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- ACTING PRINCIPAL
- ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL PRIMARY
- ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL FORMATION & IDENTITY
- RECONCILIATION FOR STUDENTS
- MINI VINNIES
- STUDENTS CELEBRATE ST JOSEPH'S DAY
- SCIENCE CLUB
- YEAR 8 MATHS
- MENTOR GROUPS
- BULLYING NO WAY
- CONTAINERS FOR CHANGE
- SOLDIER ON
- COURAGE TO CARE
- 2021 STUDENTS ARTS COMPETITION
- ART CLUB
- BOOKFAIR
- BREAD TAGS FOR WHEELCHAIRS
- 2021 NEXT STEP SURVEY
- NAPLAN PREPARATION - DATE CLAIMER for YEAR 7 & 9
- REPLACEMENT 2020 YEARBOOKS HAVE ARRIVED
- HORIZONS
- MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB
- SPORT
- UPCOMING EVENTS
It is hard to believe that we have already reached the end of the term. There have been so many wonderful and exciting events occur through the term that have supplemented the excellent work in the teaching and learning environments across the school. All students, staff and families certainly have earned a well-deserved break.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff for their support across the last month in my role as Acting Principal. Thank you to the school Leadership Team, Megan Mahoney, Sarah Yates and Brooke Butson, for their work in supporting me in the day-to-day operation of the school. I also acknowledge the wonderful support and comments I received from parents, students and families during this time. It is appreciated and did not go unnoticed.
I thank everyone in our community for your patience and support, particularly across the last week as the unpredictable influence of the COVID pandemic impacted again. As disappointing as it was to have to cancel or modify events across the school, the important aspect of this was the way in which our school community has supported each other through this uncertain time.
I wish every member of our community a safe and happy Easter. As a Catholic school community, it is an important time for us to reflect on and celebrate the life of Jesus.
God Bless,
Matthew Brown
Acting Principal
ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL PRIMARY
The end of each term seems to come around so much more quickly than the last and Term 1 2021 has been no exception. The saying, 'time flies when you're having fun', would certainly seem to be true. Some of the children were this week asked their thoughts about
Term 1:
Everyone makes you feel welcome every day. (Paddy)
I love being with my friends. (Damon)
I have enjoyed being a supportive learner to others in class. (Ollie)
I like coming to school because I learn stuff. (Chase)
I have enjoyed music with Dr Cuskelly because it makes me feel happy. (Jeremy)
I wrote a thank you prayer to my class which helped me appreciate what they mean to me. (Liam O'Dea)
I have learned some new strategies in Maths for doing calculations. (Sarah)
I am getting better at my times tables - but I still need to practise the 'divides'. (Gracie)
Year 6 has been challenging but exciting because we've had to take on more leadership roles. (Vayda)
I like how all the Year 6 students are in one class and that we have space to learn. (Olivia Favaro)
Going to the secondary campus for some of our lessons is exciting because it teaches me how that campus and the teachers work. It also helps us to be less anxious and more prepared for Year 7. (Sophie Roche)
The forthcoming holiday will hopefully provide us all with the opportunity to find refreshment in time spent with family and friends. On Tuesday 20 April, students will return and engage in activities such as Life Education, NAPLAN, the Border District Eisteddfod, sporting events and a STEAM event in Toowoomba. I would like to express my thanks to all the staff involved with the primary students this term for their tireless work and commitment to each and every student.
On behalf of the staff, I wish all the students and their families a happy and holy holiday and pray that you have the opportunity to reflect on the hope for all of us that comes from believing in the Risen Christ.
Sarah Yates
Assistant to the Principal Primary
ASSISTANT TO THE PRINCIPAL FORMATION & IDENTITY
The Joy of the Easter Season is Upon Us !
As we approach the Easter holiday season, we are reminded that our Lenten journey will come to a close and the joyful resurrection of Jesus will soon be with us.
With Holy Week having commenced, staff and students will gather on Holy Thursday to participate in an Easter play; “E-A-S-T-E-R Spells Easter” allowing us the opportunity to reflect upon the true meaning of Easter.
Next term the Easter season continues, a fifty day celebration and a time for a new season of grace and a time of joy and thanksgiving, as we continue to rejoice in the resurrection of Christ, and the joy and hope we all celebrate at this time.
Serving Others
This year Year 5 and 6 students have been offered the opportunity to actively participate in serving our school and local community through volunteering with a service group. Mini Vinnies continues to operate raising funds and awareness through a number of activities and events. Other service groups include:
Recycling Group – Environmental Warriors responsible for the sorting and counting of materials collected for Containers for Change.
Make A Difference Group – listening to younger students read, practise sight words and play games before school.
