Dear Families,

It has been a fairly quiet week at St Joseph's, with Naplan taking place for our Year 3s and Year 5s and a fun end to the week for our seniors with the Dendy District cross country competition.

We wish all our runners the best of luck with the event, and thank you to Mr Cleary for the extra organisation and training required for the event.

Our Year 3s and Year 5s sat their English Naplan tests this week: Writing, Reading and Language Conventions (Spelling and Grammar). Next Monday they will complete their testing with the Maths test. This is the first time we have had students complete their tests online and, as of this year, all Australian schools have moved to this format. I had some concerns that the tech would cause issues, but I needn't have worried and all went smoothly. The children should be congratulated for their calm approach to the testing and their 'have a go' attitudes.

Speaking of attitudes...

Many principals across the country are reporting significant issues with student behaviour, poor resilience and regression with social skills, since the beginning of the school year:

Primary school principals say they are grappling with new behavioural issues among students, including new cases of school refusal and alarming social media activity. (The Age, April 2022).

Whilst we are fortunate that we have not encountered 'alarming' social media activity or major behavioural issues, we have noticed an increase in students reporting friendship problems to parents that we had no idea about or that are not evident (at all) at school.

The great thing about the size of St Joseph's is that we can keep a close eye on our students on the playground and in the classroom, and we can pick up on social issues pretty quickly. I can assure you that our students are playing well together, with some guidance needed here and there to resolve minor conflict- standard 'stuff' in primary schools.

We have noticed a fair bit of tiredness around the school and with us being back onsite each day (unlike the last two years) I imagine stamina is being tested. Maybe some students are missing the 'lockdown' days of rest, relaxation and no extra curricular activities. Just a thought.

Some parenting resources that you may be interested in:

Parenting Ideas video: Helping children make and keep friends

This video provides advice to parents and teachers on how to promote critical friendship skills in children and explore what to do when friendship problems occur.

https://vimeo.com/332160950/46d2b035d5

Parenting Ideas Friendship ebook:

It's nearly tax time...donations to the St Joseph’s School Building Fund

Making a donation to the St Joseph's School Building Fund is a great way to support the school and, as we are a registered charity, all donations are tax deductible.

Donations can be made through electronic banking using the following:

BSB: 083347 Account Number: 775542163

Or you can drop cheque/ cash donations into the office. Isabelle will give you a receipt for your donation; as long as your donation is $2 or more you can claim the full amount of money that you donated on your tax return.

School Building Funds can be used for a number of things such as building projects, school repairs, replacing carpets and repainting the school.

Some of our immediate plans are to:

- Re carpet the upstairs Grade 3 to 6 classrooms

- Repaint and update the outdoor toilet block

- Replace the entrance doors to the buildings.

Thank you in advance for any donation you can make, whatever the amount.

A Tree Change

Kate Callinan and her husband Mike have been planning for some time to move out of the city, specifically to the Macedon Ranges area. The right house became available recently (their dream home) and they have been successful in purchasing the property, although this is not the time of year Kate had envisioned.

Right house, wrong time (for us) but a lovely property in Woodend.

Kate has investigated the commute time from Woodend to Malvern and it really is too much, especially with a young family.

So it is with a heavy heart that Kate will be leaving us in June and her last day with our Year 6s will be on Wednesday 8th June, prior to the staff conference. We will be very sad to see her leave us, and she is equally disappointed that she won’t see out the year with our Grade 6s; we are fortunate enough to have Mr Liam Cleary ready and eager to take over from Kate.

Liam will work with Clare Smith from Tuesday 14th June, which is the day after the Queen’s Birthday public holiday. He will remain as Year 6 teacher with Clare until the end of the school year.

Liam has had the opportunity to work with our Year 6s this year, both in the classroom and on the sporting field; he knows the children very well and will also have the opportunity to work alongside Kate in the coming weeks so the transition to a new teacher should be seamless.

We are very grateful for all that Kate has brought to our school over the years and the thorough job she has done in preparing our students for secondary school and all other aspects of the Year 6 program. She is an outstanding educator and has been an integral part of our leadership team in her role as senior level coordinator. We will miss her dearly but wish her the very best for the future.

Peaceful Kids Program

Please look out for Georgina Carman's article later in the newsletter, outlining the Peaceful Kids program that she will run later this term.

‘Peaceful Kids’ is a Mindfulness and Positive Psychology based program to lessen anxiety and stress and in children. The program has been created to fulfil a need in schools to offer all children a developmentally appropriate program that gives them essential coping skills and strategies.

Participation in the program will be limited to Year 2 upwards.

A HUGE Thank you!

If you have a minute, please feel free to pop in and see my new office space, with my little 'cave' now extended into what was a prep cupboard! A sincere thank you to Chris Buick and his team for knocking down the wall and all associated building/ plastering work. Once the painting has happened, the new carpets laid, furniture delivered and a working phone installed, I'll feel like a proper principal! Thanks so much Chris, my mini Jurgen is waiting for his new shelf to be installed, where he will have pride of place.

Next week...

Our 3s and 5s will sit their final Naplan test on Monday morning.
We have our School Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday night at 7.30pm
Our Year 3s and 4s have an excursion to Werribee Zoo on Wednesday
All Year 6s will be involved in a Confirmation retreat day next Friday.

Wishing you all a restful weekend ahead,

Michelle

Autism Workshops for Parents