Our Catholic Schools Week liturgy, last Monday morning, was a great way to launch the week.  Our band led us in the singing, every student’s hopes for the future were presented and later displayed and Mrs Carole Kaczor took us down memory lane sharing stories of Catholic education as a student here at St Joseph’s as well as a teacher here.  Many parents and grandparents who joined us for the liturgy could relate to her stories, in particular the one about milk being delivered in little glass bottles and left outside, even in the hottest of weather until it was milk break time. I know that after the liturgy, while the classes were getting ready for parents and grandparents to visit, our guests, over their morning tea, were sharing a lot of their own school stories with one another.  It was so enjoyable standing out in the sunshine listening to these and I am sure that if it wasn’t for the classroom visits many of our guests would have been happy to spend a lot more time in the playground sharing their stories with one another.

It was terrific to see so many visitors join in with the hands-on activities in the classroom and experience what learning entails today.  There were many smiles all round, thanks to the children being able to show their families what they can do or even teaching them to do things and from the family members who were impressed with what they heard and saw and even came away with having learnt.  Our family picnic was a great occasion as well and the playground was awash with people; young and old, picnic blankets and picnic feasts.

As part of our celebrations on Monday, Mrs Jane Scott (2 Gold) was presented with a certificate and plaque of acknowledgement for 25 years of service to Catholic education.  Jane has worked in Catholic education for over 30 years, across 4 dioceses and as both a teacher and a family educator and it was an honour to be able to acknowledge and thank her for all she has contributed to our schools, students and their families over this time. The whole day was an overwhelming success and one to be proud of.  Thank you, Carole, for sharing your stories and photos with us. Thank you to all those who came along and joined in celebrating Catholic education and what we do here at St Joseph’s. 

Our next Catholic Schools Week event was our Athletics Carnival on Wednesday.  Despite some trepidation about whether the weather would be on our side, we made the call to push on with it and how glad we were that we had made this decision! The weather turned in our favour and the whole school enjoyed a day off-site with fun and games, neck and neck races and outstanding leaps and throws in the long jump and shot-put areas. There was great camaraderie amongst the children, both in their house colour teams and their class/age teams and the staff were so very proud of all of them.  It was particularly wonderful to watch not only our youngest competitors in Kindergarten compete in the different events but also our Year 1 students, for it was their first school sports carnival as well due to COVID preventing our carnival taking place last year.  I think our Year 1 parents and children were probably even more excited than our Kinders.

The carnival was a terrific day that ran so smoothly and this is all thanks to the many staff who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to organise the day along with their superb efforts on the day and the magnificent efforts of our volunteers both in the canteen and out in the field.  The feedback we received from parents about the day is very much valued and I would love to share this following snippet from a parent, that cannot fail to make you feel warm inside and reassured that together we are doing something right and are part of something special.

“I would like to also acknowledge the spirit of the day.  To hear the children cheer right until the last person of the race crossed that line was lovely and to witness a Kinder child give his ribbon to a fellow competitor to “have a lend” because he didn’t get one was gorgeous.  This is what these carnival’s are all about.”

Our Catholic Schools Week culminated on Friday with our Mother’s Day breakfast, liturgy and ‘guest storytellers’.  What a magnificent turnout for breakfast there was.  A huge thanks go to our Year 3 parents for organising the breakfast, in particular Renee Mantle and the team of dads who prepared in excess of 600 croissants.  The raffle was a great success, and we are very grateful for the donations of prizes for this. 

Our prize winners were as follows

Gift and voucher from Pot Pourri Cottage	Alison Bull (Asha & Lennox)
Breakfast for 2 at Rydges Newcastle Hotel	Sarah Rose (Scarlett)
3 month membership from The Forum	Dee Farrow (Gabe)
Gift voucher from MEET Restaurant	Angela Berry (Hannah & Eve Mackellar)
Hamper from   Robinson Property	Leanne Coppola (Harrison & Amelia)
Massage voucher from The Sosho Clinic	Katy Mooney (Christopher)
Shampoo, treatment and blowdry voucher from Lucy at Sol Salon	Amy Callinan (Edie & Finn)

Year 5 led us in a beautiful liturgy with Mrs Cathy Bone sharing with us what it is to be both a mother and a grandmother.  All our mothers and grandmothers were very touched when they were each presented with a handmade flower from our Year 5 children.

