ABOUT - Term 3 Week 6 - 28 August 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

"Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure."
St John Paul II

BEAUTIFUL CONFIRMATION MASS

A beautiful celebration was held in St Joseph’s Church on Sunday as eight candidates were presented to  Bishop Michael McKenna and Fr Diep for the Sacrament of Confirmation. The whole Year 6 class completed the Confirmation program and it was wonderful to see classmates, other members of the school community, parishioners, family and friends in church on Sunday to witness this important step in the faith journey of these young people.  A celebration breakfast was held in the school hall following Mass.  Our Year 6 Confirmation class consists of:  Darcy A, Mitchell B, Ryan F, Estelle H, Chloe H, Charlie H, Mack H, Sophie L, Clancy L, Jakirah M, Oscar M, Adelaide M, Tex M, Braxten T, Jackson T, Neve W, Caitlin Y. Many thanks to Mrs Colwell and Mrs Morrissey for preparing the children for this Sacrament, to the staff and students of our school for their reverent participation at Mass and fantastic help in decorating the hall, the Year 5 parents for serving the morning tea and the parents of the Confirmation class for working with the school during this important time.

DIOCESAN RELIGION TEST

There were some excellent results achieved in the annual Bathurst Diocesan Religion Test which is sat by all Year 6 students in the diocese.  Our students who excelled included:

DISTINCTION:  Sophie L, Neve W, Tex M.

CREDIT:  Estelle H, Caitlin Y, Mitchell B, Jakirah M, Oscar M, Ryan F.

SUCCESS AT DIOCESAN ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

Congratulations Katie C - 11 years Champion!

Congratulations to all of our athletes who competed at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival in Dubbo last Friday.  Special mention to Katie C, who was named 11 years Champion - well done Katie!  The results of our athletes who will now go on to compete at the NSW Catholic Polding Athletics Championships in Newcastle on Friday, 12 September are as follows:  Katie C - 1st 11 years Discus, 1st 11 years Long Jump, 2nd 11 years 100m, 2nd 11 years 200m, Layla W - 1st 11 years Shot Put, 2nd 11 years Discus, Rose H - 3rd 11 years 1500m, 3rd 11 years High Jump, Darcy A - 1st 13 years 100m, Estelle H - 2nd Senior Shot Put, Thomas C - 1st Junior Discus, Archie O - 3rd 11 years Discus. Well done to all of our talented athletes!

YEAR 3 ZOO EXCURSION

“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, 4 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.

HEAR OUR HEART EAR BUS

Representatives from Hear Our Heart Ear Bus will be visiting the school during Week 8 on Tuesday, 9 September.  If you have any particular concerns regarding your child’s hearing, please let us know.

SPORT DURING WEEKS 7-10

As previously mentioned, in Weeks 7, 8, 9 and 10 this term, the WHOLE school will be participating in AFL sessions for sport each Friday.  This means that all years, from Kinder to Year 6, are required to wear their sport uniform to school each Friday from Weeks 7-10 and their normal school uniform each Thursday.  

However, there is an  exception to this in Week 8 when the Infants Sports Carnival will be held on Thursday, 11 September (see below).  Infants students may wear their sports uniform OR school uniform on Friday, 12 September.

INFANTS SPORTS CARNIVAL

All students from Kinder to Year 2 will be involved in a mini sports carnival to be held at school on Thursday, 11 September (Week 8) from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.  The carnival will involve fun novelty races and prizes for all.  We hope to see parents, family and friends of the Kinder, Year 1 and Year 2 students come along and show their support.  The infants students will need to wear their sports uniform on this day.

TRANSITION FROM WINTER TO SUMMER SCHOOL UNIFORM

From next Monday, 1 September children may wear either their summer OR winter uniform for the remainder of Term 3, depending upon the weather. 

2025 SCHOOL FEES

Just a reminder that all school fees for 2025 were due for payment on Friday, 15 August, unless prior arrangements have been made, eg, payments by instalments. Once again, we remind parents that if you are experiencing financial difficulty, please make an appointment to see Mr Gibbons to discuss fee relief.

FATHER'S DAY STALL

ONLY 1 WEEK AWAY

Our Father’s Day Stall is only 1 week away and will be held next Friday, 5 September. The stall is run along the same lines as the Mother’s Day Stall.  Each year parents are asked to donate gifts for the Father’s Day Stall.  This gives the children the opportunity to purchase a gift for their fathers and grandfathers that they have selected themselves, whilst raising money for our P&F Association. Your contributions can be sent in at any time and left at the school office.   Ideas for the stall include chocolates, keyrings, mugs, caps, pens, tools, hose fittings, car care items, beanies, socks, etc.  WE STILL NEED LOTS MORE GIFTS!  It would be wonderful if we could have enough gifts for the children to purchase 2 gifts each.  Please keep an eye out for presents no matter how big or small….it all helps!  If the gifts could be wrapped in clear cellophane, that would be greatly appreciated.  

