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Dear parents and carers,
Last Friday morning we had quite a number of different book characters here with us at school.
It was terrific to see the children enter into the spirit of the event and ensure that they were reflecting their chosen character accurately.
Thank you to everyone who joined us on the morning, it was great to see you here.
Archdiocesan Athletics – Congratulations to Banjo and Hugh who participated in individual events and our small schools relay team - William, Cooper, Hamish and Hugh on your efforts at the Archdiocesan Athletics carnival in Canberra last week.
This week, we have hosted visitors from Catholic Education. Mrs Caddey-Murphy, Professor Lowe and Mrs Nash worked with the Yr. 5/6 class in the area of English. In particular, they worked on writing and the development of characters in a piece of writing.
This has provided insights in to works that the children are in the process of developing and I am quite sure that these will be ready to share at our publication day on Friday September 20. We are planning to hold this day so that you can come along and read some of the publications that all of the children have been working on in class.
We have continued watching our ovals’ transformation this week. The new turf is coming along well. We are still in something of a waiting phase as the turf establishes itself. We are very much looking forward to being able to use this renovated play space before the end of term.
REC/Priests/Principal from across the Archdiocese will attend the annual meeting in Canberra tomorrow. This day is the beginning of our panning for 2020 and both Mrs King and I will be attending the day.
Sincerely,
Please be aware that we have a number of bugs around at present. Given that life is busy both at school and at home, we would like to thank those families who are mindful of people becoming run down during very busy times and taking action as needed.
Thank you, also to those families who are monitoring to ensure that illness is real as opposed to “maths is a bit hard… and I don’t feel like it today.”
This week we have also spoken about choosing not to be the person who teases or “stirs the pot” in order to cause hurt to someone else for fun. It can be tempting to do this, however a better way to connect might be to invite the person having a tough day to join your game.
Enrolments for 2020 – if you have a child beginning school in 2020, please take the time to collect an enrolment form, complete, and return to school. Completing this process early will help us with planning for 2020 and mean that there is one less job for you to worry about as the busy end of year period comes about.
Changes to routine - Thank you to those families who are keeping us informed when children are absent from school, or there are changes to the regular routine. Please be aware that we are required to keep the rolls up to date and that thorough explanation for absences enable us to do so.
In closing this week, I ask that you keep Alexander and his family in your prayers over the coming days as he recovers from his accident.
As our Parish Priest was unavailable on Wednesday for our weekly mass in Grenfell, we had a prayer celebration instead. Every child in the school was asked to contribute a prayer for this celebration. While there were some recurring themes, each prayer was a sincere expression of a heartfelt desire.
I am including a few of these prayers in the newsletter this week and I will be including others in future weeks. I am also going to collate these prayers into a book for the students to use during our whole school assemblies. The students love to share prayers (and other writing) when it has been written by their classmates and friends.
Please join us each Wednesday this term for a mass or prayer celebration. Next week, the Year 5/6 students will be preparing and presenting the readings and prayers.
Dear God,
We pray for Alexander who is in hospital. We pray for all those in hospital. We also pray for people who have passed away, including Craig Simpson.
Amen Hamish Gibson
Dear Lord,
Please help my mum and other mums who are having babies that they don’t struggle with all their work and that they enjoy their newborn babies.
Amen Stella Fanning
Dear God,
Please bring us some rain because the land is so dusty and dry. No rain means no harvest and that is not good for anyone. So please, God, bring us some rain. Amen Henry Clifton
Many blessings,
K/1 Music
K/1 have been working hard in music this term. We have learned about the rhythms of ta and ti-ti
and the solfa notes of so, me and la. Keeping a steady beat is important as we sing along to songs
and learn how to notate these. We have performed rhythms with un-tuned percussion instruments
and composed and played simple tunes on the metallophones. Occasionally we explore movement
to some famous compositions including the Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint Saëns.
K/1 PD/H/PE
In PD/H/PE lessons we have been learning about keeping ourselves safe. This includes the
importance of trust and having special people in our lives that we can trust. We looked at how our
bodies give us warning signs when we are in unsafe situations and how we can listen to those
warning signs. We performed some role playing of situations where a stranger might approach us
and what we should say and do. Coming up in the second half of the term we will be looking at how
we can be safe near the road, in vehicles and when using our bikes.
K/1 Geography
In Geography K/1 have been learning all about the features of places in our lives. We learned about
natural and built features of environments and how we can look after some of the environments
that we use such as the local park. We have learned a little bit about some different environments
like the ocean, mountains, grasslands and cities and will continue to develop this knowledge
throughout the rest of the term.
2/3/4 Geography
The beginning of the term saw us learning about the basics of mapping. We looked at the features of
a good map, how to read and use grid references and even learned a little bit about longitude and
latitude. After an energetic lesson where we competed to be the first 4 teams to locate and write
down the continents and oceans of the world, we now turn our attention to learning about some
other countries. We will be investigating how those countries compare with Australia, particularly
the Grenfell region. Our investigation will have us look at weather patterns, the natural and built
features of places and what people are doing around the globe to care for the environment.
5/6 Dance
There is a bit of secrecy around what the 5/6 class have been doing in dance. I can’t give too much
away except to say that we are working on a project that will be revealed at the end of the term. It
involves exploring different movements, teamwork, and using the elements of dance (such as
contrast, relationship, space and time) to compose, rehearse and then finally perform something
special. I’ve got this feeling inside my soul that the end product will be something spectacular.
Years 2/3 and 4 have investigated 2 Dimensional shapes. Along with this, we have discovered a variety of shapes and shape properties, such as tessellations, symmetry, transformations, shapes in the environment and types of lines. We further investigated transformations by reflecting a variety of images across the vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines of reflection.
The diagonal line of reflection proved quite tricky.
Year 5 and 6 are also investigation 2 Dimensional shapes. One activity was to fold an A4 sheet to form a shape and as a group discover other shapes and create a larger version. This provided opportunities to use transformation of reflection, translation and rotation. Some interesting discoveries were made.
Emily Keough
Hi, my name is Emily Keough, I’m 28 years old and I currently live in Wollongong, NSW. I graduated from St. Joseph’s in 2003. I really enjoyed my time at St. Joseph’s. I think that belonging to a small school, where everyone knows each other, and where community engagement is strong – has had a profound effect on my behaviour as an adult. I think it is great when people say they can ‘tell’ that I’m from the country, based on the way I talk or behave. I think a lot of that has to do with the values instilled at St. Joseph’s.
My favourite subjects in primary and secondary school were music, science and math. I also liked to play the piano and play soccer.
One of my most favourite memories from primary school is playing Bullrush before assembly. I’m yet to experience anything more thrilling than making it to the other side of the grass without being ‘tagged’...
Since school, I have completed an Undergraduate Degree in Psychology with Honours at the University of Wollongong, and I am now completing a PhD in the field. Specifically, my PhD is in facial expression recognition.
During high school, I wanted to become a psychologist to help people who had mental health issues. I changed my mind at university during my honours year, when I discovered I could help people by conducting research – which I really enjoyed. Research is an interesting job; essentially, it is a career in problem solving. Sometimes it is challenging, but it allows me to travel and I get free coffee, so I can’t complain too much.
I have two tips for current students.
- The first is to try your best. It’s a very rewarding feeling when you do.
- My second tip is to look for answers yourself before you ask somebody else. Do not become dependent on Google or others for information. The better students I see at university seek out information and only ask once they have tried to find the answers themselves. I think this is a much-underrated skill that is easily overlooked.