Principal’s Message

Welcome to 2020!

Welcome to 2020! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year with their families and friends.  A warm welcome to all of our new Kindergarten students who will officially commence on Wednesday 5th February. Starting school is a big milestone and we are looking forward to getting to know all of our new students and their families in the St Joseph’s community.

A new decade heralds lots of exciting developments at St Joseph’s School. Many of you would be aware that the first stage of the building project has been completed. The new building will house Stage 2 students (Years 3 and 4) and Stage 3 (Years 5 and 6). The new Library Learning Space will be home to our new Kindergarten students temporarily until their new classroom is completed at the end of Term 1. Stage 2 of the building project involves a renovation of the existing Infants classrooms, the Library and the Administration Block. The entrance to the school will be redesigned to welcome visitors more readily. This next stage should be finished by the start of Term 2 which is very exciting.  We ask that you continue to ‘go with the flow’ throughout this next stage.

We are very excited to have the majority of our playground back and feel very fortunate for the upgrade to facilities. By the end of this project our students will have an outstanding learning environment complete with every classroom fitted out with brand new furniture and state of the art technology.

While it is wonderful to have new facilities it is important for us to maintain our focus on learning and therefore, we have high expectations for behaviour both in and outside the classroom. We are focussed on positive student learning experiences and take interruptions to learning very seriously. Please support us by encouraging positive behaviour at school because learning matters.

How can you help your child? How can you help us foster a faith filled community where learning matters?

• Ask what your child is ‘learning’ not ‘doing’
• Read to them and hear them read to you
• Talk to one another.  Oral language is so important to learning
• Ensure your child wears the correct uniform every day
• Encourage RESPECT- Respect for self, others and the environment.

As we move into our new facilities, we expect that students will behave appropriately and that means taking care of the new space and furniture. Deliberate damage to facilities and interruptions to learning will have serious consequences.

We warmly welcome our Staff back after a well-deserved break. Joining the St Joseph’s School staff this year are Peter Flynn - Co-Assistant Principal, Luke Paterson - Stage 2 Teacher, Matt Gambrill - IT Support and Cindy Cuthbertson – Education Assistant (Term 1). They are looking forward to getting to know our students and their families over the coming weeks.

I’m so proud to be leading St Joseph’s into a new decade with 2020 shaping up to be another exciting, challenging and rewarding year.

May God bless you,

Katie Hanes

Principal

St Joseph's School - a Faith Filled Community Where Learning Matters.