St Joseph's Primary School Charlestown eNewsletter

What's on at St Joey's

Full Winter Uniform by 1st June
Band 24/5	National Simultaneous Storytime 24/5
Catholic Schools Week Liturgy 2pm 25/5	Spanish Club 8-8.45am 26/5
Sorry Day 26/5	Reconciliation Week 28/5
Yr 3-6 Gymnastics 29/5	Band 31/5
Parish Mass Stage 1 31/5	Reconciliation St Mary Immaculate Church Charlestown, 6.30pm
Spanish Club 8-8.45am 2/6	Minnie Vinnies PJ Day - Winter Appeal 2/6

Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

As you can see from the busy calendar of events there is a lot of great things happening at St Joseph’s this term. I draw you attention to the above “What’s on” to note down upcoming events on your family calendar.

We had a tremendous turn out at both our Mother’s Day Liturgy & breakfast and & Open Day. The staff and students look forward to families joining us for these events. These large numbers affirm the positive culture and inclusive learning environment we have at St Joey’s. Due to the weather we had to postpone our Catholic Schools Weeks Liturgy to this Thursday at 2pm.

A special thank you to the P&F parent helpers who organised the gifts for our Mother's Day Stall. In particular we would like to thank Katie Turnbull, Kim smith and Nat Evans.

Many thanks to our school community who donated to the RUN DIPG Awareness Day. The students enjoyed their afternoon of sports games and generously raised $991 to support the advancement of DIPG/DMG research. This fundraiser is particularly close to our hearts and we keep in our thoughts and prayers both the Binnie and Turner families at this time.

St Joseph’s again participated in National Walk Safely to School Day on Friday. Thank you to Mrs Nolan, Mrs Hill, Mrs Ridgewell and Mrs Davis for organising this and meeting our students. Many students also took up the offer of having a yummy healthy breakfast of fruit and yoghurt served by the canteen.

Next week we welcome Kathleen Arthur to 1 Red replacing Mrs Ange Shaw who begins parental leave awaiting the arrival of her second child. Kathleen is an experienced teacher who has recently moved to Newcastle, and we are fortunate to have her with us at St Joey’s.

With autumn now in full swing we are still in Summer uniform but as the days get colder children will need their jackets. Please ensure all items of clothing and belongings have names clearly marked on them so they can be returned when they go missing. We will have a 2 week uniform transition period in the last 2 weeks of May with everyone in full Winter uniform by the 1st June. Please read below for important information about ordering uniforms. Thank you to Lindsey, Hannah and Caroline for opening our uniform shop each Monday and Friday 8:45 - 9:15am.

We farewelled Taylor our OOSH Supervisor today. We thank Taylor for her commitment to caring for our students and establishing a happy and supportive environment for our students who require before/ after school care. We wish her well with her university studies. Michelle Birch will fulfil this role for the interim. Further details will be in the OOSH section of the newsletter.

Mrs Drake returns tomorrow after a special week of leave to celebrate the wedding of her son Lachlan. Kate was very excited to have her family altogether for this event including her eldest son, Jack and his partner Sari return home from Japan. We are very happy for her and look forward to hearing all about it!

We also welcome back Karen Peacock to our support staff as Learning Support Assistant. Karen joins our other LSA's in supporting students in and out of the classroom. Please see below for Karen's staff profile and meet the rest of our team too.

Huge congratulations to our wonderful athletes who competed at the Diocesan Cross Country with Miss Houlahan reporting on their great attitudes of resilience, determination and support of each other and a positive team camaraderie. Congratulations to Lochlan O who represents the Diocese at Polding held at Sydney Equestrian Centre on the 13th June. A great achievement Lochlan!

Thank you to all teachers and parent helpers on the smooth running of today’s carnival. In particular we thank Miss Wozniak, Mrs Foxon. Mrs Paff and Ms Davis for being lead organisers and ensuring this day is a success. Results will be shared in the following days to come.

A reminder that school supervision begins at 8:25am. Please contact Michelle Birch our onsite supervisor of our St Nicholas OOSH service (M: 0429 435 571) if you require care before this time. We have some students arriving as early as 8am and I am concerned that is a considerable amount of time that students are unsupervised.

With every best wish,

Nikki Norley (Assistant Principal)

Congratulations to the Drake Family!

Recent Events Gallery

Congratulations to the Spelling and Maths Bee Finalists..