Aged Care Group – visiting and playing for residents or making cards, puzzles or arts if visits are not possible.
Environmental Group – establishing a vegetable garden and offering free produce for families.
These service groups will be coordinated and lead by some of our Year 11 students, offering mentoring, friendship and serving others. Stay tuned for news on these exciting initiatives in coming months.
God's Blessings
Megan Mahoney
Assistant to the Principal Formation & Identity
During the season of Lent, Reconciliation is offered to students from Years 4-12 who have completed the Sacrament. The Scarament of Reconcilliation is normally completed at the end of Year 3.
Reconcilliation is held in the Church where students pray, reflect on a Gospel reading and on what they would like to ask forgiveness for. The Sacrament concludes with the sign of peace.
It is a wonderful opportunity for students to celebrate this beautiful Sacrament as they consider their journey towards the Easter Season. Fr Brian always enjoys meeting and chatting with the students. It allows for some quiet reflection and healing away from the busy and often hectic lifestyles.
Doughnuts, ice blocks, chips, poppers and juice cups were a huge hit for morning tea and lunchtime on the Primary campus on Wedneday 24th March.
Thankyou to the Mini Vinnies students and Mr Grew for organising this event. The profits from this will go to Project Compassion.
STUDENTS CELEBRATE ST JOSEPH'S DAY
The Feast Day of St Joseph, Patron of St Joseph’s School was celebrated on Friday 19th March. To acknowledge this important occasion several events took place to celebrate such a special man.
St Joseph was a man filled with faith and trust in God, a family man who loved and worked hard and was reliable and courageous. He is a model for husbands and fathers to imitate. He is a model for workers.
The whole school assembled in the Bathersby Centre for Mass, which was followed by a shared lunch on the Secondary Campus with students enjoying a sausage sizzle.
Throughout the day, students participated in a variety of fun activities such as relays, dancefit, kahoot, tunnelball and leaderball just to name a few. The students and staff worked together ensuring everyone had a cheerful time.
The celebration of St Joseph’s day has always been a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the School’s Patron as the whole school comes together for friendship and fun.
Students during Science Club in Week 8 have been busy creating and making volcanoes.
This week will see the students paint the volcanoes in preparation for next week's eruptions.
Student's attempt to model their volcano after an existing volcano. The winner will be chosen on how closely their volcano resembles the real volcano as well as on their eruption.
Year 8 students have been recently investigating ratios during Maths classes.
Items such as cordial and water were used to determine a number of factors, such as ratio conversions and the importance of ordering ratios.
As a fun way to end the term and build some team (and competitive!) spirit, Davadi 3 used their last Mentor lesson of the Term to have a go at "Chocolate Chomp".
The items of a chopping board, fork and knife, oven mits, a wig, a single dice and a big block of Cadbury chocolate were put in the middle of the group with some trepidation but mostly excitement and salivation. Students had to take turns to roll the dice and only when they rolled a 6, could they go to the middle and try to cut off a square of chocolate - but they had to do this wearing the wigs and gloves and using the fork and knife.
Students started off calmly and politely, but it soon became a battle for more chocolate with the wig being yanked off in hopes of getting more chocolate before the next lucky roller!
The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence, Friday 19th March is a day for schools, students and the community to say Bullying- No Way!
Students at St Joseph's took part in a number of activities throughout the day, including a sausage sizzle for lunch break.
One of the activities undertaken was with the simple materials of a paper doll, tape and a story, students considered the complex and lasting effects that bullying can have.
Groups decorated and personalized their paper doll ‘Susie’ and then listened to a story of a day in the life of schoolgirl Susie and the interactions she had with others. Whenever they heard evidence or actions of bullying, students altered their paper doll in some way – ripping, tearing, crumpling – showing the damage of each interaction. When they heard positive things happen to Susie with others, they used tape to repair the damage.
Students reflected on the physical damage and change that happened to their figures and the fact that she was not the same person, not in the same state she was in at the start of the day. Some of the kindness helped to patch her up, but it did not heal her or fix what had been done.
Using this activity, students had to think about how they may not see the physical harm their words or actions had on others, but those who are bullied are hurt, damaged and broken by bullying behaviours and can carry those scars with them even after bullying may stop.
St Joseph’s staff and students are doing their part for the environment and working on reducing waste by recycling as part of the Containers for Change program.
Both campuses have a bright green bin in which to put empty plastic bottles, milk drink bottles, aluminum cans and tetra (popper) packs. This has only been going for a few weeks and already we have saved 200+ containers from going into landfill.
The money banked into our St Joey’s Containers for Change account will go back into the school for future eco-related and Student Council projects.
