Dear Parents

Opening School Liturgy

Despite COVID restrictions, last week we held a beautiful outdoor liturgy and leadership ceremony that the whole school was present for.  The liturgy was ‘in the round’ meaning we were seated around the sacred space, rather than the more formal ‘out the front’ focal space.  There was a gentle breeze in the air, reflective music drifting across the space and special words spoken and absorbed.  It was a lovely way to start a school year and centre everyone in faith.

Why are liturgies like this so important?

Liturgy celebrated well helps us grow in holiness, builds up the body of Christ and gives glory to God. What could be more important?

COVID Update

As a leadership team we will read, meet and discuss what the change in COVID regulations will look like for our school and share this with you over the next couple of weeks.

What we do know at this stage is that:

1. Visitors to school sites can attend regardless of vaccination status. Note: anyone working on a school site, including volunteers, contractors, and external providers, is still required by the Public Health Order to meet vaccination requirements.
2. All visitors only need to sign in with the Compass Kiosk in the office foyer area, not the QR codes
3. The canteen can serve the children over the counter, providing we have enough registered volunteers.
4. Staff and students do not have to be wear masks from Monday 7th March, though if people would prefer to do so, that is acceptable.

We will recommence our regular Monday morning assemblies that involve the band and whole school singing, where parents are welcome to attend, from Monday 7th March.  We ask that this coming Monday you allow us the time to work out where we will position everyone so that they are once again together but still  taking into consideration safe practices and working with the band to find a new location for them and to have a practice in front of everyone as well as teach the children, particularly the younger ones, what happens at assembly, when they stand and sit, what direction they face etc.  We look forward to you joining us for these assemblies, especially for those of you who will experience this for the first time. 

Save the Date:  Monday March 7th Parents Return to School Assemblies

RATs   

We will send home the final allocation of RATS over the next couple of weeks.  In total, you will have 8 tests per child including what you have picked up this week.  Remember, if your child has had COVID in the last 28 days they are not required to undertake a RAT. Any positive results, RAT or PCR, need to be shared with the school as well as with NSW Health.

Volunteers

With the easing of restrictions we will be able to have volunteers to assist with activities such as excursions, carnivals, canteen, uniform shop and classroom activities.  If you would like to volunteer you need to register for this by completing the following process, which has been streamlined this year.

What you need to do:

• Watch diocesan video about volunteers (this hasn’t yet been completed, so we will share the link at a later stage once it is finished)
• Go to Volunteer Registration Form

There is no longer any need to print off and complete any forms that are in the Volunteer Policy or the Code of Conduct resource that are included on this page.

• Answer the questions, then you will receive an email explaining about the police check with Verify Now. Complete this process.
• A WHS induction including school site specific information is to then take place. We will offer this via a quick Teams meeting with you, so that we can do all volunteers at the one time rather than individual visits.
• Once we have been informed that your police check has come back, we are able to enlist your services. We have been told this process can take up to 3 weeks and our experience last year was that it was even longer. So, if you think you might like to volunteer for something this year, even if is just one activity, we strongly encourage you to start the registration process as soon as possible.

Class Parents

Don’t forget to complete your contact details and expression of interest regarding being a class parent using this form.  We would love it if you could do this by next Thursday 3rd March.

School Shoes

Thank you for assisting us to implement our uniform policy regarding school shoes.  It appears the visual images in the letter shared with you last week are proving to be helpful. The staff have really appreciated the increased communication where parents have taken a minute or two out of their time to inform the teachers of the reason why their children are not in uniform.  We ask that you continue to do this throughout the year if the situation calls for it. 

Staff Update

Music Teacher

Ms Emily Butler will be joining our community next week as our Creative Arts teacher – Music, Dance and Drama.  We are so excited about this as Emily has some brilliant activities planned for all grades and I am sure you will be hearing great things regarding what is happening up in the Music Room.

Year 1 Gold

 As announced at the recent Parent Information evening, Mrs Felicity Peart will remain on leave for the rest of this term and Miss Emilia Flaherty will continue to teach the class fulltime.

Year 2 Gold

Mrs Joanne Standing will be leaving us for the remainder of this year to take up a temporary position at Holy Spirit Primary School in Kurri.  Jo will be the new Learning Support Teacher there for Terms 2-4.  Her last day with us will be next Friday 4th March.  We wish Jo all the best and look forward to hearing how she is enjoying the new location and role.  Her replacement will be Ms Chloe Murray, who will work with Mrs Delore.  Chloe has been a regular casual with this us nearly every day this year, so the children are familiar with her, and she has become familiar with our routines and practices.  We welcome Chloe to our St Joseph’s community.

Social Emotional Development

The pandemic affected the lives and social-emotional (SE) experiences of every student to some extent. Along with the unprecedented closures of schools virtually all social activities ceased. Students were cut off from their teachers and there were few opportunities to see friends and family in person or engage in extracurricular activities. What schools are noticing is that after two years of this, students’ social and emotional skills seem to have been impacted. 

What this looks like is: children who are unable to work through relatively simple friendship issues, children who are perhaps less tolerant of their peers or less considerate of others’ feelings, children having shorter fuses than normal or being ‘over emotional’ and crying, withdrawing or being more aggressive than usual. 

Schools were able to continue academic learning over this time however children’s social emotional development was not able to be attended to in the same way, due to the very nature of what it is and the isolation practices taking place in society. 

“Social-emotional development” is the broad set of competencies and skills that support student success in school and in life, such as persistence, self-awareness, skillful communication and collaboration with peers, and self-regulation. SE Learning is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

As a result of this impact we plan on not only incidentally working with your children on SE Development but through specific practices such as our regular PBL lessons, Kids Hotline connection, specific programs for certain age groups such as Friendship Saver and Bullying No Way! Lesson sequences. We hope this helps to improve students’ social-emotional learning and help us meet students’ mental health needs. All children and young people need opportunities for social-emotional learning and development. Just as physical education promotes healthy lifestyle choices with long-term health benefits, social-emotional learning helps students build foundational skills to navigate life, such as self-knowledge, resilience, and collaborative problem-solving. We look forward to seeing and hearing our children confidently and respectfully talk with peers, in an age-appropriate manner, in the playground to sort out issues they may be having; knowing when it is time to seek the support or help of an adult; seeing them display increased tolerance for one another, especially those who are different to them; and being less reactionary. 

We will share resources with you that we hope you find useful in helping you to further your understanding and skills in this area also. Together we can form a cohesive system of support at home and at school for all children.

Stay safe,

Karen