Term 4 Week 1

What's on at St Joey's

Principal's Messages

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Term 4! I trust the holiday break gave some time for relaxation and time with family and friends. Term 4 is a wonderful term of learning and consolidation of skills taught in each stage. It is also a term for assessments and further reporting of achievements and goal setting. Please continue to review the class fortnightly Learning Overviews that are posted by class teachers on Compass and/or Seesaw. These can offer you some insight into the topics and key ideas being taught across the fortnight and can assist you to engage in discussions with your children about what they are learning. Don’t forget to try the 5 Questions approach:

Remember to speak positively about school, problem solve together and set achievable goals. If you have any concerns or questions as the term progresses, please contact your class teacher and make an appointment to discuss these. Please avoid trying to catch teachers before school as they have duties, meetings and preparations to complete. We want to assist you and be able to give you the time needed so send an email and a suitable time can be arranged.

Today we welcome 3 new families to St Joey’s, the Pogson Family, Jones Family and Britt family. Billi and Elliot will join Year 1 Red and Kalani joins 5/6 Red. Please help make our new students and their families feel welcome as they get settled into their new routines and environment.

Our school is continuing to grow with enrolments increasing each term and as such we have been granted a 13^th class for 2024. The goal is to reach our full capacity of 14 classes, 2 classes per grade for 2025. Recruitment processes for staffing are underway and I am pleased to announce that Ms Emily Dale is the successful candidate in attaining a permanent full-time position for 2024. Emily comes to us from St Aloysius Chisholm, has teaching experience across two diocese and is studying a master’s in educational leadership. We will look forward to welcoming Emily to our team later in the term. Once staffing is finalised, we will sort classes for 2024 and hold a Step Up afternoon in the last week, so staff and students can meet each other and see their new rooms for the following year.

Please note the following important dates for Term 4 and End of Year events:

Week 1 – Stage 3 Camp 12/10-13/10

Week 2 – Kinder 2024 Play & Learn Session 2 19/10

-Stage 1 Excursion Hunter Valley Zoo 20/10

Week 5 & 6– Year 2 Intensive Swimming Program 6/11-17/11

Week 6 – First Holy Communion 19/11

Week 8 – 2024 Student Leadership Speeches

Week 9 – St Joey’s Got Talent 5/12 1:45pm

                -End Of Year Mass and Awards 8/12 9:30am

Week 10 – Step Up Afternoon – meet the 2024 Teacher 11/12

    -Swimming Carnival 12/12 – Charlestown Pool

    -Stage 3 Surf Day 13/12

                    -Volunteers Thank You Lunch 14/12

                  -Christmas Concert 14/12 1:30pm TBC

                  -Year 6 Farewell Dinner 14/12 – Kahibah Sports Club 6pm-8pm

                   -Last day for students 15/12, Year 6 Clap Out 2:30pm

During the holidays we had the gutters cleaned, annual pest inspection and treatment, tree maintenance, IT upgrade of our hardware system, repairs to the oval with grading, seeding and turfing and a whole list of other maintenance jobs to keep the school humming for our final term. Thank you to Frederick’s dad, James McLachlan for his help sourcing and delivering a donated boat to be added to the nature play area for our students. We will need some assistance in making it ‘play worthy’, so if you have some time and ideas to help, please let us know by contacting kathryn.hill@mn.catholic.edu.au This will be a great addition to our beautiful play space!

This term we will be working on the development of a Ninja Circuit play area for the students to develop fitness and coordination skills. Quotes are currently being sourced and this project will be funded by the combined support of our P & F and school funding. So more wonderful developments ahead for our school!

This week we wish our amazing athletes all the very best as they compete at the Polding Athletics carnival at Homebush on Friday. We are very proud of Eli, Lochlan, Frankie, Tanner, Olive, Harry, Billie and Jake for advancing to this next level. Good luck!

We also wish our Stage 3 students a fun and positive overnight camp experience at the Sport and Recreation Centre, Gwandalan, on Thursday and Friday. I know you will enjoy the outdoor experiences, games and team building activities. Huge thanks to our staff who take time out from their own families and their own commitments to stay overnight with the students. It is greatly appreciated!

Wishing all our students, staff and families a happy and positive Term 4.

God Bless,

Kate Drake

Happy Birthday to the following students

We wish the following students a very happy birthday.

P&F News

Dear Parents,

P&F meeeting next Monday the 16th all welcome at 6.30pm in the school staffroom.

Canteen News

Kelly our 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

Uniform Shop

All enquiries to email: our volunteers. Shop open Monday and Friday at 8.45- 9.15am

chl.uniformshop@mn.catholic.edu.au

ORDER via the QKR App

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