Dear Parents,

Our whole school theme for this week is on Wellbeing and on nourishing our soul and mental health through Christian meditation. The mental health benefits of meditation include better focus and concentration, improved self-awareness and self-esteem, lower levels of stress and anxiety, and fostering kindness. Meditation also has benefits for your physical health. Christian meditation is the process of deliberately focusing on specific thoughts and reflecting on their meaning in the context of the love of God. Christian meditation aims to heighten the personal relationship based on the love of God.

Father Michael talks about this in his video for this week.

We thank Father Michael for all of his wonderful spiritual leadership and his amazing support of our school. Sadly for all of us Father Michael will retire in January and he will be missed by all in our schools and Parish community. We have been truly blessed over the past years with a wonderful leader and a magnificent person who has supported us on our faith journeys and been the leader of our wonderful schools.

A new Priest has been appointed and we will welcome Fr Shymon Thekkekalathungal in January.

We are thrilled to announce that both the end of year swimming program and the 4/5/6 camp will be able to go ahead. These special events in our school curriculum will allow students to experience wonderful learning opportunities in a hands on environment.

Please take note of the letter sent home last week explaining the credit for excursions. Whilst these will not be able to occur we are planning some fun exciting activities for our students here at school to provide a wonderful completion to the 2020 school year.

Please take note of the following events:

School photos on the 23/11/2020

The whole school Swimming program will commence on 30/11/2020

Our end of year Mass is live streamed on Friday 4th December at 2pm including the Prep nativity.

Year 4/5/6 camp to Phillip Island Wednesday 9th to Friday 11th December

Year 6 Graduation Monday 14th December live streamed at 1.30pm.

We continue to focus on using our positive approach at St. Joseph’s and ask our children to be respectful, encouraging and inspiring. We have consistent language and strategies in place in our school ensuring it is a safe, calm and positive environment for all of our students to shine and flourish in. At a recent coffee chat Kate Huon our wellbeing leader and myself spoke to parents about our school approach. The slide show below outlines our school approach to positive behaviour.

Click above to view slideshow.

We invite parents to use our social emotional tools and strategies at home to embed the language and building of strong social emotional capabilities. Our school tool kit and problem solved visuals below teach our students to think in rational, creative and productive ways where they can regulate their emotions and use positive thinking tools in their daily lives.

Finally, our student leaders have been creating a wonderful podcast each week with all that is happening in our school.

Click here to view our Podcast

Yours In Partnership,

Gab Espenschied

Community News