ABOUT - Term 3 Week 4 - 14 August 2025

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

Heavenly Mother, assumed into Heaven, pray for us.
May we follow your example of faith and trust in God's plan.
Amen.

WESTERN REGION ATHLETICS CARNIVAL

We have now received the official results from the Western Region Athletics Carnival held in Dubbo last week.  The following students placed at the carnival and will now compete at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival to be held in Dubbo on Friday, 22 August:  Darcy Adams - 1st 13 years 100m, Katie Colwell - 1st 11 years 100m, 1st 11 years Long Jump, 1st 11 years Discus, 2nd 11 years 200m, 3rd 11 years High Jump, Thomas Colwell - 1st 9 years 100m, 1st Junior Discus, Bella Hammond - 1st Junior Shot Put, Estelle Hazelton - 3rd Senior Shot Put, Chloe Heffer - 2nd Senior High Jump, Charlie Howard - 2nd Senior 800m Jack Howard - 3rd Junior 800m, Rose Howard - 2nd 11 years High Jump, 3rd 11 years 800m, 3rd 11 years 1500m, Clancy Larkin - 3rd Senior 800m, Archie O'Connor - 1st 11 years Discus, Hannah Peart - 3rd Junior High Jump, 3rd Junior Discus, Jackson Towns - 3rd Senior Discus, Layla Walker - 1st 11 years Shot Put, 2nd 11 years Discus.  The Senior Girls Relay team consisting of Chloe Heffer, Clancy Larkin, Rose Howard, Katie Colwell came second and the Senior Boys Relay team consisting of Darcy Adams, Tex Mudford, Mitch Beaton and Charlie Howard came third.  Unfortunately only the first and second relay teams go on to the diocesan level.  Congratulations to all of our athletes!

SOCCER GALA DAY

The students had a wonderful day in Dubbo last Friday at the St Laurence’s School Soccer Gala Day.  Our teams played some great soccer with all players “Giving Of Their Best”. Those students who participated included:  Aabel A, John Erick B, Thomas C, Elsie H, Indi J, Grace J, Frankie M, Parthiv R, Isabelle S, Samson S, Caroline T, Piper V, Edward W, Isobel B, Tiffany F, Billy J, Charlie J, Mary L, Bridie M, Sterling N, Hannah P, Aaron R, George T, Lochie T, Ryle W,  Harper W, Mia B, Oliver B, Katie C, Charlie C, Tiaki D, Bella H, Laycee H, Jack H, Rose H, Dusty J, Maci-Jae L, Pearl M, Archie O, Alice P, Layla W, Olivia Y, Darcy A, Mitch B, Ryan F, Estelle H, Chloe H, Charlie H, Mack H, Clancy L, Jakirah M, Oscar M, Tex M, Braxten T, Jackson T, Neve W, Caitlin Y.

JEANS FOR GENES DAY

Thank you to everyone who donated money for Jeans for Genes Day last Thursday. We raised $318.00 for this worthwhile cause which is a fantastic effort! 

ICAS SCIENCE & SPELLING COMPETITIONS

The ICAS Science Competition will be held next Monday, 18 August and the ICAS Spelling Competition on Wednesday, 20 August for those children who have entered these competitions.

CONFIRMATION - Sunday, 24 August

The excitement is certainly building in anticipation of the upcoming celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Sacrament will be administered by Bishop Michael McKenna during Mass on Sunday, 24 August. This is such an important event at our school and we really encourage everyone to be at church on Sunday, 24 August to celebrate with our Year 6 leaders. It would be fabulous to have lots there for this great occasion. Please keep our Confirmation class in your prayers: Darcy Adams, Mitchell Beaton, Ryan Faulder, Estelle Hazelton, Chloe Heffer, Charlie Howard, Mack Hutchison, Sophie Lacey, Clancy Larkin, Jakirah McKenzie, Oscar Medd, Adelaide Mudford, Tex Mudford, Braxten Towns, Jackson Towns, Neve Walker, Caitlin Younghusband.

WORKING BEE FOR YEAR 6 PARENTS TO CLEAN THE CHURCH

A working bee for the Year 6 parents to clean the church in preparation for Confirmation will be held on Friday, 22 August at 3:00 p.m.  It would be great if as many parents as possible could lend a hand.

PRAISE & WORSHIP EMMANUEL WORKSHOP

As part of the students’ faith formation, our Years 5 and 6 classes will be attending a Praise and Worship Emmanuel Workshop in Dubbo next Tuesday, 19 August at St Johns College Hall.  The purpose of the day is to bring students from our diocese together to share time in prayer and worship pointing people, young and old, to the love and mercy of Christ.  We hope our Years 5 and 6 students enjoy this day in Dubbo.

Permission notes were sent home on Monday with all Years 5 and 6 students.  Please ensure the completed notes are returned to school by tomorrow, Friday, 15 August.

