Term 2 Week 6 Newsletter 2025

Acknowledgement of Country

We respectfully acknowledge the past and present traditional owners of this land on which we stand, the Wulgurukaba and neighbouring Bindal people who are the custodians. We pray that we can walk together to a better future.

From the Principal

Dear Parents and Carers, Staff and Students

Welcome to Week 6 of the term and the commencement of some lovely weather, though I am eagerly awaiting the cooler winter weather which I hope we will experience in June. The last couple of weeks have involved a range of activities for our staff and students, including school photos, the Interschool Cross Country, National Simultaneous Storytime, the Southern Cross Speech Competition, Under 8’s morning, Whole school Meditation for Mary Help of Christians, Reconciliation Week / Liturgy and runoffs for our upcoming Athletics Carnival. Not all of these activities include all students, with the busiest of activities being the learning and teaching which takes place in our classrooms each and every day.

Last Tuesday, a number of our students participated in the Interschool Cross Country at Bicentennial Park. The Park was full of families and excited students who were also somewhat nervous as they anticipated the beginning of their race. Around 150 students were at the starting line for each race, with a number of St Joseph’s Mundingburra students placing in the first 15 for their age level. Congratulations to Layla in Year 6 who placed 1st in her age group, Charli in Year 6 who placed 4th and Miller in Year 5 who also placed 4th. What a wonderful effort! Thank you to Miss Duyvestyn, Mrs McMahon and Mrs Lazzaroni for their support and contribution.

On Thursday of Week 5 we gathered as a whole school to celebrate the feast day of Our Lady Mary Help of Christians. Together we participated in Christian Meditation led by Mrs Bortignon who is our leading teacher in Christian Meditation. The Feast of Mary, Help of Christians, celebrated on May 24th, is a special day for Catholics to remember Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her help in times of need. It's like giving thanks to her for being a good friend and guide to us all, especially when things get tough.

Last Friday we hosted a number of children for our Under 8’s Day, the theme being ‘Unleashing Scientific Thinking through Play’. It was a great way to bring learning to life through fun and engaging activities, as well as welcoming children and their families from Miniversity and Mary MacKillop Early Learning Centres. Students from Prep to Year 2 also joined in, with all who attended having a wonderful time. There were a large variety of stalls and activities which children could take part in, with the Animal Farm and Face Painting proving to be the most popular. A big thank you to Mrs Cantoni for organising the day, and to all our staff who assisted in making it a great success. 

Recently, our leadership team, Inclusive Practices teachers and three classroom teachers attended an Inclusive Education professional development workshop presented by Shelley Moore. Based in British Columbia, Canada, Dr. Shelley Moore is a highly sought-after inclusive education researcher, teacher, consultant and storyteller. She has worked with school districts and community organisations around the world. Her research explores how to support teachers to design for all learners in year level classrooms that include students with disabilities using strength based and responsive approaches. 

During the full day workshop, we looked at some inclusive curricular planning frameworks which would allow us to design for a range of diversity using year level curriculum. We also saw examples of how we can use the Australian Curriculum in flexible ways to support success and growth for all students, while targeting self-determination and agency. We engaged in valuable discussion around how to make the year level curriculum accessible for learners of any ability. The information and learnings we took away from this workshop will benefit our staff and students, and certainly support our 2025 Annual School Improvement Goal of continuing the development of Universal Design for Learning practices which meets the needs of all learners and promotes student voice.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

God bless

Tracy

ARPE News

The Ascension of the Lord

This Sunday, 1st June, we reflect on the great Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, celebrated 40 days after Easter. This feast commemorates the moment when Jesus, having completed His earthly mission, ascended into Heaven in the presence of His disciples. It is a powerful reminder of Christ’s divine glory and His promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide and strengthen us. The Ascension invites us to lift our hearts and minds to Heaven, to live with hope, and to continue Christ’s mission here on Earth. As a school community, we are called to be witnesses of His love and to share His message of salvation with others.

