Dear parents and carers,

This week will provide a variety of learning experiences for our teachers as well as our students. Andrea Muller, a conceptual learning guru, and co-author of the book, Taking the Complexity out of Concepts, will be ‘Zooming’ in with our teachers from her home in New Zealand, to help them to continue the journey of planning and teaching using interdisciplinary conceptual units. 

This afternoon, the staff will be participating in a 2 hour after school Professional Development session with Professor Peta Goldburg. Professor Peta Goldburg (R.S.M.) is the foundation Chair in Religious Education and currently Director Catholic Engagement and Partnerships in the Faculty of Education and Arts at Australian Catholic University. Peta brings specific expertise in the area of Religious Education and Theology and school curriculum and pedagogy. Today’s seminar, ‘Prophets and Prophecy,’ will provide teachers with a background to teaching about the themes and messages of the Old Testament prophets and how they are relevant to us today. We are very fortunate to have such wonderful opportunities for learning being provided to us by Canberra Goulburn Catholic Education. 

Clothing Pool

The weather is continuing to provide us with cold, jumper wearing days. As I have had many requests from students for spare jumpers from the clothing pool, we are now left with none. If you have any school jumpers or jackets that are no longer of any use to you, please donate them to the clothing pool. 

Covid restrictions

We are continuing to operate under the no visitors except essential workers rule provided to us by CE.

For this reason, regular canteen orders will not be available next week. Students will be able to order  the following items at lunch time only: party pies, Mrs Macs beef pie, chicken wedges, sausage roll, garlic bread and noodle cup(chicken). Fruit boxes will also be available. Thanks go to Mrs Baker for taking the time to prepare these for the students. 

National Tree Day

National Tree Day stated in 1996 and has grown into Australia’s largest community tree-planting and nature care event. Tomorrow we will be celebrating National Tree Day in two very different ways. Melanie Cooper from Weddin Landcare has kindly offered to speak to our students for Schools National Tree Day via Zoom. This is a great opportunity and will increase the students’ awareness of the importance of tree planting and its positive impact on climate change. 

Alongside this, and with a very generous gift of native trees from the Grenfell Native Nursery, we will be giving each family from our school, and each child in the Star room at the Preschool, a tree to take home and plant on National Tree Day which is Sunday the 1^st of August. So, encourage your children to get their hands dirty and plant that tree!

Smile of the week Why did the one-handed monster cross the road? Because he wanted to get to the second-hand shop. Contributed by Stella Fanning

 Enrolments for 2022

Any parents considering enrolling their children at St Joseph’s in 2022 are asked to contact the school at your convenience.

Kind regards,

Leslie King

Acting Principal

The 31st of July marks the Feast day of St Ignatius of Loyola. 

 St Ignatius’ distinctive gift was to combine a passionate desire to serve God through following Jesus’ way with prayerful reflection about how to adapt his service to the diverse and changing situations of his age. That required being open to change. In saying that, St Ignatius looked for God in everyday things that happened in life. He saw God in all things and all people. What is important for us is being attuned to ‘God moments’. This may mean a little bit more time being still to allow ourselves to reflect on the good moments from each day rather than just concentrating on what went wrong.

 St Ignatius asked his followers to pray the Examen daily. Please see a version of it below: 

God, thank you.
I thank you, God, for always being with me, but especially I am grateful that you are with me right now.

God, send your Holy Spirit upon me.
God, let the Holy Spirit enlighten my mind and warm my heart that I may know where and how we have been together this day.

God, let me look at my day.
God, where have I felt your presence, seen your face, heard your word this day?
God, where have I ignored you, run from you, perhaps even rejected you this day?

God, let me be grateful and ask forgiveness.
God, I thank you for the times this day we have been together and worked together.
God, I am sorry for the ways that I have offended you by what I have done or what I did not do.

God, stay close.
God, I ask that you draw me ever closer to you this day and tomorrow.
God, you are the God of my life—thank you.

Amen

Sometimes our prayer can get too dry, abstract, or we simply run out of things to say. The Examen keeps our feet grounded. The above review of the day keeps our prayer in concrete reality.

Danielle Schneider

Acting Religious Education Coordinator