Principal's News

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a very busy week here at St Joseph’s Primary School. We have all officially started back at school and have transitioned from a digital platform of learning into a face to face classroom model. It has been exciting seeing all of or students settling back into the routines of school.

I am also excited as next week we will have our school’s canteen back. The canteen menu will look a little different, and will only be available at lunchtime for the next few weeks. This is due to not being able to have volunteers helping to run the canteen. Over the weekend, there will be a menu sent out. Orders will then be able to be placed via Qkr! from Tuesday. Just a reminder, the canteen operates on a Wednesday only, and all orders are to be made via Qkr! App.

Thank you to all of our families that have downloaded the Compass App on their phones, or accessed the online website. Compass is the main communication portal for all Catholic schools in our Diocese. Compass is packed full of features, and more will be added as we go through the year. At present though, you will be able to access communication from the school, notify the school of any absences, access student reports and be notified of any sickbay attendances. We are in the process of transitioning from SkoolBag, an app that has served or school well, and into the Compass portal that all schools will be using. We have 79% of families transitioned over. Great job everyone!

As stated above, we are coming closer to the end of Semester 1 2020. Generally, we would have a full school report sent home in the final week of term. This year with the COVID-19 outbreak impacting so heavily on schooling NESA (NSW Education Standards Authority) has given dispensation to al schools to modify school reports for Semester  2020. This means that the report that you get for your child, will appear different from other reports you have received in the past. This semester’s report will have an indication of where your child is achieving in English,  Maths, plus Learning and Connection Skills. These are judgements made by the Leaders of Learning, based upon observations pre-COVID-19, during the home learning period and Post COVID-19. 

We will also be scheduling time in the early weeks of Term 3 to have a Parent-Teacher Conference, as well as share with you data gathered and growth of our children academically. The dates for these meetings are yet to be determined. The school report will be available on Compass when they are officially released.

Finally, a reminder that all students are expected to be wearing their full winter uniforms from next week. This also includes the use of our school hat during recess and lunchtimes.

I hope that you all have a wonderful long weekend, and take time to relax and recharge before we return for the last 4 weeks of term 2.

Kindest regards

Alistair Stewart

Principal