ABOUT - Term 3 Week 8 - 11 September 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?

VALE TOBY CRUICKSHANK

We were shocked and saddened to hear of the tragic passing of ex-student, Toby Cruickshank last week.  Toby attended St Joseph’s in 2012 and 2013 in Years 5 and 6.  He was immediately embraced by the school community with his effervescent personality and was a popular student with both his peers and staff.  Testament to this was when he was voted school captain in 2013.  Toby represented our school in rugby league, cricket and public speaking. 

He continued his schooling at St Stanislaus in Bathurst and went on to further his education at TAFE by becoming a boilermaker. At the time of his passing Toby was working closely with his father at Kiargathur Station in Condobolin for Fletcher International Exports.  Our hearts and prayers go out to all his family, particularly his parents, Troy and Lizzie, his brother, Max and sisters, Tilly and Clancy, his grandparents, Jeanette and Ian, his aunties and cousins and all his extended family.

May he rest in peace.

FATHER'S DAY STALL & RAFFLES

A very successful Father’s Day Stall was held at school last Friday due to the generosity of our families and the hard work of our parents.  Many thanks to Amanda Langlands who coordinated the stall and to her helpers who helped wrap the presents at the working bees and man the stall on Friday.  We also appreciate the generosity of 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 and Gilgandra Toyota for their generous donations to our raffles. The lucky winners of the main raffle were:  First Prize – Claire B, Second Prize – Mitch B, Third Prize - Manu & Meenakshi B.  Winners of the class raffles were:  Kinder – Charlotte M, Year 1 – Eliza H, Year 2 – Chase H, Year 3 – Frankie M, Year 4 – Hannah P, Year 5 – Maci-Jae L, Year 6 – Jakirah M.

INFANTS SPORTS CARNIVAL

Everyone had a wonderful time today as our infants children participated in their mini sports carnival.  There were lots of fun races culminating with some exciting tug-o’-wars.  Many thanks to the staff for organising and running this carnival and to all the parents, family and friends who came along to cheer on the children.  Go Joey’s!

POLDING ATHLETICS

We wish our seven super athletes the best of luck as they compete at the NSW Catholic Polding Athletics Championships to be held in Newcastle tomorrow, Friday, 12 September.  Our athletes and their events include:  Katie C - 11 years Discus, 11 years Long Jump, 11 years 100m, 11 years 200m, Layla W - 11 years Shot Put, 11 years Discus, Rose H - 11 years 1500m, 11 years High Jump, Darcy A - 13 years 100m, Estelle H - Senior Shot Put, Thomas C - Junior Discus, Archie O - 11 years Discus.  A super achievement by all these students to reach this level of competition.

PRESCHOOL VISIT

The last of our preschool visits will take place tomorrow, Friday, 12 September.  We have enjoyed getting to know our 2026 Kinder students and hope they have enjoyed getting a taste of what big school is like!

NATIONAL CHILD PROTECTION WEEK

In line with National Child Protection Week this week, NAPCAN have released an informative webinar for parents, carers and childcare workers, discussing topics such as body safety, grooming tactics and online safety. Please scan the QR Code or click on the link below for more information and to view the webinar.  

https://vimeo.com/user243011492/wnswlhd-child-protection-week-webinar

CONCERT REHEARSAL

Next Monday, 15 September

Our one and only full concert rehearsal at the Gilgandra High School Hall will be held next Monday, 15 September.  It is very important for everyone to be at school on this day so we can practise on the stage with the microphones etc.  As this is a full dress rehearsal the children will need their costumes at school on Monday, 15 September.

ST JOSEPH'S SCHOOL ANNUAL CONCERT

"A Night At The Museum"
Gilgandra High School Hall - Next Thursday, 18 September

Our annual concert involving all students from Kinder to Year 6 will be staged next Thursday, 18 September at the Gilgandra High School Hall at 6:00 p.m.  Children need to be at the hall at 5:45 for a 6:00 p.m. start. The students and staff put a lot of time and effort into the concert and it always promises to be a great night’s entertainment.

GILGANDRA HIGH SCHOOL ORIENTATION DAY

Those Year 6 children attending Gilgandra High School next year, will attend an Orientation Day next Thursday, 18 September from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., giving them a taste of high school life.  A hamburger and milkshake will be provided for lunch.  Students need to pack recess, a hat and a water bottle.

SCHOOL FETE

This year's school fete will be held in Week 2 of Term 4, on Friday, 24 October.  The fete will start at 2:00 p.m. and conclude at 5:00 p.m.  with the 'Slime Run'.

Stall Coordinators Needed
We are in need of coordinators for some of the fete stalls.  Coordinators will be needed to set up and put away their stall and man the stall for part or all of the fete (depending on the number of helpers).  Coordinators do not need to organise goods for their stall, as this will be done for them.  If you can help coordinate one of the following stalls, please write your name on the note that has today been sent home and is attached below:

• Fairy Floss
• Temporary Tattoo Parlour
• Chocolate Toss
• Novelty Stall
• Photobooth.

SPORT FOR THE REMAINDER OF TERM

As previously mentioned, for the remainder of 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 and their normal school uniform each Thursday. 

