A long 'Principal’s News' this week, with lots to take in!

Dear Families,

Here we are at the midway point of Term 3 (apparently Spring is around the corner, but I’m not convinced) and we have a number of exciting events lined up to take us into the school holidays and beyond into Term 4.

At this point in the term, this week I felt it beneficial to speak with all the students at an impromptu assembly, to give some timely reminders about our school rules related to uniform and appropriate types of play on the playground. At St. Joseph’s we use our STAR values to guide our interactions at school, and whilst the children can readily list the values, (Stay Safe; Try your best; Act Responsibly; Respect yourself and others) we regularly have to unpack these with the children. This would be the case in any school, with any set of rules/ values, as children really do require lots of opportunities to discuss what these rules look like in action. Our children were given reminders about wearing the correct uniform with pride (I can’t tell you how many shirt cuffs I have buttoned up/ shoelaces I have tied recently!) and what is appropriate in the way of jewellery and hair accessories. Also, as we approach ‘grand final season’ in out of school sports, we have also noticed an increase in tackling on the playground. It really is difficult for children to distinguish between what is appropriate play on the school playground and what is acceptable play during the weekend footy match! Whilst I realise the ‘no tackling’ rule is in place in junior football, I do hope this is reinforced adequately during weekend games. I’m sure conversations at home would reinforce these points with our students, particularly when it comes to safety. Our students and staff have developed a 'matrix' of what our values 'look like' in various aspects of school life and this is the guide we use when unpacking the STAR values with our students:

Now onto the exciting bits...please look out for the following special events in the coming weeks:

Dendy District Athletic’s Day on Monday 19th August for Year 3-6 students. If you are able to assist on the day, please see Tanya’s message on Caremonkey. We also need to pray for good weather!

Book Fair next week- see Mrs Jackson’s news and Dojo communications

Italian Day on Tuesday 20th August- We will be re-enacting the Siena Il Palio horse race and students will compete as 3 teams as per sports colours. Teams called Le Contrade (also known as neighbourhoods or districts of Siena) are Oca (goose/green), Aquila (eagle/yellow) and Giraffa (giraffe/red). The children will be allocated a team according to their house colours- we encourage ribbons/ bandanas etc in their house colours and all other costumes will be provided on the day (see the Year 6s on the front page!!). Parents are more than welcome to join us for the opening ceremony at 9am. Again, let’s pray for good weather! Also, look out for the freshly made pasta that the children will be bringing home on Tuesday afternoon!

Friday 23rd August- Communion Retreat Day for our First Eucharist children- casual clothes to be worn

Book week dress up- Monday 26th August. The children and staff are warmly invited to dress up as their favourite book characters for the day.

Friday 30th August- Father’s/ Special Friend’s Day with morning tea and mass- see note below

Friday 6th September- Teddy Bear’s Picnic for our 2020 preps and Year 6 2020 buddies- excitement is growing amongst our current Year 5s! Which teddy to choose?!

Friday 20th September- Footy Colours and Crazy Hair Day! The day will begin with a presentation by Terry Daniher at morning assembly and organised by our Year 6 leaders. All welcome to join us at assembly!

Thursday 10th October- St. Joseph’s Art Show and community showcase on Saturday 12th October

Spellathon and Spelling Bee

We celebrated all things ‘spelling’ on Monday with our second annual spellathon and spelling bee. It was a wonderful opportunity for our children to push themselves, with several spelling lists to choose from. The afternoon session was a lot of fun when two teams of students went head to head in the spelling bee. I congratulate each one of them for putting their hands up to be in a team, as it is quite a risk to spell tricky words in front of your peers. Our audience members cheered their friends on and it was a fantastic example of comradery. Thank you for all of your donations to support the spellathon- no matter how much you have donated. All funds raised will be ploughed back into school literacy resources, with a particular focus on ‘decodable’ reading books linked to our synthetic phonics teaching. Well done everyone!