FATHER'S DAY RAFFLE

A raffle is being run in conjunction with the Father's Day Stall.  Tickets are $2.00 each and a book of five tickets was sent home with each family last week.  There are some amazing prizes up for grabs, as can be seen below.  Extra tickets are available to purchase from the school office. We thank the following local businesses for supporting our P&F Association: Western Farm Machinery, Victory Lap Sports, Johnsons Butchery, Rohrs Home Timber & Hardware, Ultra Fuel, Gilgandra Pharmacy, Gil News & Gifts, Diggs Butchery, IGA Supermarket, Mitre 10, Gil Ag & Auto Parts, Ag N Vet, Three Rivers Machinery, Cooee Tyres, Inland Petroleum, Gilgandra Post Office.  The raffle will be drawn at the conclusion of the Father's Day Stall on Friday, 5 September.

FATHER'S DAY STALL WORKING BEES

Two working bees will be held in the lead up to the Father's Day Stall. The first will be held tomorrow, Friday, 29 August and then another the following Thursday, 4 September, from 9:00 a.m. to wrap and price gifts for the Father's Day Stall.  If you can help out for an hour or so, please sign in at the office and then head to the school hall.

2024 ANNUAL SCHOOL REPORT

The Annual School Report for 2024 has been finalised and uploaded onto our school website.  A printed copy of the report is also available from the school office upon request.

NEEDED FOR FETE - A COW (OR PODDY CALF!)

We need a quiet cow, or poddy calf, that can be led around the yard for the Cow Pat Lotto which is held at the fete each year.  If anyone has a suitable cow and can help out, could you please let us know.

NO PARKING IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH

St Joseph's Parish is concerned about child safety around the church area at school drop off and pick up.  Please DO NOT park on the driveway (including the grassed areas), from the Wrigley Street entrance, in front of the church.  The parish is happy for parents to drive through this area and drop children off, but please DO NOT park here. 

There is a carpark on the Wamboin Street side of the church, where parents may park their vehicle whilst waiting for their children to come out of school, or if parents need to come into the school.

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 WEEKS 7 & 8

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER:  Colt Budworth for super work in Phonics, Charlie Haling for writing an amazing recount using elaborations and time words and Noah Weston for sharing some great stories about his adventures in the Netherlands.

YEAR 1: Jazmyn Aberley for using lots of different strategies when calculating equivalence in Maths, Jack Jeffery for attentively listening to class news and always asking interesting questions, Saddler Newton for adding lots of details to his writing when describing events and characters and Harry Harvey for reading aloud with lots of expression, enthusiasm and confidence.

YEAR 2: Reggie Dickens for displaying increased confidence in Maths when attempting tricky problems, Tess Howard for showing enthusiasm towards all activities and Piper Lummis and Thomas Riley for writing detailed procedures about a ‘Frog in a Pond’.

YEAR 3: Samuel Luckie for a huge improvement in his Literacy Pro level, Georgie Kirkwood and Indiana Jeffery for writing fantastic inner monologues with great rhetorical questions and Grace Johnston for completing Problem A Day and Operations with accuracy and increased speed.

YEAR 4: Mary Lesslie and Manu Binu for writing terrific free verse poems about their families and Ryle Walker for improvement in his Lexile score.

YEAR 5: Taylor Alexander and Bella Hammond for a well-researched presentation on the cultural obligation to country at Uluru.

YEAR 6: Estelle Hazelton for consistent improvement during Fluency Sprints and Jackson Towns for being a helpful class member and showing great initiative.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate our Liturgy this morning. We had a wonderful time celebrating and praising God through our prayers, singing and worship. We always love and appreciate our family and friends joining us for these special occasions. Yesterday we had a visit from our preschool friends which we always enjoy and look forward to. This week we have learnt about the sound ‘Yy’, practised making patterns in Maths and discovered how to recognise groups within those patterns. We discovered the name of the highest mountain in the world and also found out the important role sherpas play in transporting goods up this very big mountain. In Geography we learnt about the importance of maps and practised picking out Australia from other countries. We also looked at a globe of the world and located Australia. We are busily preparing for our concert so keep an eye out for a costume note! Enjoy your weekend.

