Dear Lord

We pray for all our past St Joseph’s students as they commence their Yr 12 exams. It has been a particularly challenging time for these students as they have navigated their learning and preparation during the pandemic. May they be calm and focused during their exam time.

Dear Families

Today is the last day of home schooling!!!!

All students are back onsite from Monday 1st November!

This is great news and a real sense of normality on the horizon. Thank you all for the support you have given to your children over the months as you try to manage home learning as well as everything else that this pandemic has caused.

We will be open on the 1st November although I do understand that many families may take that weekend and head off to see family and friends in Regional Victoria. Please just let Cathy know in the office and it will be classed as an explained absence.

Transition back to school

As our students return to school we can expect that the transition may be challenging for many.

We will be ensuring that all students are given lots of opportunities to reconnect with their friends and we know that it will take some time to develop the stamina and routines that we normally expect.

Our primary focus over the next few weeks as the children return to school will be around wellbeing.

We will be taking extra breaks during the day and we encourage you to pop an extra healthy snack in the lunchbox. Our ‘brain breaks’ are designed to reset our focus and give everyone an opportunity to stretch and move, hydrate and have a healthy snack.
Each class will follow a guided meditation from Smiling Mind at 12pm for 10/15 minutes. This evidence based program will be integrated into our wellbeing framework at school.
Students will also be developing their emotional literacy in order to understand how they feel and developing strategies around being ‘ready to learn’.
Extra physical activity and exercise will be built into learning to continue to promote healthy lifestyles and a break from screen time.
Yoga classes for children will begin from Friday 4th (45 min sessions)
There is a good article here about transition back to school.

World Teacher's Day 2021

Today is World Teacher's Day! It has been a challenging couple of years and we want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the teachers at St Joseph's. We will have a proper celebration with staff next week when all the children are back and we have all of our staff onsite. Feel free to send our teachers a friendly thank you via email or Seesaw to make them feel the warm fuzzies.

Yoga

As of Friday 5th November we will be having children's yoga here at St Joseph's. We will be partnering with Sophie Bowen who is a qualified children's yoga teacher. Sophie comes with an amazing CV and great references. We cannot wait to involve the students in what is a great physical and mental discipline. The sessions will be 40 minutes long in their classes. Yoga fits into our Victorian Curriculum in supporting and promoting Health and Physical Education.

We plan on Sophie delivering classes after school to parents, or parents and children in the near future too.

Karate

Andrew will hopefully be back onsite next Wednesday morning fro 8am in the school hall. If you are interested please email the team via this: linkhttps://www.allstarsdefence.com.au/st-josephs-blackrock

Sunsmart

Please remember that now we are in Term 4 we need to be wearing school hats while we play / learn outdoors. We will be bringing our new Sunsmart dispenser online in the next couple of weeks so the students can apply sunscreen before break-times.

We have applied for a loan to remove the cladding that is contained in our main building. We will keep you updated as to what the process will be.

Dates.

Term 4

Monday 4th Oct - Wednesday 15th Dec

School events are becoming a moveable feast at the moment so all dates remain flexible in the hope of being able to come back together as a community.

Parents & Friends (P&F)

Thank you for supporting the school and the community... we raised $855 that will be spent directly on our students in Term 4.

Also a wine fundraiser is being hatched at the moment with Black Rock Cellars ... more details next time to come