Dear Parents,

Congratulations to the 3/4 community for leading the Mary MacKillop Mass last Friday. Mary MacKillop is an important role model in our school. Mary MacKillop followed in the footsteps of Jesus carrying out important work with the poor and vulnerable, opening schools to ensure the young were educated. She began the order of the Josephite nuns, who founded our school in 1927. Her motto of never seeing a need without addressing it is an important value in our school today. Well done to all of the 3/4 community on your wonderful efforts with the Mass.

Online behaviour

Today we have the need to highlight the importance of supervising students when engaging online. We have many cases at the moment of students using online platforms to put each other down and be inappropriate.

Adults play an important role in teaching students what is appropriate online behaviour. Whilst most of this occurs at home we are noticing an increase in the amount of time we are dealing with these incidents and ask that parents put firm boundaries in place for their child at home. We have a zero tolerance to any put downs, bullying and disrespect. Students who display any of these behaviours will receive a consequence, a reflection sheet will be sent home and parents will be notified. Students must not have their school uniform on when using social media platforms.

Transition Programs

We are commencing our transition programs for 2024 including our Joey’s Club which commences this Thursday. Children’s transitions to school can have lasting effects on their learning and development including assisting our students to be prepared to handle any challenges along with evidence linking good transitions to academic success in later years.

We know transitions require continuity of learning and development, in addition to focusing on building and shaping children’s identities through their evolving experiences and relationships. These are strengthened through coordinated efforts, such as collaborative partnerships with families and communities. This includes adjusting to new environments, identities, relationships, interactions and expectations (Krakouer et al. 2017; Rimm-Kaufman and Pianta 2000; Vitiello et al. 2020; Webb et al. 2017)

The relationship between families and educators is critical in ensuring children begin their school journey with success.

The transition to school is not a single event, but can be thought of as a dynamic process of both change and continuity of learning that occurs over time (Dockett et al. 2017; Moyle 2019; OECD 2017).

Our Joey’s program is a wonderful way to ensure our newest members and their parents are prepared for the school journey. Please promote this highly successful program in the community. We have a few places still open for Foundation 2024 but places are limited so please let anyone know to come and enrol as soon as possible.

We are also working with our feeder Secondary schools to ensure our Year 6 students have a successful transition to Year 7. This includes working with Padua College on transition in Maths and Literacy. Our Year 6 teachers are visiting Tyabb campus to shadow Year 7 teachers to ensure our students will be prepared for learning in Secondary school.

We are so proud of the students who finished at St Joseph’s in 2022 who are achieving excellence in their Secondary schooling. I received great feedback from Padua last week highlighting our 2022 Year 6 students who have won academic awards.

Abigail 4 awards in Semester 1

Lily 3 awards in Semester 1

Zac 3 awards in Semester 1

Callum 2 awards in Semester 1 along with being in the school production.

We have also received feedback from Westernport College where Elliot, Tahlia and Ruby were all in the highest academic achievement results.

Fundraising

Thank you to the parents who have volunteered to assist with fundraising this year. The following activities have been selected and we encourage you to join in and support our school.

Bunnings Sausage sizzle - Date to be confirmed
Chocolate drive- Term 3
Parent social night- Save the date- October 21st, 2023
Community Christmas Carols and end of year event December 8th
Colour Run

All money raised will go towards the upgrade to the oval playground which will commence in Term 4.

Finally, I would like to highlight that many of the principals in our Peninsula Network are going to travel to Spain during the last two weeks of Term Three 2023. On this special pilgrimage, we will be walking part of the Camino. During this time, we will be led by our spiritual director, Mr Ange Virgona. I look forward to sharing this experience with our school community.

Yours in Partnership,

Gab

EarthCare