There is also a competition between the two campuses to see who is the best at recycling, and so far the Primary Campus are putting the Secondary kids to shame!!!
Between March 1 and March 31, individuals or teams were encouraged to walk 96kms, the distance of the Kokoda Track, to raise money for supporting lifesaving mental health services, so that our returned ADF members and their families can march on and thrive in our communities.
The Year 11 cohort are so proud to announce that we have accomplished the 96km challenge for Soldier On, and raised $1413.02 to support the mental health of veterans.
We are so grateful for all the donations to the cause, and today we received an email stating that Soldier On has raised an incredible $1,712,462 so far, to fund mental health services to help our veterans and their families.
Our cohort was very proud to honour our veterans both past and present by participating and supporting this very worthy cause and sharing this experience with the younger students.
A sincere thank you for your support and donation,
from students in the Year 11 Cohort
Wednesday 24th March, St Joseph’s Secondary hosted Courage to Care, a program focussing on the importance of social tolerance and standing up to injustice.
This is presented through the narrative of the Holocaust and the stories of the many people who courageously helped persecuted minorities in the face of danger.
Students heard first-hand accounts of escaping the Holocaust and discussed the important role each of us plays in standing up to bullying and persecution, coming away with the important message to be an ‘upstander, not a bystander’.
Special thanks to the volunteers at Courage to Care for your visit to Joey’s.
2021 STUDENTS ARTS COMPETITION
St Joseph's School is built on Mercy Values and continues to be an important part of our school and students since we were founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1875.
The 2021 Student Arts Prize is a competition being run by The Sisters of Mercy Brisbane relating to the Mercy tradition of Justice and Mercy. It encompasses Visual Art and Creative Writing - students can submit up to 2 pieces that are a contemporary interpretation of a scripture text and offer new ways to interpret Justice and Mercy in the 21st century. There are 3 age groups - Year 5-6, Year 7-9 and Year 10-12.
Students must use a specific scripture passage as stimulus to develop their response in the form of an artwork and/or creative writing piece. Students are encouraged to submit work to the competition that has such a close connection to us as a school. For more details, please go to www.artsprize.adderton.org.au or see Miss Mason.
The second session of Art Club was a hit on Friday, 26th March - an old art activity was brought back to life with students creating their own Shrinky Dinks!
With a focus on line drawings, doodle-style images and pops of block colour, students drew their designs onto special plastic film sheets, adding colour and details and then trimming before going into the mini oven. Within the blink of an eye (a quick 1 minute blink), the plastic shrunk down to about 20% of its size and hardened to become trinkets, key chain decorations or keepsakes.
There are lots of different activities and skills being planned for Art Club this year, run by Year 11 student Caitlin Ellis.
Reading for pleasure unlocks the power of information and imagination and helps children discover who they are.
The theme of our Scholastic Book Fair was To the Book Fair and Beyond, where students could let their imagination grow! It was a fun reading event that brings the books kids want to read right into our school. There was a wonderful selection of engaging and affordable books for every reading level. Our Book Fairs are always upbeat and full of fun.
It was a busy but very enjoyable time for us, and we loved meeting and greeting parents, grandparents and family friends.
Thank you to all students and families for supporting the recent Book Fair !
We look forward to the next Scholastic Book Fair in Term 4.
A friendly reminder that we at St Joseph's encourage families to collect their bread tags and bring them into school where they can be dropped off to a number of places.
Each Primary classroom and Secondary PC classroom have been given a container where the bread tags can be collected. Alternatively, bread tags can also been dropped in to the Administration building on the Primary campus. You will see a small pink wheelie bin in the foyer in which your bread tags can be placed into.
You can see more about the organisation at https://ozbreadtagsforwheelchairs.org.au/, including pictures of the collection community and wheelchair recipients and the products of the recycling process.
The Queensland Government is conducting its annual statewide survey of all students who completed Year 12 in 2020. The Next Step survey is a brief, confidential survey that gains a comprehensive picture of the employment, study and life choices made by Queensland school completers in the year after they finish Year 12.
Between April and June, all our students who completed Year 12 last year can expect to receive instructions to complete a web-based survey or a telephone call from the Queensland Government Statistician’s Office. Please encourage them to take part. If their contact details have changed, please assist the interviewer with their updated details or forward the survey to their new address so they can participate.
Thank you for your support of the Next Step survey in 2021.
Further information on Next Step, including results from previous years, is available online at www.qld.gov.au/nextstep or on toll free telephone 1800 068 587.
NAPLAN PREPARATION - DATE CLAIMER for YEAR 7 & 9
Hello Lovely Year 7 and Year 9 Students,
Join us for some Pizza and Snacks to prep for maths NAPLAN! Read on to find out the details!
