard to complete Problem A Day and Operations quickly and accurately, Samuel Luckie for diligently working towards our class goal of improving our bookwork, Isabelle Sandry for an improved effort to complete Problem A Day and Operations quickly and accurately and Samson Starr for fantastic work identifying where the apostrophe goes in singular and plural nouns.

YEAR 4: Madeleine Foran for working diligently in Maths Operations, Aaron Robin for his enthusiastic participation in all lessons and Liam Cosier for his positive approach towards tasks.

YEAR 5: Oliver Buckley for working hard to understand and apply Maths strategies, Mia Buckley for consistent use of correct spelling in tasks, Archie O’Connor for reading and understanding literal questions accurately and Olivia Yates for a great effort to present work neatly.

YEAR 6: Charlie Howard for perfecting the skill of calculating the area of composite shapes and Ryan Faulder for actively engaging with our class novel and displaying an in-depth understanding.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Can you believe it’s already the end of Term 2? What a busy and exciting term it has been! Kinder has worked very hard and we are so pleased with their wonderful progress. This week we enjoyed reading some Dreamtime stories as part of our NAIDOC Week celebrations. A big thank you to Miss Thompson for organising a lovely Mass on Tuesday and a special art activity to help us celebrate this important week. In English we learnt some fascinating facts about kangaroos and used this knowledge to write interesting information reports. During Religion we have been learning about the key signs, symbols and rituals of the Catholic tradition and how they help us to celebrate our faith. It was also lovely to meet with so many mums and dads during our parent/teacher interviews. We wish all of our Kinder families a safe and happy holiday break and look forward to seeing everyone back for Term 3!

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery

Year 1

We have had a fabulous last week of Term 2 celebrating NAIDOC Week. We enjoyed the cake cutting ceremony, singing to some excellent hymns during a wonderful Mass, listening to an Aboriginal story read by Miss Thomson and completing a collaborative dot painting artwork to display in our classroom. In the classroom we have had a tricky phoneme focus this week in the ‘ea’ as in head, ‘e’ as in get and ‘ai’ as in said. We practised writing adding ‘es’ to words ending in ‘ch’, ‘sh’, ‘s’ and ‘o’ to make them plural. We continued our work on “The Wall in the Middle of the Book” by looking at different props and determining what characters they might belong to. We then compared and discussed the contrast to the visual story with the written story with our talk partners. The students rewrote the text from the perspective of the knight and were encouraged to use time connectives and exclamation marks in their writing. We also compared the ogre characters in the poem “An Ogre Came Over for Dinner” by Kenn Nesbitt  and “The Wall in the Middle of the Book”. We then used these ogres to inspire our own story about an ogre. During Maths we have revised various concepts covered throughout the term focusing on ordering numbers and reading time to the half hour. During History we used photographs of a Cobb and Co coach to find clues about how people travelled and how mail was transported in the past. We also put together a timeline of images that showed how communication has changed over time. We hope everyone has a restful holiday. We’re looking forward to Term 3!

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

It has been a lovely week celebrating NAIDOC Week. We created serpents using water colours, listened to stories about the Dreamtime and dot painted hand and footprints for a class mural. We read the story, “Hark It’s Me Ruby Lee!”, where we completed a characterisation and compared Ruby Lee’s traits to Zimdalakermishkada from last week's story. We enjoyed our last peer support session for the term where we played games requiring teamwork and communication skills. Thank you to our family and friends who were able to join us for the Eisteddfod Showcase yesterday - we enjoyed performing the poems one more time for you all. Also thank you to those parents who came along to the parent/teacher interviews this week, it was lovely to talk to you about your child and how they are progressing and making goals for the rest of the year. I hope you all have a wonderful break and are able to enjoy some rest and relaxation, see you in term three!

