Dear Parents,

Congratulations to all the students who competed in the District Swimming sports last Thursday. Thank you to Emily Reed for her excellent organisation and to Leah and Mindi who supported our students on the day. What a team of champions!

All students who competed on the day did so with such great positivity and resilience. What a great community we have with so many parents attending, cheering the students on and making sure our students know they are part of a wonderful village.

Thankyou to parents and students who supported the Womejeka festival at Balnarring on Saturday. What a brilliant day of celebration of our first nation people underpinned by our amazing local community showcasing, supporting and respecting the sacred story of this magnificant land! A huge congratulations to Karen and Anne from Balnarring Pre- school for their inspiring leadership in this area. The pre- school launched their fourth book on Saturday which many of our students feature in and continue to be leaders in this most important area.

A huge shout out to Mason Dewitt, Dom Taylor and all staff who lead our stall at the festival and are inspirational in embedding, celebrating and highlighted the importance of ensuring our students and families respect and honour our first nations people.

Congratulations to the students who attended St. Peter’s Shoreham Sunday for the Reconciliation commitment Mass. It was such a lovely faith filled occasion and we look forward to supporting our students throughout the reconciliation program over the next few weeks. This week we celebrate Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday both important days commencing the season of Lent.

We invite all of our community to our Ash Wednesday liturgy at 2.30pm on Wednesday in our prayer garden.

Lent is a time to grow, change, reflect and be the best people we can be. Lent is a season rich in symbol, reflection and significance. almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Lent is a season of preparation; building up to the celebration at Easter.

We have a restorative model of reconciliation and forgiveness at St Joseph’s. The season of lent provides us with a wonderful opportunity to self reflect and grow and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

We use our REACT model of restorative justice to ensure our students reflect, restore and live with empathy and compassion for others.

Daily Reading

Read to your child every day! It makes a world of difference to their success in life and you will make moments matter as you sit, snuggle, explore, talk and learn together.

One cannot underestimate the value of reading. Reading is important as it helps everyone grow mentally, emotionally, cognitively and psychologically. Every book gives you an opportunity to learn new things and explore new ideas. By reading every day, you expand your understanding of the world around you: broadening perspective, building vocabulary, increasing brain capacity and making important connections.

At St. Joseph’s, it is an expectation that every child reads every night and gets their diary signed. Please make this a high priority in 2025 as we strive to make moments matter together. If you cannot do this, please let us know so we can support you and assist in making sure your child reads every day.

I spent last Friday listening to a wonderful speaker at the Principal Network. Dr Sarah Watts an astrophysicist spoke to us about the importance of STEM learning and the need to provide our students with opportunities to wonder, explore and incite curiosity through the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

Sarah spoke about the gender difference in careers in this most important area and the need to promote STEM amongst our girls and provide them with opportunities to shine in this area. I am extremely proud of the work St Joseph’s does in this area including our Cafe, community garden, Sea is our Best Friend project and our National recognition over many years at the STEM MAD competition. We will continue to ensure that Science is everywhere and being explicitly taught at St. Joseph’s.

We are also extremely proud of our recent recognition in the Age newspaper on February 16th, where we were recognised for our excellent growth in Maths proficiency in Year 3 Naplan last year. Our work on the Science of Learning over the past 6 years especially our explicit teaching of fluency and our daily practice and review is showing in our results.

If you would like to read the full article, it is linked below:

Finally, just a reminder we have a pupil free day this Friday 7th March as staff spend the day partnering with St Mary’s to explore reflection practices and meditation particularly using our local and school environments.

Yours in Partnership,

Gab

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