In Term 2, week 4, you will sit your NAPLAN test. Why do you have to sit a NAPLAN test? This test was introduced for three reasons. First, to see how individual students are performing; second, the extent to which national literacy and numeracy benchmarks are being achieved at each school; and third, how well educational programs are working in Australian schools. As such, it is important for you to do your best, so we (teachers) have some real data to see how you’re traveling.
NAPLAN math's test covers all areas of math and incorporates questions from your current year as well as years gone by. Therefore, NAPLAN is an opportunity to do some overall revision with your numeracy skills. You need maths in life! Spending time revising for NAPLAN is overall good for you! Come join us for pizza and snacks- you can work with your friends and/or with Year 10, Year 11 and Year 12 students, revising NAPLAN questions from previous years. There will be “stations” you can rotate through….the idea is that this will be fun and stress-free.
When: Term 2: Week 1, 2, & 3
Where: Frayne 1 & 2
When: Wednesday every lunchtime
If you would like a $5 Domino’s pizza (we will provide snacks), please see your Math's teacher [Mrs McPherson, Mr Cook, Mrs Ellis, Ms Jones or Ms Badcock] upon returning to school in Term 2, for the sign-up sheet and they will also collect payment.
We truly hope to see you there!!
Mrs McPherson
Secondary Teacher
REPLACEMENT 2020 YEARBOOKS HAVE ARRIVED
The 2020 Yearbook unfortunately went to print with a number of mistakes which Academy Photography, the publisher, has accepted responsibility and apologised.
Academy Photography have reprinted copies of our 2020 Yearbook (at no expense to the school) and the new Yearbooks have now arrived.
If you purchased a 2020 Yearbook, please return your Yearbook to the office once Term 2 commences (as these are to be returned to Academy Photography) and you will be issued with a new 2020 Yearbook.
The current issue of Horizons is out now and is available online here www.twb.catholic.org.au/horizons/
The St Joseph's Mountain Bike Club enjoyed getting out to ride on the Mt Marlay trails after all the recent rain!
The boys pictured are all relatively new to the trails & progressing rapidly on the different features practiced in Monday afternoon's session.
Basketball success
Congratulations to Thomas Petrie and Darius Jansink who were both successful in obtaining a place in the 12 Years Darling Downs Basketball team.
Trials took place on Monday 29th March in Toowoomba and Thomas and Darius will now compete in the State Titles at the Gold Coast at the end of May.
Well done boys !
1 April | The Way of the Cross Liturgy |
Cross Country | |
Last day of Term 1 | |
2 April | Good Friday |
3 April | Holy Saturday |
4 April | Easter Sunday |
5 April | Easter Monday |
19 April | Student Free Day |
20 April | First day of Term 2 |
23 April | Anzac Day Service |
Immunisations - Round 1 : Year 7 & Round 2 : Year 8 | |
25 April | Anzac Day |
26 April | Anzac Day Holiday |
29 April | Border District Cross Country |
SOUTHERN DOWNS REGIONAL COUNCIL - Essay & Photographic Competition
Youth Week runs from 10 to 18 April 2021. Southern Downs Regional Council is running an Essay Competition and a Photographic Competition for all high school students.
We are inviting students to enter one or both competitions detailed below:
Essay Competition – Tell us what you are great at? Up to 500 words
Do you have a talent or hobby that you’re proud of? Do you want to share it with others?
We want to know what you’re great at, why you love it so much, and where you want to go with it in future.
Submissions open: 1 April 2021
Submissions close: 18 April 2021
Prizes for each year grade (grade 7 to 12) in the form of a voucher:
First prize - $100 (Voucher)
Second prize - $50 (Voucher)
Third prize - $25 (Voucher)
Photographic Competition – Capture what you love about the Southern Downs region
Categories include:
- People/person
- Place/building
- Nature
- Animal
Submissions open: 1 April 2021
Submissions close: 18 April 2021
Prizes for each year grade (grade 7 to 12) in the form of a voucher:
First prize - $100 (Voucher)
Second prize - $50 (Voucher)
Third prize - $25 (Voucher)
Entries can be scanned and submitted via email to youthweek2021@sdrc.qld.gov.au or can be delivered to the Stanthorpe Council Administration Building, 61 Marsh Street, Stanthorpe, or the Warwick Council Administration building, 64 Fitzroy Street, Warwick.
Email entries should contain the subject line "Youth Week Essay Competition" and/or “Youth Week Photographic Competition”.
For further information please visit the below link on Council’s website:
https://www.sdrc.qld.gov.au/living-here/youth-zone/national-youth-week