Our guest story tellers who visited the classrooms after the liturgy entertained the children, from Kinder – Year 6, with school stories from the ‘olden days’.  Of course the stories that particularly interested them were those about getting into trouble, but they were also interested to hear about the different playground games children played in the past, how pens needed to be filled with ink, and how books and devices weren’t used but a slate was used to write on, along with the nuns teaching the children and how they used to travel to school.  It was a rewarding morning for our children and hopefully our guests as well. We are so grateful to all of them for taking the time to go down memory lane with us.

School Review

Following this mammoth week, our leadership team then spent this Monday morning presenting to a panel from the Catholic Schools Office, as part of our school self-review.  The self-review is part of the diocese’s Continuum of School Improvement (COSI) cycle. The purpose of the review is to:

• Know where you are as a school
• Specify desired improvement outcomes
• Design and implement an improvement strategy
• Measure and monitor improvements in outcomes
• Reflect on what has been learnt

A number of our students and staff also spoke with our CSO visitors, reflecting on the learning, changes and focus areas over the last 3 years, since the previous school review.

The panel were very complementary of the eloquence of our students, and commented on how they now have a clearer understanding of what they are learning, as opposed to what they are doing; they also noticed that much professional learning has been undertaken across the school by all teachers and that the leadership team work cohesively together and have been successful in implementing various aspects of the Leading Learning Collaborative that has been established across the diocese. They supported us in what we identified as our directions for further improvement and offered recommendations to assist us in approaching these areas of improvement. The next step is now for us to create a strategic plan for the next 3 years with consideration being given to these identified areas and recommendations. 

Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Teacher

As I mentioned earlier this term Mrs Danielle Shaw has joined our staff, taking up the role of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander teacher.  Danielle has met with all our indigenous students and their teachers as well as touched base with their families.  She has worked with all classes explaining her role and exploring what our students know and or want to know about Aboriginal people and their culture.  Danielle will now continue to work with our indigenous students but also with various classes each term to help increase the inclusion of Aboriginal perspectives in our teaching.  If your children are of indigenous heritage and you are not sure whether you indicated this on your enrolment form please contact the office and we can amend our details and Danielle can also begin to work with them. Please see her letter of introduction to learn more about her.

Reconciliation Week 

Coming up is Reconciliation Week as well as National Sorry Day- recognised annually on May 26^th. National Sorry Day remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families and communities, which we now know as ‘The Stolen Generations’. It is a day to acknowledge the strength of Stolen Generations Survivors and reflect on how we can all play a part in the healing process for our people and nation.

To commemorate National Sorry Day and Reconciliation week, our Stage 3 students and all our indigenous students will have the privilege of listening to a talk given by Aunty Chris Finney.

Aunty Chris is a proud Wadi Wadi tribal elder who was inside Parliament house as Kevin Rudd gave his 'Sorry' speech. She has photos and memorabilia from the day, as well as a lifetime of stories to share with students about this significant event in our country’s Reconciliation journey!

Aunty Chris will visit our school and speak with our senior students on Tuesday 25^th May at 12pm. We would also like to invite all our families along to share in this experience. 

ASPIRE Song Writing Showcase

On Thursday evening, Ivy Jones, one of our school captains, performed in the finals of the ASPIRE Song Writing Showcase.  Song writers were invited to compose a song around either the theme of masks or dance music. The finalists then workshopped their songs with the ASPIRE musical director and then performed to an audience at St Pius X’s theatre. Many of our staff went along to see and hear Ivy sing and were totally enthralled.  She sang beautifully and the lyrics to her song were very heartfelt and meaningful.  Ivy was not the winner in the Primary section however she so impressed the judges that, like the winner, she will also get to record her song professionally in a studio. We are so very proud of you Ivy and you are definitely a winner in our eyes!

Important Dates

Please note the following dates are scheduled for Staff Development Days later in the year and subsequently will be Pupil Free Days:

Friday 18th June, Friday 25th June and Friday 16th July