Father’s/ Special Friend’s Day

Look out for next week’s Caremonkey invitation, which will enable us to gather numbers for this special day on Friday August 30th. There will be a slight change in routine during the morning tea as our parish hall has been booked for another event on the day. We will be serving coffee/ tea/ biscuits in the Multi-Purpose room from 8am, and children will then take their dad/ special friend to their classroom to have a look around and share their work. At 8.50am, when the first bell rings, the children will stay in their classrooms whilst our visitors head over to church to begin the mass. Thank you to the parents in Year 4 for organising the morning tea and to our Preps and Grade 1s for organising the mass.

Another Brick in the...Path!

Thank you so much to Allison and Jacquie for all their work and efforts with the special commemorative bricks on our school grounds. With 41 bricks ordered, this will raise significant funds to update the seating options on our playground. Thank you to all who contributed to this worthwhile fundraiser.

Skipping Results- Victorian State Championships

Although this was the first time St. Joseph’s has participated in this event, our children simply shone on the day- with pride, skills, and medals! The results were as follows:

Age Group 11-12

Individual 30 sec speed: Grace - 7th and Ellie - 13th

Individual 1 minute speed: Ellie - 7th and Grace - 13th

Pairs Speed Relay: Grace & Ellie - 5th

Pairs Freestyle: Grace & Ellie - 4th

Age Group 9-10

Individual 30 sec speed: SILVER Mila Emmerson and 4TH Gaby Noonan

Individual 1 min speed: GOLD Mila Emmerson and SILVER Gaby Noonan

Pairs speed relay: SILVER Gaby and Mila

Pairs freestyle: SILVER Gaby and Mila

Age 8&U

Individual 30 sec speed: GOLD - Hamish SILVER - Lenny BRONZE - Michael

Individual 1 minute speed: GOLD - Hamish SILVER - Michael BRONZE - Frances

Pairs speed relay: SILVER - Michael & Hamish BRONZE - Amelia & Lenny

Pairs freestyle: SILVER - Amelia & Lenny BRONZE - Frances & Daniel

An email from one of our parents summed up the event perfectly: St Joseph’s cleaned up in the medal tally today! For a term and a half of practice, we were a force to be reckoned with! Gold, silver and bronze medals galore! Miss Freeman is a treasure!

Your Feedback Counts!

Catholic Education Melbourne School Improvement Surveys (CEMSIS): 2-20 September 2019

Throughout each year, we pause to listen to our students, families and staff to gauge how our learning community is travelling. This feedback is invaluable to our progress as effective school communities and is backed by evidence-based research and best practices.

One of the more important formal ways we engage and gather data is through CEMSIS, the Catholic Education Melbourne School Improvement Surveys.

CEMSIS is a set of surveys that have been built specifically for Catholic Schools in Melbourne by Learning Services teams at Catholic Education Melbourne in partnership with researchers at Learning First and in wide consultation with Principals in our schools.

In 2019, students, families and staff are invited to participate in CEMSIS using the brand new, secure and purpose-built online platform. The online platform is where school leaders will access the summary reports that visualise the results of the student, family and staff surveys.

The CEMSIS survey platform is operated by an independent supplier, ORIMA Research Pty Ltd. The platform meets with the very high security and privacy standards for handling student and school data. Our school privacy policy has been updated to ensure school communities are fully informed and protected. (see attachment)

Students in Year 4 to 6 at our school will be provided with supervised sessions where teachers are on hand to help and answer any questions. Families and staff can complete the survey anytime over the three-week window via an emailed link and password. Feedback from last year’s pilot trials indicates many surveys were done across a range of mobile devices and different web browsers.

Our community’s opinions are critical to understanding how our school is performing – CEMSIS is a key data source for guiding the ongoing work to improve our school, especially important as our school will participate in its 4 yearly review in 2020.

