St Joseph's Primary School

Principal's News

Dear Parents and Carers,

 

We are living through an important time in our liturgical calendar. March does not just mean the start of autumn, but is also our time in Lent. Recently I came across a post from the Vatican News that had some important themes to remember at this time:

"Lent is a time for believing, for welcoming God into our lives and allowing Him to ‘make his dwelling’ among us", the Pope writes in his Lenten message for 2021. “In our Lenten journey towards Easter, let us remember the One who ‘humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross’”.
These words from the Pope’s message not only refer to the memorial dimension of remembrance, but also invite us to live, even today, a favorable time to renew faith, hope and charity. All are called to grow "in the realization that, in Jesus Christ, we are witnesses of new times, in which God is ‘making all things new’".
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has often described the meaning of the journey that leads to Easter. "During the Season of Lent", he said Sunday 21 February at the Angelus, "the Holy Spirit drives us too, like Jesus, into the desert. It is not…a physical place, but rather an existential dimension in which we can be silent and listen to the word of God”. SOURCE

 

As we are all living through this time of Lent, are we taking time to stop and listen to the world of our God?

 

Welcome to our second newsletter of 2021. Our school has been a hive of activity over the past couple of weeks.

 

Last week, we had a number of our Year 3-6 students head to Tamworth to compete in our Armidale Diocesan Swimming Carnival. This was an exciting time for our school, as we sent a large crew of swimmers to compete. We had a number of swimmers achieve personal best times. A huge congratulations need to go out to four of our students, Edward, Nate, Jaxon and James, who are selected to compete for our Diocese at the Polding championships in Sydney.

 

This week, we had a number of visitors to our school from St Francis Xavier's School in Narrabri, St Joseph's School in Walgett and the senior leadership team from the Catholic Schools Office Armidale. Our leadership team comprising of myself, Mrs Elise Baird, and Ms Karlee Hatton, had the opportunity to share our Annual Improvement Goals with our colleagues and share with them how we are gathering evidence of impact. We have a clear direction within our school as well as at a system level to ensure that we are all striving for Great Teaching and Learning, Providing an Authentic Catholic Community of Care and for each school to have Strong Teams. 

Within these intentions, we are working toward better use of student assessment and providing clear feedback to students about their learning. As well as implementing an in-depth 'Living Well, Learning Well' framework to support the wellbeing and learning of all of our students. 

As stated in our newsletter last fortnight, we are sharing a number of ideas and features of our 'Living Well, Learning Well' Framework within each of our newsletters. This week, Mrs Baird has captured our students' voice on the "I am Safe" rule for living. To help us capture our school communities perception of our school, we will be sending home a parent survey via Compass in the coming fortnight.  

 

This week there has been some building work commence at our school. We have been successful in gaining funding to add additional adult toilet facilities within our school. This project has been made possible by the support of the Catholic Schools Office Armidale. This project will be completed by the end of March.

 

There are a number of events coming up for our staff, students and the school community:

  • Next week, we have three students selected in our Diocesan Wii Gaay Program who will be attending an intensive week of learning at Echidna Gully in Armidale. They will be supported by Mrs Hatton and Mr Darcy Lang.
  • We will be holding an Emergency Evacuation Drill at 2.10 pm on Thursday 11 March.
  • Mini Vinnies Mufti Day on the 12th March.
  • Winter Sports Trials for some of our Year 6 students on the 12th March.
  • We also have our Parents & Friends Association AGM on the 23rd of March at 6 pm. If you would like to be part of our school's P&F, please contact our school office for more information (67954038). Nomination forms for our P&F executive positions (President, Secretary and Treasurer) are available from the school office.

Recently the Bishop of Armidale, Bishop Michael Kennedy, released a statement to all in our faith community regarding the current roll out of COVID-19 vaccines. This has important, positive information, for all. A copy of this statement can be found by clicking here

 

Finally, we have had some changes to our COVID safe restrictions: 

  • We can now have parents onsite for school activities and assemblies! However, you must comply with physical distancing and personal hygiene requirements at all times. For example, that means that we can hold our traditional Mother's and Father's Day stalls, Grandparents Day and NAIDOC celebrations, with parents onsite. 
  • Another change that affects our families is sharing food for birthdays and celebrations. If you wish to bring in a treat for your child and their class to celebrate a birthday, you can. The only restriction is that it has to be a commercially made product (due to COVID plans being met in food preparation areas). Therefore cupcakes from a bakery or supermarket would be acceptable, or even some icy-poles or something similar. A number of parents have approached me regarding this. 

If you have any questions about this, please give our school's office a call.

 

Have a fantastic fortnight. God Bless.

 

Regards

 

Alistair Stewart

Principal