Dear Parents and Families,

Our calendar is so much busier than it was last year. It is exciting for us to be planning camps, excursions, community events and other activities. With so much on, the weeks are flying by. It won't be long and Easter will be upon us.

St Joseph's Feast Day

Saturday 19 March is St Joseph's Feast Day. We have plans for some prayers and a special assembly next week to celebrate this special day in the life of our school. Please refer to the Education in Faith link for details. Parents will be welcome to join us for these events (Evidence of Vaccination to be shown when signing in).

Katie Vranken Acting Principal Next Week

Our Deputy Principal, Katie Vranken, will be in the role of Acting Principal next week from Tuesday 22 March to Friday 25 March while I attend the Victorian Catholic Primary Principal’s Conference with my principal colleagues from the Outer Eastern Zone. Katie will be well supported by our Literacy Leader and Year 5/6 Teacher, Simone Traynor who will be in the Acting Deputy Principal role. You can contact Katie and Simone in my absence on 5967 1183 or via email kvranken@sjyarrajunction.catholic.edu.au and straynor@sjyarrajunction.catholic.edu.au

A reminder that your child’s teacher should always be your first point of contact and you can get in touch via email or on the school number.

Reporting Student Absences

If your child is going to be absent from school for any reason, or if you need to pick them up early, please contact your child’s teacher via email to notify them, including the reason for the absence. Alternatively, you can email office@sjyarrajunction.catholic.edu.au or leave a message on the school phone. Mentioning this in passing to the staff on drop off is not sufficient information. We are required by law to keep records and evidence of reasons for absences, late arrivals and early departures.

Safety at Drop Off and Pickup

The Drop-Off and Pick-Up Zone is supervised by staff each morning between 8:30am and 9:00am to ensure the safety of the children. I am grateful to drivers for the care they show for the safety of our children. We will be having a big focus on safe behaviour in this area with our children in the coming weeks, including:

remaining behind the yellow line until the car has come to an absolute stand still
walking to and from their car, not running
getting in and out of the car as quickly as possible to assist with traffic flow
only going to the SPA Centre Carpark with a parent/carer

Parents are reminded to continue to be extremely vigilant when driving on the school grounds. There is a 5 km per hour speed limit in place for all vehicles on school grounds.

Children have been asked not to play on the playground after school. This area is unsupervised by school staff. Children waiting for their parents will often be there when parents arrive and this slows the traffic flow.

Horse Agistment Needed

The James family, who are new to our school this year, are in need of some land to agist their horses. Their current property has insufficient pasture to support the number of horses they have. If you are able to help out, please let me know and I will pass on your contact details to Kiri and DJ so they can make contact with you.

Availability of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs)

On Tuesday we received a new shipment of Rapid Antigen COVID-19 Tests Kits (RATs) You will have received an email from me about this with the subject "How are your RAT Supplies Going?" offering you more RATs if you supplies are running low. So far I have sent out about 60 kits. If you are in need of more RATs for twice weekly testing of your children please send me an email with the word RATs in the subject line. I will be sure to send them to you on Monday.

Supporting our Local Businesses

A number of our families have local businesses which provide goods, services and employment for our Upper Yarra Community. In support of these families, we offer free advertise in our school newsletter. Families with businesses are invited to send their advertisements to principal@sjyarrajunction.catholic.edu.au and they will be included, free of charge in the fortnightly newsletter.

Please refer to the Supporting our Local Businesses link in the sidebar to view a listing of some of the businesses. Please consider them when purchasing goods and services.

Community Events

The first of our planned Community Events for 2022 is the Year 5/6 T-shirt Expo which will be held on Moday 4 April. The flyer below was recently sent to families by the 5/6 Teachers.

We are currently looking at dates for a Barbeque for our Junior School families to welcome our new Foundation families to St Joseph's. The Middle School also have some plans under way for some events as well. Stay tuned for details.