St Joseph’s Charlestown takes part in the annual Diocesan Spelling and Maths Bee and we would like to congratulate our Finalists:

Spelling Bee:

Stage 1: Zivah G and Faith J

Stage 2: Jeremy H and Will B

Stage 3: Urban B and Olive W

Maths Bee:

Stage1: Billie U and Harriet C

Stage 2: Eli S and Jeremy H

Stage 3: Beau D and Alice D

We wish Zivah, Jeremy, Urban, Billie, Eli and Beau the best of luck as they represent our school at the regional Spelling and Maths Bee competition at Kilaben Bay on 9th June.

Staff Thank you!

A big thank you our fabulous staff. We have had a lot of sickness amongst our school community and staff away. We are most appreciative of all our hardworking staff keeping learning at the forefront of all we do and working so well as team. We are truely blessed at St Joey's.

with every best wish,

Kathryn Hill.

News from the Religious Coordinator

Catholic Schools Week

With last week’s Catholic School’s Week celebrations dampened, we are going to reschedule our Catholic School’s Week Liturgy led by Fr Tony and year 3 on Thursday 25^Th May at 2pm. We hope you can come along.

Meet Fr. Tony Podcast

At the end of last year, two of our talented year 6 students Ivy Mitchell and Nyah Campbell, sat down with Fr. Tony for an interesting chat about what it is like to be a Parish priest. We hope you enjoy listening to this great podcast.

Fr Tony.WAV

Sacramental News

We are now more than halfway completed our Sacramental preparation for Reconciliation.

The children have been learning about God’s love, the importance of making good choices and the structure of the reconciliation sacrament. The children will make their first reconciliation on the evening of the 1 June, at St Mary Immaculate Church, Charlestown, 6.30pm.

Upcoming Mini Vinnies Fundraisers

As the weather gets colder, there are many in our community who will be suffering more as electricity and general living expenses increase.

On the 2^nd of June the Mini Vinnies will hold a pyjama day students to raise money for those in our local community.

On the 16^th of June we will hold an out of Uniform day to raise money for CatholicCare, an organisation which hosts soup kitchens and shelters for those living in poverty.

More details to come.

We appreciate your support of this important fundraisers.

Important dates: Pentecost- Sunday 28^th May

News from the Primary Coordinator

Place Value - How Important is it Really?

Place Value is the most important concept when teaching maths to any student. It is the foundation of every maths concept from preschool to algebra level maths and is essential for a complete mathematical understanding. Students can not progress if they haven't mastered Place Value as a basic concept first.

Place value is the value of each digit in a number. For example, the 5 in 350 represents 5 tens, or 50; however, the 5 in 5,006 represents 5 thousands, or 5,000. It is important that children understand that while a digit can be the same, its value depends on where it is in the number.

How does place value relate to other areas of maths?

Place value is intrinsically linked to many other areas of maths. A solid understanding of place value is vital to allow children to competently add, subtract, multiply and divide, among other things.

From the Office of Safeguarding

RESOURCES RELEASED BY THE ESAFETY COMMISSIONER.

eSafety downloadable resources to help you start the chat about online safety issues and strategies with your child.

Books eSafety book guide
Information sheets eSafety Information Sheets
Audio files eSafety Audio Files
Family tech agreements eSafety Family Tech Agreements
Activities eSafety activities

Happy Birthday to the following students

We wish the following students are very happy birthday for the months of May/June

Reid T 24/5	Ellie O 25/5	Art M 26/5	Matilda R 27/5
Ava T 28/5	Madelyn G 31/5	Lani R 2/6	Julian K 3/6
Grace M 4/6	Cruze C 4/6

Sports News

Diocesan Cross Country

Congratulations to all students who represented our school at the Diocesan Cross Country last week. Everyone ran incredibly well and showed wonderful support cheering each other on. An extra special congratulations to Lochlan O’Brien for placing 2^nd, we wish him all the best at polding.

Athletics Carnival

Today we held a very successful carnival. The weather was perfect and our students thorughly enjoyed themeselves. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all those parents, carers and grandparents who volunteer in our school community. All of your efforts are so greatly appreciated. Please know that you are all highly appreciated by the staff.

News from the Classrooms

Year 3 have been benefitting from the recent Simply Maths PD with Dr Ange and Dr Bern Long. The students have been engaging in fun differentiated maths games focusing on key place value concepts. We look forward to further expanding our knowledge and skills using these maths games.

