Principal's News
We are conducting our Parent, Student and Teacher Conferences on Thursday and Friday this week. This is in place of the traditional Semester Report that would have been sent home at this time. It is important that your child attends the conference as they will be talking about their engagement with remote learning and their transition back to face to face learning. This three-way interview will allow us to celebrate your child’s success and set learning goals for the next semester. We will have a more traditional report at the end of Semester 2. The children have been looking at their current literacy and numeracy learning goals, have identified their learning strengths and discussed a wellbeing goal they would like to achieve in the next semester.
A reminder that Ms Moore sent out a notification last Friday explaining how to book a conference time through your COMPASS app ...
Friday 19.6.20 HOW TO BOOK YOUR APPOINTMENTS
Go to the Menu Bar to 'Conferences' - 'Parent-Teacher-Student Interviews' -
click on Year K-6 select the time then 'Confirm Booking'.
If you have any issues or questions please contact the office on 67291328.
Mrs Riley will be in to take the class while Mrs McDonald, Mrs Anderson and I participate in the conferences with you and your child. During the discussion we'd like the children to talk about their learning prior to, during and post remote learning. We will have set questions to help gain feedback from the children and are particularly interested in achievements or milestones in learning reached, including asking parents for their perception of learning growth and milestones.
A staff member will record the information as a "chronicle" in Compass and at the end of the conference we will plan with the students two to three agreed goals as the next steps for their learning in Semester 2. The outcomes of the meeting will be printed out as a record of the conference and sent to your COMPASS app in Week 10. This will be a formal record of the way forward in lieu of the traditional A-E report.
Wellbeing at St Joseph's
The staff are very pleased with the way the children have transitioned back to face to face learning and our three-way conferences will be one way of celebrating the children's resilience.
I quoted Professor Pasi Sahlberg, from the Gonski Institute at the University of NSW, in an earlier newsletter this term where he said "students' emotional wellbeing will be more important than their cognitive learning over the
next few months. They're probably not showing it but coping with the pandemic means there's a lot going through their little minds, he said. Making sure children felt happy and safe was more important than catching up on missed lessons".
I have included a Wellbeing Checklist for Primary students in our WELLBEING page this week.
The staff of St Joseph's have been working on creative ways to address wellbeing concerns while returning to our planned curriculum. Mrs Anderson has taught several engaging and challenging lessons in the measurement strand of Maths and has differentiated her History unit to meet the current needs of the students. Mrs McDonald
has written a "Resilience, Elasticity and Connectedness" unit that covers Personal Development and Health as well as Science. She has also created an Art unit called "Developing Resilience through Art Forms" where the children are expressing emotions through primary colours. I am incorporating wellbeing strategies in our Friday afternoon assemblies and including movement and singing to end the week on a positive note.
Compass Kiosk
Mr Richard Purssey, head of IT at CSO Armidale, installed our COMPASS Kiosk in our office last week. Parents and visitors are required to sign in when on school grounds and parents will need to sign in their children who arrive late or depart school early. I receive a text notification each time the kiosk is used and we have done away with our paper sign on folder as the kiosk reports directly back to our COMPASS portal and to CSO in Armidale.
Real Talk Parent Zoom
Nikki Lysaght from Real Talk Australia has invited St Joseph's parents to a session at St Philomena's Moree on Monday 29th June between 6:00 - 7:30 pm. This live presentation will also be streamed on Zoom for parents at St Joseph's Warialda. We are offering to host this Zoom meeting at schoolfor parents, or they can access the Zoom link at home if you are unable to make it to Moree. We will send out a link to the Zoom meeting via COMPASS prior to the meeting. Can you please RSVP to the office if you would like to join the Zoom meeting either at home or at school, so we can organise the correct Zoom links.
Any parent is welcome to the Zoom meeting, not just those whose children are in Years 4 to 6.
What will be covered in the parent session?
Current culture and what’s impacting our kids.
• Is technology taking over your family?
Tips to help you understand & manage the world of social media and gaming.
• What’s happening to my child?
Let’s talk developmental changes & our kids.
• How can parents help?!?
We have had a couple of cyber safety incidents at school this year where students have used online services inappropriately out of school hours and this session will inform you as well as questions and interact with the presenters.
If you decide to join us at school for the Zoom meeting we request that parents keep their children at home for this as we will not be in a position to mind students while the session is on.
School Fees 2021
Our director Chris Smyth confirmed that the CSO will continue to support St Joseph's Warialda by charging zero school fees for 2021. This is wonderful news for our school community. We will launch our 2021 enrolment campaign during Catholic Schools Week next term.
2021 Kindergarten Enrolments
We are currently preparing hard copy and electronic enrolment packs for Kindergarten 2021 and all other grades. They will be available from the school office and can also be emailed upon request at the end of the term.
On a personal note, my mum is quite unwell and will be in Warialda Hospital for the foreseeable future. Please keep her in your prayers.
May God bless you and your family in the week ahead.
Joe Dimech
Principal