GOIN' TO GIL STREET PARADE

Thank you to all of our families who returned the note to school to let us know that your child/ren would like to walk with our school in the Goin' to Gil Street Parade during the school holidays, on Saturday, 4 October.  We had a wonderful response from our families and are pleased to let you all know that we will be participating in the parade.  More information will be sent home in Week 10.

PUPIL FREE DAY

The first day of Term 4, Monday, 13 October, will be a pupil free day.  During this day staff will be reviewing the Annual Improvement Plan for 2026.

MOORAMBILLA PREVIEW PERFORMANCE

Tickets are available for the special Preview Performance of Moorambilla's RIVERSONG 2025: Skysong on Saturday 27 September from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Dubbo Regional Theatre & Convention Centre.  This one-hour preview performance features the original pieces developed this year in collaboration with Moorambilla's exceptional artistic team.  Tickets to this event can be purchased by visiting https://www.drtcc.com.au/whats-on/open-dress-rehearsal-of-riversong-2025-skysong.

TERM 4 CANTEEN HELPERS

As mentioned in last week's About, we are starting to put together the Term 4 Canteen Roster.  If you can assist in the canteen during Term 4, please let us know your preferred day and also any dates that you are unavailable by completing the below "Term 4 Canteen Helper Form".  A paper Canteen Helpers Form was sent home last week, which can be completed and returned to school.  A Term 4 Canteen Roster will be sent home early next term.

KINDER COLOURING-IN COMPETITION

DANS In Home Care is running a colouring-in competition for Kindergarten children.  We have today sent home a colouring-in form with each Kinder child.  If your child is entering the competition, please return the coloured-in form to school by Tuesday, 21 October, with your child's name and school in the top left corner.  DANS In Home Care will announce the winners on Friday, 24 October.

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 9 & 10

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER: Isaac Antaw for showing off some groovy dance moves during concert practice, Dougal Cruickshank for a big improvement with his homework and Oliver Harland for participating reverently in our Liturgy.

YEAR 1: Angel Dinto for writing a very creative poem to share for news, Kobi Hammond for confidently using a variety of time connectives to extend his writing, Daniel Herbig for determination and focus while applying a variety of spelling strategies during Phonics, Chase Copelin for confidently contributing to class discussions in Science and Matteo Alcala for adding more detail and working hard when creating written texts.

YEAR 2: Maka Matekenya and Liam Mellor for great work converting times tables to repeated additions and Flynn Weston for working consistently to learn times tables.

YEAR 3: Samson Starr and Caroline Taylor for super work adding the apostrophes to possessive nouns, Isabelle Sandry for wonderful work writing a detailed letter to Rowan’s Mother and Thomas Colwell for completing Problem A Day and Operations with accuracy and increasing speed.

YEAR 4: Madeleine Foran, Ryle Walker and Harper Wykes for drawing creative abstract portraits.

YEAR 5: Katie Colwell for great effort to present her work neatly and accurately, Will Luckie for working well with his group when investigating displacement and Archie O’Connor for fantastic work converting units of measurement.

YEAR 6: Neve Walker for excellent leadership during Peer Support and Braxten Towns for working hard to create an intriguing 'Fake News' article.

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

Not many sleeps now until our fabulous concert! Monday is the full dress rehearsal at the High School Hall, so the children will need to bring everything they need for their costume. Please ensure all clothes are clearly marked with your child’s name and are in a bag to keep them together. In Religion  we have been reading the Bible story of baby Moses and learning lots of interesting things about his life. We will continue to read about other important people in the Bible who were great followers of God. Our Maths focus this week has been identifying, writing and representing numbers to 20. We are great at counting but sometimes we need help when it comes to writing our numerals correctly. We have been busily working on our Portfolios and are looking forward to taking them home at the end of the term. Everyone had so much fun at our Infants Carnival this afternoon.  Thank you to those who came along to cheer us on.  Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery                                                                            

Year 1

Wow, what a day we have had! Year 1 did a fantastic job reading, singing and participating reverently in our ‘Love One Another’ Liturgy this morning. We finished our day with our Infants Sports Carnival. Everyone gave of their best and a lot of fun was had by all. A big thank you to all those who came to support us at these events. In the classroom this week we enjoyed reading the text, “Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley” by Aaron Blabey. We discussed the representation of each character and made a venn diagram of the similarities and differences between them. We discussed our favourite character with a talk partner and wrote a well structured paragraph that explained why this was our favourite character. We’ve continued our work on forming groups this week by making various arrays using counters. We counted the total using skip counting and learnt about commutative property. We also had a lot of fun rolling two dice to draw various sized rectangles on grid paper. During Geography we reviewed the seven continents and five oceans and wrote a paragraph that described the location of Australia in the world. We used direction words such as north and south. Our concert item is coming along nicely.  Remember to pack all your child’s concert costume items in a clearly labelled bag for our rehearsal on Monday. We hope your weekend is wonderful.

