This week we welcomed back Mrs Gabbie Hawthorne (Miss Carney) from her honeymoon. Kinder Gold had a terrific time with Mrs Cathy Bone and we are very grateful to her for filling in for Gabbie. The children were very pleased to see Mrs Hawthorn back and to try out her ‘new name’ and find out all about her wedding. Congratulations Gabbie and Kyle, we hope your wedding day was everything you dreamed of.

We would also like to welcome Mrs Treena Francis to our staff for the remainder of this year. Treena will be working in Year 5 Blue each Friday while Laura Slattery undertakes her Gifted Education Mentor role.

Professional Learning

The Leading Learning Collaborative is a diocesan Catholic Schools Office initiative that began last year with Lynn Sharratt, a Canadian educator, researcher and author. This week, the leadership team engaged in a two day professional learning experience further developing our understanding of how to increase all students’ achievement through professional collaboration, building collective capacity and building a common language of improvement.

We found this learning to be highly relevant to what we are aiming to do here at St Joseph’s and it has given us much to think about and consider in our aim to build every staff member’s capacity and to develop every learner’s development.

Successful Foundations

Last week our school was host to the Successful Foundations sharing and collaboration day. All schools involved in this Early Learning action research project came together to share, discuss and reflect on what Successful Foundation looks like in their schools. These teachers also had the opportunity to observe our Kindergarten and Year One children in play and discuss their observations and wonderings in a facilitated conversation. Kim Moroney, our diocesan Early Learning Education Officer organised the day and she has written to thank our children for their help with the teachers’ learning, which I would like to share with you here.

Our early years learning spaces and resources were the envy of many teachers and we are very proud of not only the children in these year groups but also the staff.

Dear Kindergarten and Year One children at St Joseph’s Merewether,

Last Thursday I brought my Kindergarten teacher friends from 31 different schools to have a meeting at St Joseph’s (yes, I have a lot of friends ?)

We had a wonderful day! What made the day extra wonderful and totally unforgettable is that the teachers were able to watch you play in your beautiful classrooms and on the playground.

WOW!!! It was the best part of the day! I want to send a BIG thank you to each of you.

Sometimes adults don’t understand how incredibly important play is for children. Sometimes adults don’t understand that when you play, lots of learning is happening and you get to think and wonder and make decisions and have fun and feel happy and good inside. You get to make friends, share, laugh, talk, listen and go on an adventure. The teachers at your school understand how important play is and so do the teachers that visited you. By observing you play,  the teachers were able to understand more about play; so if we think about it…..you were able to help the teachers learn. That’s pretty cool!   

You are clever and kind! You are creative and thoughtful. You are each unique and have a special purpose in this world.

Thank you very, very much!

With LOTS of special wishes,

Kim      

Easter Raffle

We are very excited to bring back the annual St Joseph’s Easter egg raffle. The request for raffle donations are as follows:

Kinder & Year 1 – packs of medium size hollow Easter eggs

Years 2 & 3 – Small hollow Easter bunnies

Years 4 & 5 – Small packs of solid Easter eggs

Year 6 – Single medium to large hollow Easter eggs

Please ensure that all eggs have been placed in the class baskets by next Friday 26th March.

All tickets and money need to be returned by Tuesday 30th March. If you would like more raffle tickets please contact the office.

The Raffle will be drawn in the afternoon of the last day of term, Thursday 1st April.

Class Parents

We are still in need of class parents for some classes. If you can assist with this please complete an expression of interest form here by this coming Monday 22nd March.

We need class parents for:

2 Blue, 3 Gold, 4 Blue, 4 Gold and 6 Blue 

P&F

Our next P&F meeting will take place on Monday 29th March at 6 pm in the school library or via Zoom. If you have any items for the agenda please email them to Karen Stathis, the P&F secretary, at sjpandf@gmail.com

Following a recent diocesan survey, parents and carers listed concerns about Cybersafety as one of the top three topics they would like more information about. The Federation of P & F Associations has listened and is proud to offer a FREE online presentation specifically for parents and carers of students enrolled in Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. 

They are delighted to announce that former detective Brett Lee will present specifically for us on 30 March at 6.30pm.

To register, please click the link here

This presentation will also be available to those who register for 5 days following the event.

Please note: To register for this event, your details will be collected by Internet Safe Education. Further details about Internet Safe Education can be found at https://internetsafeeducation.com/

Volunteers

A number of parents would like to assist with school activities however they’re not yet approved as a volunteer. If you feel that you would like to assist throughout the year and haven’t yet applied, please see the process required.

If you wish to volunteer, or think you might like to volunteer, at some stage, at St Joseph's please collect, or download, the latest Volunteer Induction Handbook (version 1.6).  

• Registration Form - Page 16
• Volunteer Policy Declaration - page 20
• Code of Conduct Declaration - page 25
• Statutory Screening Selection Tool for Volunteers in Schools - page 26

Previously all volunteers were required to have a Working with Children Check (WWCC).  This is no longer the case if you are a close relative (see p.26) of a student enrolled at the school where you will be volunteering (other than the three exceptions outlined in the flowchart on p.26).  All ‘close relative’ volunteers are, however, required to have a National Police Check (NPC) which is arranged by the diocese once you have submitted the three above mentioned documents.

Any volunteer that has already completed the NPC last year are still cleared to volunteer, however everyone else will need to resubmit their handbook and receive clearance. If you are unsure whether you have completed the NPC please contact the school office for confirmation. There are quite a few parents on our list that have a WWCC number however very few with the NPC.  Until this is done, we are unable to involve you in any school-based volunteer activities. 

We have been told that most hold ups in this process are due to the incorrect completion of forms. Please check that you have completed all four documents, responded in all the necessary sections and signed all forms.  Once you have done this, please return the completed forms to the school offices and we will submit them to the diocesan HR-Volunteers team on your behalf.

Have a safe and dry weekend,

Karen

Important Dates

Please note the following dates are scheduled for Staff Development Days later in the year and subsequently will be Pupil Free Days:

Friday 18th June, Friday 25th June and Friday 16th July