Sacramental Program

Thank you to those families who have registered their interest for our Sacramental Program this year. More information and enrollment forms will be sent to those families in the coming weeks.

Save the Date: Year Level Masses Term 2

Christian Meditation will take place each 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!  

Assemblies

Our next assembly will be in:

Week 8: Will be hosted by 3B

Week 10: Naidoc Week Assembly 2:00 pm Tuesday 24th June 

May God’s blessing be with you, Peta.

2025-2029 Strategic Plan & 2025 Annual School Improvement Plan

Please find attached the school's current Strategic Plans for school improvement below. 

The goals in the 2025 ASIP have been drawn from the five year School Renewal Strategic Plan (2025 - 2029) which was drafted from the feedback gathered during our Verification and Validation School Renewal processes in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Feedback on both the 2025 ASIP goals and the School Renewal Strategic goals have been sought by staff, the School Board (8 October 2024) and copies of the Draft Strategic Plan were also taken to a 2024 Term 4 P & F Meeting.

A Google Form Link seeking feedback / suggestions from the school community on what our school does well and what we could improve on, was included in the Term 1 Week 6 and Week 8 Newsletters. Thank you to those parents / caregivers who provided feedback. While not all feedback will appear on annual ASIP documents, it is recorded and then addressed where and when possible. I am happy to receive further feedback on our current 2025 Annual School Improvement Plan (attached). Please email me at tnuttall2@sjmbtsv.catholic.edu.au

The Joey's Way

St. Mary of the Cross MackKillop Parish, Townsville

Join Us as We Celebrate God's Blessings He Has Bestowed! The St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop Parish, Townsville Golden Jubilee of "The Blessing of the Holy Family Church" at 6PM on 30th May 2025. 

Mini Vinnies

A group of Yr 6 students gathered in our school library on Saturday morning for our second meeting of the Mini Vinnies students. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the students brought even more joy to the day showing a great awareness of the need to do something for the needs of others. Social Justice is alive at St. Joseph’s Mundingburra.

One of the activities was to strip buttons, zips etc from old clothing that would then be shredded, bagged into bales and then sent to Bangladesh where it will be recycled into clothing.

We are also doing craft activities with the view to selling them and all proceeds would then go to SVP.

Thank you to all who came and we look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting on Saturday 16th June at 10.00am in the Library.

Mrs Plant & Mrs Taylor

From the Office

School Fees

A reminder that Term 2 school fees are due on Friday, 6th June 2025. Please ensure prompt payment is made on or before that date. 

Sibling Enrolments

If you have a child starting in Prep next year, please return your Student Enrolment Agreement Form to the office at your earliest convenience.

Pick-Ups

A friendly reminder that Prep students finish school at 2:50pm, and students in Year 1 to Year 6 also finish at 2:50pm. If children are not collected by 3:15pm, they will be brought to the office and we will contact parents. Please note that the school office closes at 3:30pm, and staff often have appointments and meetings after this time. We kindly ask that all students are collected promptly, or that arrangements are made for them to attend after-school care.

Spelling Bee

Mrs Cornish was incredibly impressed with the interest, engagement and calibre of students who participated in the lunchtime Spell-Off Competitions. As you may be aware, we are only able to nominate two students from each year level (Yr3-Yr 6) even though we would happily take each and every one of them.  Please join me in congratulating the following students who spelt the most number of words correctly and will represent St Joseph's Mundingburra at the Marian school’s Spelling Bee on the 14th of August.

PREP VISION SCREENING

A Registered Nurse will be visiting our school on Tuesday the 24^th and Wednesday the 25^th of June to conduct vision screening for children in their Prep year. Good vision is important for a child’s educational, physical and social development. Vision screening checks for common eye conditions that may impact your child’s ability to see and therefore impact their learning and development. Please complete an online consent form below if you would like your child to participate in Prep Vision Screening:  

LIBRARY NEWS

READ MORE IN MAY!!!