Hub News

Canteen News

Kelly our new Canteen Officer would love to see you if you have a spare couple of hours to assist in the canteen. Volunteers need to be registered with our CSO, by following this link: https://www.mn.catholic.org.au/people/volunteer/

Once cleared please sign up for a shift. The children love to see you here!

https://signup.zone/ZYkfNzsbws83p9yHM

Aboriginal Education News

Aboriginal Education

What a wonderful start to Term 2 we have had at St Joseph’s Charlestown

There are certainly some very important and culturally significant events and dates coming up.

May: The Uluru Statement from the Heart

This is an invitation from First Nations to “walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future”.

The Uluru Statement calls for a new relationship between First Nations and the Australian nation based on justice and self-determination where Aboriginal cultures and peoples can flourish, and we all move forward.

It was issued to the Australian people in May 2017.

For more information, please visit this link https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/

26th May: National Sorry Day

National Sorry Day acknowledges the Stolen Generations who were forcibly removed from their families and communities. It is an opportunity to learn about and reflect on the experiences of the Stolen Generations and recognising the healing power of saying sorry.

It is held on the anniversary of the tabling of the 1997 Bringing them Home Report in Parliament. This was the national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families – it is a tribute to those affected by forcible removal policies.

27th May: 1967 Referendum

In the 1967 Referendum on 27 May, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. A resounding 90.77 per cent said ‘Yes’ and every single state and territory had a majority result for the ‘Yes’ vote.

Prior to this only the states could make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – this meant laws could vary significantly from state to state. It was one of the most successful national campaigns in Australia’s history.

Thousands of people worked on the campaign and achieving the ‘yes’ was a huge victory, signalling a change in the mindset of Australia’s majority. It opened the door to First Nations Australian agency, bringing to light many strong leaders and organisations, and the expectation that things could be different. Change was possible, and they were willing to fight for it. In many ways, that fight continues today.

For more information, please visit this link https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/1967-referendum

27th May – 3rd June: National Reconciliation Week

National Reconciliation Week is a time to learn about our shared histories, cultures, achievements, and explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

It includes two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey — the successful 1967 referendum that changed the Constitution and the High Court Mabo decision.

The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2023 is Be a Voice for Generations.

The theme encourages all Australians to be a voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives – where we live, work and socialise.

For the work of generations past, and the benefit of generations future, act today for a more just, equitable and reconciled country for all.

For more information, please visit this link https://nrw.reconciliation.org.au/about-nrw/

The students and staff at St Joseph’s will recognise these hugely significant events with special activities which I will lead with each class.

In recognition of these dates, we will also hold a special prayer service as part our morning assembly on Friday 26^th May. We invite families to join us for this special event.

Danielle Shaw

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Teacher

Uniform Shop

All enquiries to email:

chl.uniformshop@mn.catholic.edu.au

ORDER via the QKR App

Healthy Eating Snippets

OOSH

The before and after school care at St Joseph’s is provided by St Nicholas OOSH, Diocese of Maitland Newcastle.  Open form 7am-8:30am and 3:00pm-6:00pm.

Please contact Michelle for further information. 

MICHELLE BIRCH
NOMINATED SUPERVISOR | ST NICHOLAS OOSH   
P 0429 435 571     M  0429 435 571  
Email michelle.birch@stnicholasmn.org.au  Visit us online www.stnicholasoosh.org.au 

Pick Up & Drop Off Procedures

We have had a couple of near miss incidents in our turning circle. To ensure the safety of all students please follow the road rules and our pickup and drop off procedures. LMCC Parking Rangers have also been on patrol and although they did not book anyone last visit, they will be back and will be booking drivers not following the rules.

Morning Drop Off

Playground supervision commences at 8.25am. The Shelton Street pedestrian gate is opened at 7am when St Nicholas OOSH commences. Students and parents are to access the school via the pedestrian gate. Please do not walk through the carpark. Parents dropping and picking up students at OOSH may use the carpark until 8:10am and after 3:30pm.

Procedure for dropping off students after 8:55am bell.

It is a requirement that students who arrive after this bell are to be signed in via the kiosk by a parent. Please do not drop your students to the gate unsupervised after this time.

Car pick up and Drop off procedures

Please ensure you are familiar with our procedures and adhere to all parking restriction signs. Please do not block neighbours driveways and keep the bus bay clear.