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

It was a fantastic afternoon at the Infants Carnival this afternoon, there was great sportsmanship and school spirit on display. Thank you to family and friends who were able to join  us for a fun afternoon. Excitement levels are very high as we gear up for the concert next week. We will be going to the high school hall on Monday so please make sure your child has all their costume items that were  outlined on the note in a bag on Monday. During Personal Development with Mr Gibbons, Year 2 discussed the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle to our mind and body. In Geography, Year 2 created slideshows about marine animals living on the Great Barrier Reef and presented these to the class. We have been looking at two new texts in our Literature unit, “The Uncorker of Ocean Bottles” and “The Heart and the Bottle”. These are both very emotive narratives and have been enjoyed by all. We thoroughly enjoyed the AFL skills clinic last Friday and look forward to more fun tomorrow. Have a great weekend! 

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

What a busy week it has been! In our novel unit, we finished writing our letters to Rowan’s mother and moved on to descriptive setting writing. Everyone has been working hard to include fantastic descriptions and figurative language to really engage their readers. In Maths, we explored inverse operations and created number sentences to help us understand them. A highlight was our fun doubling shootout game that had everyone cheering while learning. In Geography, we examined a rainfall diagram and even learned how to make one ourselves. We then moved onto maps and directions, where we wrote our own instructions to get from school to the Gilgandra Pool. It was tricky, but with some more practise we’ll be experts! Concert practice is now part of our daily routine as we prepare for our big rehearsal on Monday and the performance next Thursday. It has been so much fun putting the show together! Please make sure your child’s costume is ready for Monday. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

We are in full concert mode, practising our act so that we can give a polished performance. I have been very impressed with how enthusiastic the children have been. I am awaiting the delivery of some costumes, fingers crossed they arrive otherwise we will have to find a plan B! I will contact parents personally if changes need to be made. In class we have started our new Religion unit on ‘Creation’ and have participated in a guided meditation which the children all found very relaxing. We are still reading our novel and this week we have compared the two characters, Allie and Adrianna and looked at how the author has made both matriarchs of their communities so different. Our abstract portraits have been completed and look terrific! We are starting to get excited for our excursion to Lake Burrendong. A reminder to please complete your child’s online registration by tomorrow (Friday 12 September) if you haven't yet done so, and please return your permission note to school. Have a great weekend! 

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

This week we are revisiting nouns and adjectival and adverbial subordinate clauses in Grammar and completed a fact file about our new Pope, Pope Leo. In Maths, we are consolidating our knowledge of 2D shapes, rotational symmetry and regular and irregular polygons and have started an Explanation text which the students will share with the class in Week 10. We all enjoyed our final Peer Support session on Monday, with some fun games out on the playground and would like to thank our wonderful Year 6 leaders who have led these activities over the last eight weeks. For Sport we are taking part in a 4 week AFL skills program. Last week we had a great time practising hand passing, marking and kicking goals. We have also been working really hard on our ‘Egyptian Exhibit’ for the annual school concert and we hope many family and friends join us next Thursday and enjoy an entertaining ‘Night at the Museum’.  Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

What a busy and productive week it has been! In English we have begun our new unit ‘Perspective and Context’ which focuses on identifying, understanding and implementing different perspectives. We have also revisited similes and metaphors and practised using them with some short writing tasks. In Maths we have finished off our ‘Mass and Time’ unit which has been a great refresher for converting 24 hour time as well as converting units of measurement. We are now focussing on 2D structures. In History we are continuing our learning of ‘Australia as a Nation’ and the purpose of the Constitution. The concert is fast approaching … please remember to practise your lines! We enjoyed attending the Infants Athletics Carnival today – it looked like such fun! We would like to wish all the students competing in the Polding Athletics Carnival tomorrow, all the best. Have a safe and wonderful weekend! The countdown is officially on…..11 more school days until holidays! YAY! 

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD

GILGANDRA DISTRICT JUNIOR CRICKET REGISTRATIONS

Registration is now open for Gilgandra District Junior Cricket.  There are two options available:

Competitive Cricket - playing for Gilgandra in the Dubbo District Competition.  This competition is for children from Year 2 and up who are looking to kick off their junior cricket career! Games are held on Saturday morning, with training from 5:00 p.m. each Wednesday at McGrane Oval, commencing 24 September 2025. 
To register for this competition, please visit -  https://www.playhq.com/cricket-australia/register/e73b6d 

Blast Cricket - for children aged 5 years and above and are new to the game.  Blast cricket goes for 8 weeks and is a program dedicated to learning skills and having fun! These sessions are held weekly from 5:00 p.m. at McGrane Oval, commencing 22 October. Registration includes a shirt, bat, ball & hat!
To register for blast cricket, please visit - https://www.playhq.com/cricket-australia/register/98d76f

Keep an eye on the club's Facebook page for more details or call Nadine on 0438 419 464 or Kristy on 0408 651 666 with any questions.  The cost of registration for either competition is $120 per player.

GILGANDRA LITTLE ATHLETICS REGISTRATIONS

Registrations are now open for Gilgandra Little Athletics. Click on the link below to register.

http://www.revolutionise.com.au/gilgandralac/registration

Our first "Come and Try" trial night will be held this afternoon from 5-6.30 p.m. at McGrane Oval. All ages are welcome to attend.