Principals News   

Dear families,

A very sincere thank you to our parents who have given up their time over the last two weeks, whether this was to attend the P&F meeting, guide prospective parents on our open morning as tour guides, or for giving our school grounds a welcome ‘facelift’ at the working bee.

We had a fantastic turnout at the P&F working bee over the weekend, with lots of helpers who brought with them rakes, brooms, blower vacs, pressure washers, long ladders, trucks, tipper utes, and more that helped us tick lots of jobs off the list! 

Thanks to donations of an array of plants straight from the gardens of our amazing community, we were able to plant the front planter boxes which will grow to offer some lovely greenery at the front of the building. We were also able to do a fresh top-up of sand in the sandpit ready for lots of messy play! 

In addition to lots of leaves swept up, and tackling weeds in the secret garden, we also had some very handy helpers who carried out building and roof repairs and maintenance. 

A huge thank you to the P&F and the below families who helped and contributed toward the working bee, the school looked its absolute best for our open day! 

Prep Gerrit (James)

Prep/1 Viron  (Nicolas and George)

Prep Sarah (Liam)

1C Jess and Jerome (Violet)

1C Annie and Lukas (Rafaela)

1C Mary and John (Frankie)

1C Scott (Elliot)

1C Shannon and Chris (Ollie)

1C Matt (Evie)

1L Fleur (Andre)

1/3/6 Daniela (Frederica, Fabien and Sebastian)

2  Ash, Guy and Jen (Christopher)

3 James (Max)

3 Vita (Milana)

3/ 5 Chris (Will and Bridget)

3/6 Simone (Pip, Xavier and Harriet)

3/6 Courtney and Scott (Tom and Sophie)

The open morning was well attended with a special thanks to Jane, Tennille, Nisha, Olivia, and Laura for sharing the parent perspective on our beautiful school. What an amazing community we have at St Joseph’s! Each parent had multiple families to show around with Isabelle and myself having to step in as emergency chaperones as well!

Our Year 6 captains did a great job at their presentations and explaining how each of their leadership roles contributes to the life of the school. 

Parent feedback of the morning was very positive with one parent writing: 

‘Hi Claire & Siobhan 

Just wanted to say quickly how impressed I was with the Y6 presentations today. I was fortunate enough to see them all twice and loved how seriously they took them and how happy they were to be speaking to prospective parents.

If I was a parent I'd be signing up immediately.

Well done to you both & the students!’ 

Following the first open morning of the year, we have had quite a few new applications for Prep 2025 and have already 26 completed applications for next year. Our first round of offers has already gone out, if you would like to secure your place for 2025 or have a sibling for 2025 and have not notified the office please do so as soon as possible. 

School Closure Days: 

Our big focus on the school closure days this Month was child safety, this was a valuable opportunity for staff to reflect upon their role in child safety and to ensure that our policies are not only visible but lived documents. All staff members also completed the mandatory reporting modules and the theoretical component of the Level II first aid course. We also had the opportunity to reflect on our Faith with Fr Michael Gallacher leading us all in a faith formation session.  

Car Parking:

I know that there can be limited spaces for parking at drop off and pick up but it is imperative to note that the Parish Car park is for staff use only, many of our support staff finish or start at different times and it is unsafe to have children walking around the car park; particularly when it is unexpected for them to be there. Many families have little ones and smaller children can’t always be seen by reversing cameras or over the bonnets of larger vehicles. 

I hope you all have a great long weekend and can hardly believe there are less than three school weeks left until the Easter Holidays.

Next Wednesday is the start of the NAPLAN exams for Years 3 and 5 and I would like to thank the class teachers in these year levels for preparing the students so well. 

Have a safe and happy long weekend

Martin Earl