AUGUST P&F MEETING

The August P & F Meeting will be held next Tuesday, 19 August at 5:30 p.m. at school.  Please come along and show your support for our hardworking P & F Association.  Refreshments will be provided.

ST JOHNS COLLEGE ORIENTATION DAY

Those students from our Year 6 class who will be attending St Johns College Dubbo next year, will be participating in their first Orientation Day next Wednesday, 20 August from 9:30 a.m. to 2:10 p.m. at the college. We hope the students have a great day at their new school and enjoy meeting Year 6 children from other schools.

YEAR 3 MASS

Next Thursday, 21 August, our Year 3 students will celebrate a class Mass in St Joseph's Church at 10:30 a.m.  Morning tea will be served after the Mass.  Please bring a plate to share.

BOOK WEEK & INFANTS DRESS UP DAY

To celebrate Book Week this year, we will be holding a 'Dress Up Day' for all infants students from Kinder to Year 2, next Thursday, 21 August.  Students will parade around the school square at 11:30 a.m. and everyone is welcome to come along. This year, the theme for Book Week is 'Book An Adventure' and we would love to see the infants students come to school as their favourite book character (adventurous or not!).  If you experience any problems with a costume for your child, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will try to help you out.

SPORT DURING WEEKS 7-10

During 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.

TRANSITION FROM WINTER TO SUMMER SCHOOL UNIFORM

All students are to continue wearing the full WINTER school uniform until Monday, 1 September (Week 7).  From this date children may wear either their summer OR winter uniform for the remainder of Term 3, depending upon the weather. 

FATHER'S DAY STALL

ONLY 3 WEEKS AWAY

Our Father’s Day Stall is only three weeks away and will be held on 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.  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.  There will be a raffle run in conjunction with the stall.  Tickets are $2.00 each and a book of five tickets will be sent home next week.

FATHER'S DAY STALL WORKING BEES

Two working bees will be held on Friday, 29 August and the 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 head to the school hall.

TEA TOWEL FUNDRAISER

Thank you to all of our Joey's families who purchased tea towels as part of our P&F fundraiser.  Tea towels were sent home, with the students who ordered them, on Tuesday and we are sure you will agree that they look fantastic and are of great quality!

We do have a limited number of tea towels available for sale from the school office for $15.00 each.

SAVE THE DATE - GOIN' TO GIL STREET PARADE

We have again been invited to participate in the Goin' to Gil Street Parade to be held over the long weekend in the school holidays, on Saturday, 4 October.  

A note will be sent home later this term to see if we have enough Joey's families available to participate in this wonderful local event.  In the meantime, please be sure to add this date to your calendar!

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 5 & 6

MERIT AWARDS

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

KINDER:  Annlitta Anoop for always being ready to learn and Charlie Quayle and Joe Barry for using super problem solving skills in Maths to build their number bonds to 10.

YEAR 1: Charlie Freeman for writing an excellent tiny poem about clouds, Paddy O’Connor for working hard to perfect his Ww’s in Handwriting, Cecilia Smith for creatively exploring halves and quarters with enthusiasm and Darcy Morrissey for his enthusiasm, kindness and always brightening our classroom.

YEAR 2: Claire Barry for always having great things to say during class discussions and Joel Ndlovu and Bill Pagan for creating beautiful stained glass butterflies.

YEAR 3: Aabel Anoop for fantastic contributions to discussions about our class novel, “Rowan of Rin”, Parthiv Rajesh Nair and Thomas Colwell for working hard identifying the dependent clauses in complex sentences and Frankie Medd for super work identifying missing fractions to make a whole.

YEAR 4: Kenzie Dollaga for seeking assistance and clarification when needed, Charlie Jones-Copelin for a super effort in all areas and Lochie Thomas for working efficiently to complete tasks.

YEAR 5: Maci-Jae Lomax for a wonderful catalogue poem about the colour blue and Tiaki Diamond for a great effort in identifying the correct homophones in Grammar.

YEAR 6: Mack Hutchison for correctly identifying and creating his own number patterns using multiplication and addition and Caitlin Younghusband for tackling long division like a boss!

CLASSROOM NEWS

Kindergarten

This week Kinder has been working very hard and learning lots of new things. In Religion we celebrated the Feast of the Assumption this morning with a beautiful Mass led by Year 5. We are also learning about Jesus’ family and discussing some of the things he would have enjoyed doing as a child. During Maths we explored position and practised combining groups and working out which group had the most or the least amount. Our Science lesson this week had us investigating what toys are made of. We also wrote some fantastic stories for the Yearbook, so keep an eye out for them at the end of the year. Our Geography focus has been identifying local landmarks that are unique to Gilgandra. Have a great weekend!