Last week, St Joseph’s Library, with excited students from Year 5 and their buddies PREP A and PREP B, listened to the streamed simultaneous story of ‘The Truck Cat’ by Deborah Frenke, a Melbourne-based writer and Danny Snell, who works as an illustrator of picture books and as an author.

On the 21 May, with libraries, schools and participants from all around Australia and New Zealand we all listened together to this beautiful story about a cat called ‘Tinka’ travelling the open roads of Australia with her friend ‘Yacoub’ in his truck. Yacoub doesn’t know many people, but Tinka is always his best friend. The Truck Cat gently introduces readers to themes of immigration, loneliness, friendship and family. This book has been nominated as a shortlisted book as well, in the CBCA Book Week Awards in August, so we may yet see Tinka again soon…..

The library held various creative activities during National Simultaneous Storytime, such as, making origami truck cats; building 3D paper model trucks; Truck Cat character pop stick puppets, in a theatre drama-o-rama (using puppets to orally tell the story); a Truck Cat scavenger hunt, for students to explore the library and learn more about stories in our collection.

Also, a big thank you to St Joseph’s teachers, students and parents for assisting in our ‘Pet Wall of Fame’ in the library, which now has a collection of pet photos for the whole school to engage in.  Students excitedly brought in their own favourite pet photos for other children to view and guess other teachers, type of pet and their name. The student’s excitement with the ‘Pet Wall of Fame’ and ‘The Truck Cat’, is a sharing, and exploration of our community which connects us all.

This week, during National Reconciliation Week 2025 ‘Bridging now to next’, which is this year’s theme, our Specialist Library Teacher, Mrs. Plant spotlighted indigenous literature and art with students, connecting stories and information to build stronger relationships and understanding in the community. Reading and library activities will be held during the week. 

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE (PRC) Students have continued with this challenge, which has been taken up by our school this year, to encourage and improve literacy skills for our students here at St Joseph’s. For any enquiries or questions, please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Cath Cornish or the St Joseph’s Library!

The Readers Cup Competition 2025 is fast approaching and will be held on Monday, 16^th June 2025 at 4.30pm at Southern Cross Catholic College, where students will compete against other schools in the CBCA Queensland 2025 Readers Cup North Qld Competition.

 St Joseph’s is again participating in the Readers Cup challenge Year 5/6 and the 5 team members announced in Term 1 from Year 5A & 5B are making fantastic progress in reading their prescribed books for this year’s challenge. Students will answer quiz questions about the books they have read. Our students will answer rounds with 2 questions from each of the 5 books they have been reading, with a total of 10 questions in total per round. Readers Cup is a fun literature event which aims at engaging students in enjoying children’s literature both for study and for pleasure reading!

OVERDUE BOOKS

Thank you for the return of overdue books. Please do not hesitate to contact Mrs. Harrington in the library, if you have any queries.

SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB ISSUE 4

Book Club Orders for issue 3 have been delivered.

Issue 4 have been sent out to students today. Please note all Issue 4 orders will have to be completed via the Scholastic LOOP system by Wednesday, 11 June 2025.

BOOK DONATIONS

Thank you to the lovely community parents for any donations given recently. We appreciate your kindness.

SORA

Thursday lunchtime Sora Hub in the library continues and all students are welcome to come and enjoy the fun whilst learning to borrow books digitally.

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Happy Reading!!

First Nations News

This week our Bimbi Wadja students lead us in a moving liturgy to acknowledge Sorry Day and National Reconciliation Week. A small choir group sang a beautiful Acknowledgement of Country, Maya proudly shared her reflection on the theme for the year and classes brought forward their pledge for reconciliation. Congratulations to the recipients of our Reconciliation Award.

Students have been learning about both of these significant dates in class and during lunch time activities. We can't wait to have some Ryan Catholic College Emerging Leaders join us on Friday for a special Reconciliation Week activity.  

