Dear Parents,

Last Tuesday, we welcomed Crib Point Kinder students to partner with our Year 4 students learning about the Sea is our Best Friend program. It was such a wonderful experience for all involved. Our Year 4 students demonstrated excellent knowledge, leadership, and kindness as they mentored the pre-school students to be little scientists in action, learning about the migratory birds and other marine life in our precious Westernport Bay.

A huge thank you to Dom Taylor for her excellent preparation and to Kerry Colliver and Lisa Renfrey for their leadership on the day. Throughout the term, we will host a number of kinder sessions, both at Woollies Beach and onsite where pre-school students will participate in nature play and a cooking session. Building positive relationships with our local community is paramount in ensuring we live out our vision and social teachings and we highly value our relationships with our local preschools and day cares.

Mothers Day Celebrations

What an amazing day we had at our school last Friday! With our annual Mother's Day lunch, followed by Mass led by the 3/4 community. The lunch was such a special event with so many mums, grandmothers, aunties, special people and other community members all gathering in the hall. It was such a wonderful day full of positivity, connection and celebration for our Mums and special people. A huge thanks to Trish Brennan, Kerry Colliver, Rick Stubbins, Ashleigh Gledhill and all staff who assisted on the day. A super team effort!

We highlighted the significant role of Mothers and we recognised every person in the role of caring, whether it be mum, grandparents, dads or special people and all they do for the children in their care. Children need environments around them to grow and flourish in, to know and discover who they are and to build a sense of identity allowing them to achieve amazing things in life.

Mothers and carers can have such a positive and significant influence on the life of a precious child. Mothers are continuously giving, loving, sacrificing and providing much needed helping, nurturing hands to their loved ones.

We thank our guest speaker, Paru for her inspirational talk and for sharing her amazing story of how she created the “Rural School Project” that has helped to establish a number of libraries in rural schools in India. Paru also emphasised the role of community in her journey and in always reaching out to those in need and believing in the possibility of all of those in our community. She spoke of her annoy list, and encouraged us to consider who we can reach out to annoy with our love and presence, and who we can bring along with us on our journey. It is so important to stop and listen to the stories of others to remind us of why we are part of the St Joseph’s community. A big thank you to Yasmin and Amy Agius, who connected us with Paru, and to Kerry Colliver for organising her for the day.

Cross Country

We congratulate our students for using mind-master thinking and showing resilience when running in the cross country last week. All students from years 3 to 6 ran in the event and showed grit, determination, and persistence as they kept an ‘I can do it” attitude in their thinking. Thank you to Emily Reed and all who helped on the day.

Connecting Learning Globally

On Tuesday, our ¾ students connected with Hani Nusaranti in Indonesia, via Zoom, to promote the connection of sister schools and our Sea is our Best Friend project. Hani is a conservationist and CEO and Program Manager of the JARI Foundation. The foundation has been empowering coastal communities and supporting marine conservation in Indonesia for more than 3 decades. Hani also runs several programs that connect Australian and Indonesian schools, including the Sea is our Best Friend Program that St Joseph’s has been a part of since 2012. We look forward to continuing our connection with our sister school in Sagena on Sumbawa Island, Indonesia, and sharing learning and experiences across the globe. Connecting to learn, partnering to learn and collaborating to learn deepens our own connections and the learning experiences for our students. Through our local and global connections, our students develop critical thinking skills that support them to be learners who inquire deeply into the world around them. These connections help them to understand that together we can learn about who we are and how we can belong, connect, grow and flourish in the wider world.

To read more about our sister school zoom see our Sea is our Best Friend page in the newsletter

Secondary School Enrolments

Enrolments for students planning to attend Padua in 2027 close on May 31st. If you are considering sending your child to Padua for their secondary schooling, please ensure your enrolment is in before this date.

Padua and some other secondary schools require you to share your child’s Year 5 NAPLAN results as part of the enrolment. Please be aware that these are not shared with schools until the beginning of Term 3. We can not access these earlier, so please just inform the school that these results will be sent at a later date. For students who do not have NAPLAN data, we are happy to share our PAT (Progressive Achievement Tests) Testing. These are nationwide standardised tests and a good indication of your child’s ability in Literacy and Numeracy. If you would like your child’s PAT report, please contact your classroom teacher.

St Joseph's Enrolments

Enrolments are now open for 2026. If you know of anyone who would like to enrol their child at our wonderful school please let them know to ring the office for a tour. Please let any prospective families know they can just ring the office to book a tour. Our biggest marketing tool is word of mouth so please spread the word in our community how special our school is. We had our Open day last Wednesday and have another coming up on May 30th so please pass the invite on.

Don't forget we have Joey's café every second week. Our Year 6 students, along with Miss Ashleigh Gledhill and Rick Stubbins, do an amazing job of planning, preparing and serving some delicious meals. All of the work leading up to and during our café is linked to different areas of the curriculum, including Mathematics, Literacy, Science and Geography. This term, students are learning about different countries and each café will have a theme connected to their learning. This week's café students will take you on a journey to Italy. If you would like to book for this week please click the link below.

May 16th Joey's Café - https://www.trybooking.com/DANXL

If you are interested in attending Joey's café on another day please visit our Joey's Cafe page in the newsletter.

Staying Healthy

Finally, we have had a number of R.S.V and COVID cases reported across the school. If your child is ill please keep them home to ensure we can keep all of our students and staff healthy as we move into the colder months.

Yours in Partnership,

Sue Jackson

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