Dear Parents and Carers,

This week has seen the weather becoming much warmer.  Thank you to those children who are remembering to drink plenty of water during the day.

As the busyness of all of the end of year festivities increases, I encourage all of our children to ensure that they are getting enough rest as this is important to ensure that the end of the year is an enjoyable time.

We have continued to keep a focus on ensuring that our actions match our words both in class and on the playground.  As we all know, when things go wrong it can be quite easy to say “Sorry” and move on.  However, when actions don’t match words and behaviours reflect that we aren’t so “sorry” after all, then are we aiming to be the best that we can be?

It is terrific to see that many children are choosing to work hard to reflect this – thank you.

Last Thursday afternoon, I attended the launch of the new Catholic School Parents association for our Archdiocese.  During the presentation, the new parent website was launched.  It can be found at:  https://www.parents.cg.catholic.edu.au/

This website is a work in progress and additional information for parents will become available in the coming weeks.

Carols in the Park – the Carols in the Park will be on Sunday evening.  The BBQ will be available from 6:30 with the formal part of the evening commencing at 7:45pm.  We are scheduled to perform at approximately 7:55pm.  The children should wear their summer uniform to this event.

We look forward to seeing you at the Carols on Sunday evening.

End of Year Mass/Yr. 6 Graduation – our celebration Mass to farewell our Yr. 6 students will be held on Tuesday evening at 6:00pm.  This Mass is celebration of all of the successes of all of our children and their efforts during the year, it is an opportunity to farewell the Yr.6 children and wish them every success as they move to a new phase in their education.  Mass begins at 6:00pm and children are to wear their summer uniform.

Presentation Night – our presentation night will be next Thursday at 6:30pm.  We look forward to seeing you all this evening.  Children are to wear their summer school uniform to this event.

Semester Two Reports - The final reports for 2018 will be available next week.  There will be an opportunity for you to meet with your child’s class teacher if required. 

It’s reporting time once again and quite often school reports can mean anxious times for parents and students. Children of all ages take their cues from their parents, so your reaction to their school report can affect the way they see themselves as learners and as people. When you open the school report do you look for strengths or weaknesses first?

The challenge is to focus on strengths rather than focus purely on areas that need improving. Take into account your child’s effort and attitude to learning. If the report indicates that effort is below standard, then you and your child have something to work on. If your child is putting in the required effort, then you can’t ask any more than that regardless of the grading. Broaden your focus away from academic performance to form a picture of how your child is progressing as an individual in a social setting.

The skills of independence and cooperation are highly rated by employers these days so don’t dismiss these as unimportant.

Please make use of the online booking system to make an appointment time to speak with your child’s teacher. Bookings can be made on the School Interviews website:

https://www.schoolinterviews.com.au/code

Our code is j4rpe

Yr. 6 Ipads – all Yr. 6 children need to have their ipads at school next Friday (14/12) so that they can be decommissioned.  Please remember to save any files/pics to another place before Friday

SwimSafe – is set down for next week.

Please ensure that all of the children have all of their swimming equipment for every day next week.

Thank you to those families who are keeping us informed about absences, illnesses and changes to daily routines.  As always this information helps to keep the days running smoothly.

Please continue to talk with your children about having enough to drink and eat to enjoy their day at school, as during this week some of the children have been eating their lunch at recess time.

Library – Borrowing has now concluded for this year.  It’s time to start looking around at home to find and return any extra library books that might be hiding around your home.  Check in those out of the way places such as under the bed, behind the couch, on the kitchen bench, school library books often turn up in some very unusual places…  This week we’ve had a number of books handed in which is terrific to see.  In terms of overdue books, our best result for this year, was an item that had been on loan for 306 days.

Please feel free to keep returning any “extra” books that you find at home.

School Fees – Now is the time to finalise any outstanding payments for 2018.

Thank you to those families who have already paid the fees for this term.  Thank you also to those who are keeping us up to date with making payments, this is very helpful.

If your family is experiencing difficulties paying school fees, please make contact with Therese Clancy at school for assistance.  There are a number of options available to assist when people are experiencing financial challenges.