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Reconciliation Week Activities

Monday - students made bookmarks for Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. 

Tuesday - Students tended to our Yarning Circle, making sure it's free from litter and weeds. We planted some new natives and bush tucker plants.

Zippy!🐢

This week to celebrate Laudato Si Week, which is based on Pope Francis' call to care for our common home, Zippy has been hiding in different locations around our school. When found, students return Zippy to the office and reflect on how Zippy's hiding place connects to how we care for creation at St Joseph's. So far he's been found next to a tree, behind a Container's for Change bin and in JOSEPH'S Garden near the compost bins.

Digital Technology News

Bebras Results 

Congratulations to our students who have received their Bebras Challenge results!

Certificates will be presented at Assembly in Week 8.

The global Bebras Challenge is an international competition involving over 2.9 million students across 60 countries. It supports the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum and is coordinated locally by the Australian Maths Trust (AMT), with support from the CSIRO.

We are extremely proud of the effort and achievement shown by our students!

After School Technology Club

Year 5 and 6 students have been actively engaged in a variety of activities and tasks to prepare for the exciting competitions they’ll be participating in throughout the year. These preparations have included developing problem-solving skills, working collaboratively in teams, and practising under timed conditions. Students have shown great enthusiasm and commitment as they build confidence in coding and STEM-based problem-solving tasks using our new Spike Prime Lego Kits. 

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Sport

Music

Guidance Counsellor

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

Our teachers spend a great deal of time talking to and encouraging our students to have a Growth Mindset rather than a fixed mindset. What do we mean by this?

• Someone with a growth mindset is likely to:
• welcome challenges and new things
• learn from the people around them
• recognise failure as an opportunity to learn
• acknowledge their own weaknesses, and focus on improving them.
• Someone with a fixed mindset is likely to:
• not deal very well with setbacks
• try to hide their mistakes
• believe that their abilities are limited to one area
• engage in negative self-talk by saying things like, ‘I can’t do it’
• avoid challenges.

So how can you help your child with this?

1. Help them add YET to the end of their negative thoughts……..I can’t do it … YET!
2. Challenge accepted. Next time someone throws an unfamiliar or tricky task at them try to encourage them to embrace it. Remind them that even if they find it hard, they will learn and be better at doing it next time. 
3. Encourage your child to work hard to reach their goals by persisting and persevering. 
4. Remind your child  that perfection is an illusion. What matters most is their effort.
5. Help your  child to be open to new ways of doing things.
6. Encourage your child to view setbacks as a reason to try a different way of doing something more than a failure. Encourage them to see that they can learn alot from their mistakes. 

Source - Reachout.com

Inclusive Education

Helping Children Manage Anxiety – A Valuable Tool for Families

It’s not uncommon for children in primary school to experience anxiety from time to time. This might look like worrying a lot, avoiding school or social situations, having trouble sleeping, or complaining of tummy aches or headaches. While some worry is normal, ongoing anxiety can make it harder for children to learn, make friends, and enjoy school.

To support children who may be experiencing anxiety, our school would like to highlight a helpful resource called the BRAVE Program. BRAVE is a free, online program developed by Australian experts in child psychology. It is designed for children aged 3–17 and their parents, and teaches practical skills to help manage anxiety in everyday situations.

The program is interactive and fun, with activities and strategies that children can work through at their own pace, either at home or at school. Parents are also provided with support through a separate version of the program, helping you understand anxiety and learn ways to support your child effectively.

More information can be found at www.brave4you.psy.uq.edu.au.

SchoolTV - Free Webinar

Christian Meditation

Friendology

P&F News

The P&F Pie Drive is Back! 🥧

Get ready—orders will open on Wednesday, 11 June via FlexiSchools and will close on Tuesday, 8 July.

Pie collection will take place at 2:30 PM on Thursday, 7 August.

Mass Times

Parish Mass Times

Wednesday 7.00am

Friday 7.00am

Saturday 5.00pm

Sunday 7.30am