Mrs Alison Newstead & Mrs Julia Jeffery                                                                            

Year 1

In Literacy this week we have been learning all about clouds. We explored some websites and read a non- fiction book, “All About Clouds”. We wrote our own informative texts about the different types of clouds and drew a diagram of how clouds form, accompanied by a caption to help explain the process. Our phoneme focus has been ‘igh’, ‘i’ and ‘y’ (as in spy) and we read the decodable text, “I Spy” each day. During reading groups students participated in a guided reading session of an informative text about Bird Nest Facts. We talked about how the use of bold words and images can add meaning to the text and how the author can ask the reader questions in order to help them engage with the text. In Maths we solved a very engaging problem using concrete materials. We found out whether eating one piece of a slice of toast cut into two equal parts is more or less than eating two pieces of a slice of toast cut into four equal parts. By using pieces of paper as our toast we discovered that we were in fact eating the same amount. We also explored fractions and length by using ‘paper bugs’ to explore halves, quarters and eighths. In Geography we learnt that Aboriginal people were experts at finding water in dry places. We learnt that they would wait until afternoon to find water and they would follow animal tracks to find hidden water sources. Year 1 enjoyed drawing the tracks of animals such as kangaroos, emus, snakes, lizards and possums. We hope you enjoy your weekend.

Mrs Phillipa Haling & Mrs Haylee Barry

Year 2

We have been learning about procedural texts this week which had us producing a recipe for a delicious milkshake or smoothie. We also wrote a procedure of choice, there were procedures on how to make the perfect dinner, brownies, a chocolate and lolly pizza and many more interesting and sugar loaded combinations! We began our new Spelling program where we will focus on high frequency words, sound words and rule words. Thank you to Year 5 for a lovely celebration of Mary today, she was so faithful to God and a great role model for us to live our lives by. During Maths we have been using inverse operations to check our problem solving strategies as well as looking at the jump strategy and constant difference. In Religion we looked at the Ten Commandments and read and discussed the story of Zaccheus and his greedy ways. Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs Nikkola Thomas

Year 3

It’s been a great week here in Year 3! In Maths, we said goodbye to fractions and hello to time and 2D shapes. We have been exploring analogue clocks and practising how to write the time in words. Getting the wording just right has been a little tricky, but we’ve had lots of fun along the way. In our novel unit, we discovered that Rowan is the only one who can reveal the map. We’re not quite sure why yet, but we can’t wait to find out in the next chapter! In Grammar, we focused on commas. We completed an activity where we had to find and add in missing commas, it was an interesting challenge! During Geography we completed a research task on our Chromebooks, learning all about Gilgandra’s climate and then researching another town of our choice. It was tricky at times, but also lots of fun. In Religion we read Luke 7:36–50. We learnt about how Jesus forgave a woman who had many sins and we discussed how the prophets in the story were judging Jesus. We reflected on how Jesus shows kindness to everyone, no matter what.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Miss Abigail Dobson

Year 4

Year 4 has continued learning about Mary MacKillop this week. We read a lovely picture book about her life and we also looked at Mary MacKillop Place in Sydney, a special place that our Years 5 and 6 students visit during their Sydney Excursion. Thank you to Year 5 for preparing a lovely Assumption of Mary Mass today. In Maths we have been revising digital and analogue time and reciting our six and four times tables. During Geography we learnt about sustainability, why it is important and what the impact is of not managing places for sustainability. Congratulations to all those students who represented our school at the soccer gala day last Friday. It sounds like it was a chilly yet enjoyable day! Have a great weekend!

Mrs Melinda Morris

Year 5

Today we led a beautiful whole school Mass to celebrate Mary’s Assumption. Thank you to our family and friends who joined us for this special feast day. In Religion, we are learning about the history of our school and the role that the Josephite nuns played in establishing St Joseph’s School in Gilgandra. During Maths, we are using the strategy of partitioning to solve multiplication and division number sentences and in Grammar, we are identifying and applying prepositions to sentences. During Science, we have been investigating non-contact forces. We created a paper clip chain using magnets and used static electricity to move our hair and straws. For Art, we continue to be inspired by Picasso and have created a face using a ‘dice and features’ grid. Have a great weekend.

Mrs Meichelle Schier

Year 6

It has been a busy week in the classroom! We have focussed on the ‘ow’ ‘oa’ ‘oe’ ‘ough’ ‘eau’ ‘o-e’ sound in Spelling, along with the rule: when adding a suffix beginning with ‘a’ (able) after ‘ce’ or ‘ge’, retain the ‘e’ to keep the c or g soft. In Maths we have continued establishing the relationship between a triangle and a parallelogram and practised calculating the area of composite shapes, triangles and parallelograms using the appropriate formula. In English we learnt about ‘argument’ and ‘authority’ in published texts and how to determine the validity of an information source. We also spent some time analysing specific news headlines and guessing if they contained real information with true facts or if they were fabricating the real story to catch a reader's attention. Great real-life skills that students will be able to use in their everyday lives. We enjoyed a whole school Mass today celebrating the Feast of the Assumption, led by Father Diep, thank you to all those who attended. Have a safe and wonderful weekend.

Mrs Jess Morrissey & Mrs Donna Colwell

ALTAR SERVERS

CANTEEN ROSTER

NOTICEBOARD