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

Woohoo, we made it to the end of term! We’ve had a fantastic final week, filled with fun, reflection and celebration. As we wrap up the term, we enjoyed tying together everything we’ve learned. In our novel unit, we explored salience – the idea of making key elements stand out in our writing. We began by analysing it in our class text, “Piano Fingers”, then had a go at applying it to our own writing pieces. In Maths we investigated capacity, using water to explore, compare and measure using different jugs, bottles, and containers. It’s been a very hands-on and splashy learning experience! This week we also celebrated NAIDOC Week. On Tuesday we joined together for a beautiful Mass and in class, we created stunning Aboriginal-inspired dot art to honour and reflect the rich culture and history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Yesterday, we also performed our eisteddfod poems again – what a treat to have so many families and friends come along to support and enjoy the performances! Wishing all our families a wonderful and safe holiday – thank you for a great term!

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

What a great last week of school we’ve had. We celebrated a meaningful NAIDOC Week with our whole school Mass and enjoyed our painting activities. In class we created Aboriginal artworks of the glossy black cockatoo which is a link to our novel, “Bindi”. Throughout the novel we have learnt about the importance of the garrall - Bindi’s totem and her connection to it. We also watched a clip highlighting the vulnerability of the glossy black cockatoo due to loss of habitat and food sources. We were made aware of the need to plant she-oaks as this is their only food source and were delighted to see that we have many she-oaks on our playground. It was a lovely opportunity to show off our eisteddfod poems to friends and family yesterday. Thank you to those who came to watch. We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit to The Old Dubbo Gaol and the Cultural Centre today. The children were such wonderful representatives of our school. I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday break.

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

What a spectacular afternoon we had yesterday with many family and friends enjoying our encore performance of our eisteddfod poems. This week we have been enjoying our NAIDOC Week activities, including flag raising, Mass and some collaborative artwork. In Maths we consolidated our knowledge of area and made a square metre with paper, which we then attempted to use to measure various courts in our school playground (the wind was not very cooperative!) During Science, Year 5 celebrated NAIDOC Week by learning about the dhinawan (emu) in the sky and how Aboriginal people used it to see when they were able to collect and hunt emus. We also explored our solar system with a crossword that was out of this world! We also enjoyed hearing about Uluru, Gulumada (the Blue Mountains) and the Gondwana Rainforest as students presented their Geography information reports to the class. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to speak to parents at the parent/teacher interviews this week and I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

Week 10 is finally here and the holidays are fast approaching! What a wonderful (and short) week we have had. We have thoroughly enjoyed celebrating NAIDOC Week and thank all those involved. We especially enjoyed the NAIDOC Mass on Tuesday and the beautiful dot painting artworks we completed. Also, thank you to all those who attended our first official Eisteddfod Showcase -  it was great to show our families just how wonderful our poems are. In Maths we have been finishing off our Additive Relations and Data unit, with a focus on addition and subtraction of decimals up to 3 decimal places using appropriate representations. We have also been having some extra practice of our times table recall. Mastering them allows for quicker calculations, better understanding of more complex mathematical concepts and improved confidence in tackling various everyday problems. In English we have focussed on our class novel and engaged in a free writing piece. We were very grateful for the opportunity to attend the Escape Room Challenge at St Johns College today and certainly had a very fun day out! Time to clock off – have a safe and wonderful holiday!!

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

GIL LIBRARY HUB HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES

The GIL Library Hub is excited to present a wide array of programs these upcoming winter holidays.

Due to limited numbers, bookings are essential. All programs are for 5 years and above, however parental supervision is required for children under the age of 10 and parental assistance may be required for some activities. All attendees of the Saturday 'Gaming @ the Library' sessions must be library members and have a signed waiver. Please contact the Library Hub beforehand for your waiver form.

Also available at all times during the holidays and school terms are gaming sessions in our Tech Space room. Users 10 years and above are welcome to book a free gaming session using our Metaquest 3, PS5, Nintendo Switch or Gaming Computers. All users under 14 years of age must be accompanied by a parent. All users must be library members and have a signed waiver.  Again, please contact the library beforehand for your waiver form.

All programs are free. To book a session please visit 123tix and search ‘Gilgandra’ for all available programs. For more information call the library on 6817 8877, or email library@gilgandra.nsw.gov.au.