Calendar - You might notice that our newsletter calendar has clicked over to 2019 – we are already in the planning stages for next year, and dates that we have available have been included. Please note that there may be some minor changes.

We are also updating this information on our school website and adding it to the news feed.  The site can be found at

https://www.stjosephsgrenfell.nsw.edu.au/

Now is also a good time to start to use the Schoolzine app as we are continuing the transition to this app in 2019.  Instructions for the app have been included with this newsletter.

Sincerely,

Therese Clancy

Principal

REC News

Here is a prayer for all families as we continue our journey through the season of Advent.

Advent Prayer for Families

Heavenly Father, your son, Jesus, is your greatest gift to us, a great sign of your love. Guide us as we strive to walk in that love together as a family this Advent. As we prepare our hearts for Christmas, bring us closer to each other and to your son. Give us the grace and strength we need every day. Help us to always trust in you. Come, Lord Jesus, lead all people closer to you. Come and dispel the darkness of our world with the light of your love. Amen.

Retrieved from:https://dynamiccatholic.com/best-advent-ever/advent-prayers

Graduation Mass Invitation

Please join us next Tuesday evening (the 11^th of December) at St Joseph’s Church at 6 pm for our end of year Graduation Mass. This mass is always a particularly poignant one for the graduating students and their families. All are welcome to join us for this special celebration.

Leslie King

Classroom News – Year 3/4

This term in Japanese we have been learning about all sorts of things including body parts. For example, karada means the whole body. We also play some games. We play scissors, paper, rock in Japanese which is jan, kan, pon. We also played a game when you stand in a circle and start counting from ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyuu, juu (which are the numbers in Japanese) and then whoever is juu is out and then we play again until there is only one person left. We also play Pac man. The teacher asks us questions and we have to answer them and if we get it right we are allowed to take one step and try and touch someone. We all have so much fun learning Japanese. It is going to be sad when it ends at the end of the year. Hopefully we get to do it again next year.

By Jacky and Cooper

Maths

By Aize and Charlie

In Maths this term we learned about making a shoebox of love. We were given a budget of $60 and we had to fit a certain number of things into the shoebox. These are the items we had to put in:

• Something to love
• Something special
• Something for personal hygiene
• Something for school
• Something to play with
• Something to wear

After that we spent the rest of our money on extra gifts for the girl or boy. We had fun shopping for gifts. We would like to do it for real next time.

Maths

This week we have been learning about angles in maths. There are many different types of angles. Here is an image of some of the angles we have been studying. These are the easy ones.

Here are some harder angles we are learning about. These are complementary angles.

The best thing about our work about angles is that we get to draw trucks for homework because they have lots of angles in them!

Written by Banjo and Hugh

This term we have been learning about using more sophisticated language in our writing. Here are some lists of interesting words that we used in our writing.

By Addison and Alyssa

History

In History we have been studying the First Fleet and the first contact of the British with the Australian Aboriginals. We each had to write a diary entry from the perspective of either the Aboriginals or the British. Here is one example of our work. We even used paper and images to try and make the diary entries look as if they were really old.   

By Henry and Hamish

Religion

This term in Religion we have been talking and researching things that world leaders and other important people say and do. We have been reading quotes from famous people. We are pretending to be Jesus and writing a letter to the famous people who wrote the quotes because we have to tell them what Jesus would say about it. Then we find a reading from the Bible to go with the letter.

Here is one example:

"Never see a need without doing something about it" - Mary Mackillop.

Dear Mary Mackillop:  

I really like your quote Mary. It shows me that you like caring and helping people. I feel very grateful for you that you were a nun and taught young children in Australia. I think it’s great that you made the first school in Australia for poor children. Your quote makes me happy because I can see that you love to teach children about me and other important things they don’t know. This is a reading from the book that I love. I’m sure that you love it too.

Matthew 19:13-15

13 Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who bought them; 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the Kingdom of heaven belongs.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

I hope you get my letter. Keep going with your excellent work.

Your sincerely,

Jesus

Written by Genevieve and Isaac

Note: ICT help for some class members was contributed by Ruby