Principal's Report

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome back to Term 4! We hope everyone enjoyed a restful break and is feeling refreshed and ready for the final stretch of the school year. As we head into this busy and exciting term, it promises to be both productive and rewarding. Due to the nature of this term there are many events and plenty of communication which will be coming home. Please make sure you read all the correspondence to keep you informed until we finish school on 17th December, 2025.

Prayers

As a school community, there has been some sadness surrounding us over the last three weeks. We continue to keep Macey and Tilly Hatch and their family in our prayers along with Hugh Drum (Yr 4) and his family, who tragically lost their mother/grandmother this week. We ask God to give them the strength and healing they need during this time of grief and sorrow.

Welcome

A special welcome to the Sheather family who have joined our school community this week. Olivia is in Yr 4 and Noah is in Yr 6.  We wish them all the very best as they settle into their new school environment here at St Joseph’s. 

Staffing Announcements

I am pleased to welcome Mrs Elyce Lyons to our school community this term.

Mrs Lyons will be replacing Ms Moran who will be now teaching Year 4 fulltime from Week 3 until the end of term.

Mrs Lyons is an Early Career Teacher and has had many years experience in early childhood and working as a teacher assistant in schools.  She is very excited to be beginning her primary teaching here at St Joseph's. She will be working Wednesday -Friday, relieving teachers from face to face teaching including library lessons, as well as classroom support. 

Due to this change in staffing, Mrs Munn will now be the EMU (Maths Intervention) teacher for both early and middle years in Term 4. Mrs Munn is our Maths Instructional Teacher and has worked as an EMU teacher for many years.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Brady and Ms Moran for their fabulous work with our EMU students from Terms 1-3. The strategies they have used in their Maths intervention can be applied to their classroom teaching which is highly beneficial.

Island Night

There is an ‘Island Night’ fundraising event on Saturday 8th November for the Junee Community to come together and raise money in support of Vanessa Field’s children. If any families are willing to assist on the night or want to contribute, please call the school and leave your name. This will be passed onto Bree Gibbs-Manatu, one of our parents who is organising the event. Please see the advertisement below. 

Kinder Orientation

Next Friday 24th October, we welcome our 2026 Kindergarten students for their first Orientation session. This is an exciting day for them and our school, as we introduce them to school life at St Joseph's. We look forward to meeting the children and their families next week.

Joey’s Journal

Since 2017 we have had the privilege of an annual Joey’s Journal publication offered to our families to purchase as a memento of each year of schooling. Mrs Amanda Riley has kindly volunteered her time, expertise and services over the last 7 years to produce our Joey’s Journal with the generous help of Mrs Bianca Brady as Editor. As you would all know and appreciate, compiling such a fantastic publication took an incredible amount of time and effort which was all voluntary from Mrs Riley and Mrs Brady.

Due to time restraints, availability and the amount of time required to complete each Journal, we have made the difficult decision to cease the publication of the Joey’s Journal. We are privileged to have had the last 7 years captured in printed form and if circumstances change, we will look to reinstate this publication in the future.

I’d like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Mrs Riley and Mrs Brady for the birth of the Joey’s Journal and for all they have done to provide our school community with this memorable publication.

SJJU Social and Fundraising Committee Update

I would like to thank Mrs Becci Brabin and her team of  parents who have been planning the Joey’s Cup fundraiser to be held on Tuesday 4th November. For those families who may not have experienced Joey’s Cup, it is held on Melbourne Cup Day and we have a luncheon at the school followed by the children racing around the oval using a wooden hobby horse followed by the sponsored race involving all the staff members. Each staff member is sponsored by local business houses who donate to the event and staff are dressed accordingly by their sponsors to run their own race using the hobby horses.

It is very entertaining and so much fun! We would like to thank all the business houses who have donated to date (please see the advertisement further in newsletter) and the money raised will be to provide a shade sail over our new sandpit.

Our final SJJU Social and Fundraising committee meeting will be next Friday 24th October after the whole school assembly in the hall. All parents and children are very welcome to attend.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

God Bless

Angela Scott