All participation is invited, welcomed and 100% voluntary. The surveys are not a test; they are an inclusive way to feed the work we are already doing to improve our school. Everyone has the right to refuse to participate, or withdraw from the survey at any point before, during, or after completion of the survey. Our Year 4 to 6 students will be completing the survey so please email me if your child does not wish to participate. Thank you in advance and my fingers are crossed that we have lots of families complete the survey when the link is emailed out at the beginning of September.

On the subject of feedback...

I am an extremely lucky principal to be working in a school community where honest and open communication between staff and parents is valued so highly. I regularly receive emails thanking staff for their work, which is such a highlight for me and so typical of the supportive parent community we have!

This week I received several very thoughtful emails, celebrating various aspects of school life at St. Joseph’s. One email from an ex-parent who had very thoughtfully taken the time out of her day to reflect on her son’s experiences at St. Joseph’s:

Dear Michelle,

We stayed at St Joseph's to the end of Year 6, not our original plan as we thought Year 5 at one of the larger private schools would be better. We didn’t get a place in Year 5 and for my son it turned out to be a fabulous experience to complete his primary years at St Joey's.

Having the opportunity to be involved in so many different activities really helps kids to develop a positive mindset and confidence. You can quite literally be a star in Year 6, the musical was amazing.

In the larger cohort of some private schools in Year 5 and 6, it's quite hard to shine. My daughter, who started at one of the larger private girls schools in Year 5, missed out on representing her school on many occasions simply as the number of girls to the number of teams didn’t give her so much opportunity. My son represented St Joseph's in a multitude of sports and had a lot of fun doing so.

I do hear parents expressing concern that the learning/teaching may not be as good. For us, all I can say is my son is achieving strong results in high school. He does study hard but was ready and prepared to take the step up into Year 7. He’s even started an informal soccer club at high school as he missed playing sport in the playground of St Joeys. The experience of Sports Captain in Year 6 has come in handy.

Every child is different I know, and family situations vary, but my honest advice is to think about the best fit for your child. Years 5 and 6 at St Joey’s were great for us and such good value!

Another email from a current parent:

Hi Michelle,

I thought I'd send a few photos from the skipping competition yesterday and wanted to say thank you to you and Isabelle for such a fun and positive experience for Mila. She has loved the skipping program and had such a fun day yesterday representing St Joseph's. You would have been so proud of each of them. They all tried so hard and were so incredibly proud of themselves. I was also grateful to Grace and Ellie for always looking out for the younger students. They constantly kept an eye on all of them, cheered them on and gave each child a big hug and congratulations each time they completed an event. It was beautiful. We knew it was going to be a long drive out to Arnolds Creek, and a very long day but boy it was worth it watching our gorgeous St Joseph's children enjoying such a fun day together. We are so so incredibly grateful to Isabelle for all the time and effort she has put into the competition and a few parents and I would love to get her a bunch of flowers to say thank you.

Another email from a parent who recently attended a social skills workshop with her child, outside of school:

Dear Michelle,

During the parent feedback briefing following my child’s social skills session, the discussion moved to schools. The speech therapist (who attends appointments at various schools in the area) raved about St Joseph’s! She said it had a wonderful culture, the teachers were happy which meant that they were in the right frame of mind to teach kids, teachers were receptive to recommendations from specialists and implemented them and the school was proactive in seeking support. It’s wonderful to hear such positive feedback from a specialist, particularly given their knowledge of other schools in the area.

Such affirming feedback for our staff- thank you!

A Final Thank You!

A huge thank you to Malvern City Soccer Club, and its President, James, who donated all the meat for today's hot lunch Souvlakis. We are grateful for their generous support of our school. Please visit their website to read about their exciting announcement regarding their Junior Boys NPL Competition in 2020.

Thank you also to Lukumades, Windsor, who provided the delicious Greek desserts for our Greek inspired lunch today. Lukamedes specialise in handcrafted doughnuts and are located on Chapel Street, Windsor. Yum!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend ahead and fingers crossed for some sunshine! Please remember we have our P+F meeting on Tuesday evening at 7.30pm and we'd love to see as many of you there as possible.

Michelle