Principal's News 

Dear Families, 

I can’t believe we are at the end of week 2 already. I couldn’t be prouder of the students and the way they are upholding our STAR Values. I have seen students treat each other with respect and kindness and these qualities have been further embodied through the interactions of the Year 5 and 6’s and their buddies.

It was great to see so many families attend the parent-teacher information sharing sessions, all of the teachers have commented on what a valuable opportunity it was and that it was great to officially meet the parents and carers of their students.

Our next parent-teacher meetings will be in Term 3 following the Semester 1 reports.

Next Thursday we have our annual P&F welcome picnic with Kaboom sports, the teachers will assist Kaboom in running the sporting activities however, as this is after 3:30pm, please ensure you make supervision arrangements for your children in the afternoon.

The sports will finish up around 4:30pm with the school ground open until 7pm for socialising. 

It has been great seeing you all at the gate in the mornings, Amanda, myself and the whole staff look forward to seeing you next week. Please look out for the regular friday post on dojo from the teachers as well as the class newsletter and teacher introduction video. 

Welcome to School Mass: 

It was a pleasure to attend the welcome-to-school mass this Tuesday. I would like to thank Fr Tom Christie for celebrating the mass and Amanda Jackson and Donnella Devisser for preparing it.

It was great to see so many family members in attendance and the students demonstrated our school values by being respectful and joining in where appropriate. 

It was lovely having the Year 5 and 6 students sit with their buddies during the mass.

The Year 6s also received their leadership badges and I couldn’t be more proud of how their leadership term has started off. 

Student Mobile Phones / Smart Watches: 

We ask families to remind their children that all mobile phones and Smart Watches (i.e. any device with cellular capacity) are to be handed to the classroom teacher at the beginning of each school day. The devices are placed into a lockbox and opened by the class teacher at the end of the day. This aligns with the Victorian State Government legislation. Thank you for your cooperation. Parents who need to contact their child can do so by contacting the school office.

School Fees

The school fees, levies and camps are billed for the whole year at the beginning of Term 1 and will be sent out on Thursday 15th February.  Families are welcome to pay their school fees in a manner that best suits their needs i.e. in one annual payment, by the term, month or fortnight. BPAY is the preferred payment method, however payment can be made at the school office by EFTPOS or cash. Reminder: statements are sent out throughout the year. 

If you change your email address, residential address or any contact phone numbers, please let the office know.

New Families

We extend a warm welcome to all the new families joining us this year: 

Avramopoulos, Calleja, Cashman, Chan, Clark, Davos, Dwyer-Maldonado, Frantzis, Gonzales, Hinchliffe, Holmes, Liu, Lonsdale, Nguyen, Tuohey, Vickers, Wiseman, Wright.

We are delighted to have you as part of our community and look forward to forging strong and positive relationships over the years to come.

School Uniform:

At St Joseph's we pride ourselves on maintaining high standards for our school uniform and these standards are maintained by staff and leadership at the school. The students wear their school uniform 3 days per week and sports uniform 2 days per week. When wearing school uniform, it is expected that students will be wearing black leather school shoes, not black runners. Hair must be tied up and back if it is longer than shoulder length. The ribbons /headbands/scrunchies should only be in school colour. Our uniform is available from Bob Stewart in Malvern East. Please note that only stud earrings should be worn, earrings that dangle or with hoops can get caught on equipment during playtime.

The 2nd hand uniform shop will be open on Tuesday 13th Feb from 8:30am-9:15am.

A Future Tennis Star?

Nicholas who is an avid tennis player himself was lucky enough to meet and interview AO champion Jannik Sinner the morning after his win of the title. Nicholas was extremely grateful and excited to have the opportunity to meet the winner and I’m sure its a memory he will treasure for years to come. Nicholas, we will be following your tennis career closely. 

Below are some photos of the moment and a link to the news article with the full interview. 

https://www.tennis365.com/tennis-news/jannik-sinner-explains-roger-federer-rafael-nadal-biggest-inspirations

New Hot Lunches Go Down a Treat!

The student feedback from the new Hot Lunches has been overwhelmingly positive, it looks like the majority of the school has taken the opportunity to order some of the delicious food on offer with 148 orders across both breaks today. It looks like the hot dogs win the most ordered food item for this week. 

Swimming Stars!

A big thank you to Tanya and Liam who met the students down at Harrold Holt for swimming training this morning. Both Tanya and Liam gave up a bit of their morning to run the training and it is greatly appreciated.

Congratulations to all those who made the swim team, I know you will do St Joseph’s proud.

SRCs:

The votes are in and the classes have voted for their SRCs for this semester. The certificates and badges were given out in today's assembly. Congratulations to the following students who made SRC. I know the SRC Captains and Mrs Carman are looking forward to working with you.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Martin Earl 

(Acting Principal)