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery                                                                            

Year 1

We wrote another recount of our weekend this week and learnt how to include elaborations in our writing to make it more interesting for readers. We enjoyed reading about many of the students' time at the Soccer Gala Day in Dubbo on Saturday and two of our students wrote about an amazing trip to the snow. Our phoneme focus this week is ‘or’, ‘a’ and ‘aw’ which has been a little challenging but our ability to segment and encode words has improved with practice. In Spelling we learnt that some base words do not change when adding ‘ing’ and in Sentence A Day we wrote our own compound sentences using two ‘ing’ words. During Literacy we learnt about modal verbs by sorting them into a T Chart of high modality and low modality. We used our text, “Hey, Little Ant” to identify modal verbs in various sentences and then changed the modality of the sentences. We discovered that high modality verbs are more effective when writing persuasive texts. We also learnt about complex sentences and used a persuasive poster about bees to explore how complex sentences include an independent and dependent clause along with a subordinating conjunction. We composed our own complex sentences about bees both together and independently. In Maths we continued our unit on combining and separating numbers by further exploring the concept of equivalence and determined the missing number in number sentences such as, ‘4+5 = 6+3’. We also used unifix cubes to model addition and subtraction fact families. In Geography we learnt that a continent is a large land mass and that there are seven continents on Earth. We completed a continent puzzle in pairs and also coloured the continents different colours on a map of Earth. Year 1 is looking forward to starting practice on our concert item next week and the AFL workshop for Sport in Week 7. Enjoy your weekend.

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

Concert practices are in full swing and everyone is doing really well learning lines and groovy dance moves. I will be sending home a note next week outlining costumes. We have been using the traffic light system to identify great paragraphs in texts, which involves red for the topic sentence, amber for the evidence and green for sentences linking back to the topic. We had a go at writing our own paragraphs about ourselves using the traffic light system to guide us. We enjoyed our peer support session again this week where we talked about great friendships and played some team building games. In PD with Mr Gibbons, Year 2 spoke about ‘self care’ and how and why it is important to look after our body, mind and spirit. Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

We’ve had another fantastic week in Year 3! In Maths we created our very own ‘Right Angle Monsters’ to help us spot and identify right angles. We even used them to explore the angles in the capital letters of our names! In English, we continued reading “Rowan of Rin”. At the end of Chapter 8, two more characters were lost, leaving only four travellers on the mountain adventure. We have been practising writing dialogue between characters, it’s a little tricky remembering to use more interesting words and to start a new line for each new speaker, but we’re improving each day. In Geography we explored Australia’s different climate zones. We located towns in each zone and described their climates, then used a vegetation map to learn how climate affects the plants that grow there. We are all very excited about our upcoming zoo excursion next Thursday! Please make sure all notes have been returned. Have a wonderful weekend!

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

Wow! Week 6 already! During our Religion unit on Mary we have been discussing ‘The Rosary’ and yesterday we used rosary beads to pray this special prayer. This week in Grammar we’ve been learning about connectives and complex sentences. We’ve discussed literary devices and identified them within a paragraph. The students are becoming more skilled at understanding each device. We’ve had a lot of fun learning how to use the Canva app this week. The children have experimented with different templates and elements to create. It is such a wonderful app that we will continue to learn about. During Art we are creating abstract portraits focusing on using the elements and principles of art to grab the viewer’s attention. We are using the elements of line, space, shape and colour to create eye-catching artworks. We have begun our concert practices and I will send a note home early next week with costume ideas. Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

This week in Religion, we are learning about Caroline Chisholm and the significant impact she had on the lives of immigrants during Australia’s early settlement history.  3D nets and capacity are our focus in Maths and we are completing causal and contrasting connective tasks in Grammar. We revisited our understanding of explanations and the structure needed to write a successful text. Meanwhile, in Digi Tech, we coded Micro: Bits to programme a beating heart and had lots of fun in Science as the students designed and labelled a parachute they will make next week. In History we are studying Aboriginal languages and have begun researching significant landmarks that now have dual names in recognition of traditional Indigenous place names. Have a great weekend.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

We are officially OVER half way through the term, can you believe it? What a special celebration we shared last Sunday. Thank you to all those who came and celebrated Confirmation with us. It was a  truly memorable day, with a beautiful Mass and morning tea that followed. In the classroom we have continued writing our factual news reports and look forward to sharing them with the class. In Spelling we have focussed on the ‘long i’ phoneme and all the different ways this sound can be spelt (igh, y, i-e, ie, I, ai, ei). In Maths we have practised converting between kilograms and grams and solving word problems that require comparing units of mass. History saw us continuing our studies on ‘Australia as a Nation and Significant People of Federation’. Have a safe and wonderful weekend!

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD