St Joseph's Catholic School - Mundingburra eNewsletter

Acknowledgement of Country

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, the Wulgurukaba people. We also acknowledge their neighbouring brothers and sisters on the land, the Bindal people. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. May we walk gently and peacefully on this land together.

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers, Staff and Students

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of our school community to formally congratulate Clare Plant, our School Chaplain, on being the 2022 Townsville Spirit of Catholic Education Award winner. There have been several Facebook Posts about Clare’s achievement, however I am aware not all in our school community are on Facebook.

Clare’s selection meant she received an invitation to attend the State Launch of Catholic Education Week in Toowoomba on Tuesday 26th July, which she accepted. Myself and Jacqui Francis (Executive Director) accompanied Clare, and on Tuesday morning we attended the Catholic Education Week Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral Toowoomba. This was followed by a morning tea where students from various Catholic schools in the district performed a number of songs for those present. The official presentation of awards then took place in the Micah Centre next door. Present were members of both the National and Queensland Catholic Education Commissions, Diocesan Directors, members of Catholic School Parents Queensland, government representatives and Diocesan Awardees and their guests. On her return to Townsville, Clare also attended a local ceremony where Townsville Diocese staff who were nominated for this award were acknowledged. There are 313 Catholic schools in Queensland that educate around 154,000 students and employ more than 22,000 teachers and staff. The SOCE Awards are a wonderful acknowledgement of the contribution many staff make each and every day to Catholic education.

Last Wednesday, staff and students from St Joseph’s Mundingburra attended the Challenge Games. The Games are an annual event where the focus is fun and participation for all children. It is an event where children with a disability can play games, have fun and compete with other children of their own ability level. There is no other sporting event in Australia that covers all disabilities at the one time. Schools from the extreme outreaches in all directions of North Queensland come to Townsville year after year to be part of the fun. Our students were very excited to be participating, and were particularly happy with their St Joey’s Superstars shirts. They were bright yellow with silver writing and stars on the back. Teachers said it was very easy to locate our Joey’s students all day. Thank you to Mrs Lane and Mrs Engert for organising and for all staff who assisted with supervision. Thank you also to Mrs White who decorated the shirts. They looked great!

Act for Kids have commenced delivering their ‘Learn to be Safe with Emmy and Friends’ Program to our students in Prep - Year 3. This program is evidenced-based and has proven to deliver outstanding learning experiences and outcomes for students, enabling them to make good decisions around personal safety and speaking out when a situation is uncomfortable. The program is being delivered each week for five weeks this term. The school is also working with Act for Kids to determine a suitable program for our students in the middle to upper year levels. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Living Ripples (formerly RIPPLE) for their contribution and support of the Act for Kids Program and its delivery at St Joseph’s Mundingburra.

Last week and continuing this week, St Joseph’s staff have been participating in professional development around Indigenous Education. These twilight professional development sessions have been facilitated by the school’s Indigenous Education Adviser, Janelle Knack. Last week Janelle’s focus was on enhancing the cultural awareness of our staff, as well as sharing some of the Stronger Smarter strategies. This week Janelle will deliver information on Pedagogy of Difference, linking this to the learning and teaching cycle. She will also discuss the Cross Curriculum Priorities of Indigenous Knowledges in the Australian Curriculum.

Enjoy the rest of your week.
God bless
Tracy

APRE News

Open Your Heart

Be a Gift of Love and Compassion for One Another Mary MacKillop

Sacramental Program
Our next lesson for our Sacramental Program that was due to take place this coming Sunday will be an at home lesson due to the Parish Celebration for the Feast Day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. All families are welcome and encouraged to still attend mass and join the parish for the High Tea after mass this Sunday.

I will send families an email with the details for the home learning lesson later in the week. I will also catch up with those students who were away last Sunday and give them their books and information on the lesson that they missed. Just a reminder that if your child will not be present on the Sunday please email me to let me know.

Our next lesson after that will take place on Sunday 14th August. This lesson will focus on Communion. An email will be sent out to families participating with further details.

Feast Day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop

Parish Celebration - Our Parish Feast Day is technically 8th August when the Church celebrates the Feast of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. St Mary MacKillop is our parish’s patron and namesake. All parishioners are invited to a High Tea Morning Tea on Sunday 7 August commencing immediately following the 7:30 am Sunday Parish Mass.

School Celebration: Our school community will celebrate the Feast Day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop on Monday 8th August. We will begin our day with a Liturgy in the Shelter Shed. All are welcome to join us. Students will then join together to participate in a range of hands-on activities to explore some of the characteristics and values of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop; trusting, contemplative, traveller, teacher, team player, communicator, resilient and compassionate. Mary MacKillop was a woman whose faith led her to blaze untravelled paths and live a life in the service of others. A woman we can be truly inspired by to live the Gospel of Jesus.

Assembly
Assemblies take place in the Shelter Shed on Monday mornings at 8:40am. Next week's assembly is our Feast Day Liturgy. 6B will host our assembly in Week 6 on Monday 15th August.

Christian Meditation
Christian Meditation will take place again next Thursday morning at 8:00am in the Library. Meditation is a form of sacred and silent prayer, known as prayer of the heart. It is a lovely way to start the day! Parents are welcome to attend.

May God’s blessing be with you all. Peta

Parish Feast Day 2022 - Invitation to Families

The Joey's Way

Congratulations Clare

Congratulations to Mrs Plant for being the 2022 Townsville Spirit of Catholic Education Award winner! As such, Mrs Plant attended the State Launch for Catholic Education Week in Toowoomba, where she was acknowledged for her significant contribution to Catholic Education over 40 years. She also attended the local ceremony at the Mercure on her return. Both myself and Executive Director Jacqui Francis were present to support Mrs Plant on both occasions.

Diary Dates

School Photos

From the Office

Term 3 school fees were issued last week. These were sent via email. Please check your spam/junk folders and if you have not received your statement, please contact the office. Due date for payment is Friday 2 September. Please attend to any overdue accounts.

P & F Meeting is on Monday 8 August at 7pm - all welcome to attend.

School Board Meeting is on Tuesday 9 August at 6.30pm

Is your child absent from school? Please notify the office via

emailing absent@sjmbtsv.catholic.edu.au
calling the office and leaving a message at the absent option
parent/guardian can note the absence through Compass

A text message will go out at 9.30am to any parents whose child is marked absent without an explanation. Please reply to this text using one of the above methods. If your child arrives after 8.30am, they must pass through the office for a late pass so that if the role has been marked at the classroom, office staff can make the ammendment for the arrival. We thank parents for assisting with this. Roles are marked promptly at 8.30am on Mondays due to assembly - students are required to collect a late pass before moving to assembly if they are late.

Mary MacKillop Feast Day Liturgy

Star Students

Japanese

On Friday August 5th, 5 students from Year 3-5 will be participating in the Japanese Speech competition at Ryan Community Center. They have been busy practicing their speeches over the last few weeks and I know they will do a great job representing our school.
Ganbatte! Good Luck!

The Year 6’s kicked off their semester of LOTE by doing an entire art lesson in Japanese. They had to use their prior knowledge and make educated guesses to figure out what they were suppose to do. The final results look fantastic!

Bimbi Wadja

After a busy NAIDOC week the Bimbi Wadja students came together to research and create some fish traps. We looked at pictures of different traps created by Indigenous people over the years. We spoke about Aboriginal fish traps that are located in the Barwon River in Brewarrina NSW. Its thought these might be the oldest fish traps in Australia and they are now heritage listed.
The Bimbi Wadjas used recycled net packing off the chair legs purchased by our school last year. And with some sticks, cotton wool and paper fish they made some amazing creations.

For our Indigenous lunchtime activities on a Thursday for the next couple of weeks, we will be creating sea creatures found in the ocean around Australia. These will be made out of recycled materials, then they will be placed in a large net that is hanging on the art room ceiling.

Library News

BOOK WEEK ACTIVITIES AROUND THE LIBRARY IN AUGUST!
During the last week the library has been gearing up for the August Book Week excitement, heading to the climax of the Book Week, 20-26 August 2022. Mrs Luton has been enthusiastically telling CBCA Shortlisted stories and creating colourful activities with our students. Teachers have been retelling stories in the library from the CBCA Shortlisted Books 2022 as well, bringing connection to our students with excellent literature, authors and illustrators from all over Australia.
The categories of the shortlisted books chosen this year are:
BOOK OF THE YEAR: YOUNGER READERS
Entries in this category may be fiction, drama or poetry and should be appropriate in style and content for readers from the middle to upper primary years. 7-12 years.
BOOK OF THE YEAR: EARLY CHILDHOOD
Entries in this category may be fiction, drama or poetry and should be appropriate in style and content for children who are at pre-reading or early stages of reading. Ages 0-6 years.
THE PICTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR
Entries in this category should be outstanding books of the Picture Book genre in which the author and illustrator achieve artistic and literary unity or, in wordless picture books, where the story, theme or concept is unified through illustrations. Ages 0-18 years. (NB. Some of these books may be for mature readers and have not been purchased).
EVE POWNALL AWARD
Entries in this category should be books which have the prime intention of documenting factual material with consideration given to imaginative presentation, interpretation and variation of style. Ages 0-18 years (NB some books may be for mature readers and have not been purchased).
CBCA AWARD FOR NEW ILLUSTRATOR
This Award aims to recognise and encourage new talent in the field of Australian children's book illustration. Ages 0-18 years.
Children have been enjoying the ‘Iceberg’ reading area with whale song accompaniment, and the bush reading area ‘Book of Curious Birds’, in the library, whilst they immerse themselves in imagining the book they are reading with the theme for Book Week of ‘Dreaming with Eyes Open’.
With lots of sports enthusiasts the Commonwealth Games book area has been in demand, with more sports books in the pipeline on order!

DON'T FORGET BOOK WEEK PARADE IS ON TUESDAY 23 AUGUST AT 9AM IN THE SHELTER SHED

4 WEEK READING CHALLENGE (GRADES 4-6)

With the start of week 4, the library has commenced a ‘challenge’ to students in Grades 4 – 6 to have a go at reading a different type of genre book, that they may not normally read. These have to be books from our library in particular categories listed. A small prize is offered at the end of the period of 4 weeks ending with the Book Week!