ST JOSEPH’S JOURNAL St Joseph’s Primary School Laurieton

2018 TERM 1 Week 10

Ph 6559 9466 Fax 6559 6765

Email: larp@lism.catholic.edu.au

Website: moodle.larplism.catholic.edu.au

Our Mission: To be a Christ centred learning community where each person is known and valued.

Happy Easter to all our school families. Although the holiday is now behind us and the eggs most likely all eaten, we continue to celebrate the Easter season as a school and church community for fifty days, concluding on Pentecost Sunday on the 20th May. Over the coming weeks at school we will recall stories of the risen Christ appearing to His followers and our prayers will focus on the great joy and the hope provided to us by Jesus resurrection. Yesterday we were blessed with a magnificent day at Rainbow Beach for our Cross Country Carnival. It certainly was a beautiful venue and all students participated in good spirit and with admirable levels of determination in completing the challenging course which involved running on the beach then up and around the steep headland. Afterwards students enjoyed some fun play time on the beach where most were content to build sand castles while others still had the energy to play touch footy! It was wonderful to see so many parents and supporters there to encourage the children and enjoy the sunshine. A very big thank you to those who helped out on the course or with lunch or in some other way, and also to our staff who were super vigilant and on the go from setup to finish. Special mention goes to Mr Michael Marshall, our Sports Coordinator, for the many hours put into making this such a well run and enjoyable day. Results of the carnival can be found on page 3.

Next term sees the recommencement of our Companions in the Faith program which is a mentoring and guidance program for our Stage 2 students. This program has been running in our school for quite a few years but in recent times it has been challenging to get enough Companions to run sessions across two classes. There is a call out now for volunteers from the parish and school to help run a group in discussions about the Catholic Faith. Groups meet once a fortnight for about half an hour over Term 2 & 3. A special aspect of this programme is the close friendship bonds that develop between our companions and the students and this often continues for years after the students move onto higher classes. If you, or someone you know might like to help, please contact the School Office(6559 9466) or Parish Office (6559 8354).

There will be a change to whole school assembly times from the start of Term 2. Assemblies will now be on Mondays (9.00am - 9.15am), Wednesdays (9.00am - 9.15am) and a longer assembly on a Friday afternoon commencing at 2.30pm and finishing close to home time. Classes will be rostered for prayer at the Friday assembly (no longer at assembly Thursday morning) and awards, special announcements and celebrations will also be made at this longer assembly. Hopefully this will provide an opportunity for parents who cannot make mornings to come along on Friday afternoon and it also frees up some valuable minutes in our key morning learning time over the week. We will review this new format at the end of next term and adjust as needed based on our feedback from parents and staff. Last Thursday staff participated in a Professional Learning Day at St Joseph’s Wauchope. For teachers the day centred around improving students writing through a program called “Seven Steps to Writing Success.” I know some classes have already started implementing some of these ideas and others will do so as Term 2 commences. Some of the terms students will encounter include “Sizzling Starts,” “Tightening Tension,” and “Ban the Boring” to name a few. I am very confident that we will see some great results as an outcome of this training and I’m looking forward to reading some of the work students create in coming weeks. Hopefully we will share some of these with you through newsletter or assembly extracts. Our next pupil free day is our annual Staff Spirituality Day which will be held on the first day of Term 2. This will mean that students return after the holidays on Tuesday 1 May. Please contact the school before the end of this term if you are unable to provide your own childminding for this day - care may be arranged if we have enough interested families. A gentle reminder also that Term 1 School Fees are due at the end of next week unless a direct debit is in place or another arrangement has been made with the Principal. Please assist us in this matter by making prompt payment if it has slipped your mind. If payment of fees is currently causing you financial distress please contact me immediately to discuss a possible plan to assist your needs. Kind Regards, David Hughes (Principal)

CALENDAR Term 1 Week 11

MON 9 APR Canteen / School Banking

Y1 & 5 CAPA (Creative Arts)

Yr 2 & 6 LIBRARY

Yr 5 Lakeside nursing home

TUES 10 APR Y3 & 6 CAPA (Creative Arts)

Yr 4 & 5 LIBRARY

Yr 3 Widdon Nursing Home

WED 11 APR Y2 & 4 CAPA (Creative Arts)

Yr 1 & 3 LIBRARY

THUR 12 APR

FRI 13 APR Last Day of Term 1

Future Events Monday 30th April Pupil free day

Tuesday 1st May Students first day

Friday 11th May Mothers Day liturgy and Morning tea

15th –17th May NAPLAN

Easter Prayer

Lord, the resurrection of Your Son has given us new life and

renewed hope.

Help us to live as new people in pursuit of the Christian ideal.

Grant us the wisdom to know what we must do,

The will to want to do it,

The courage to undertake it,

The perseverance to continue to do it,

and the strength to complete it.

Amen

Mother’s Day Liturgy and morning

tea

Fri 11th May from 10.45am in the

hall.

More information to follow shortly.

A gift stall will also be available

that day

Monday 30th April is a Pupil Free Day

NAPLAN is on the 15th-17th May for Years 3 and 5

Band will resume as normal, next Monday 9th

April at 9 am

“$6 MEAL DEAL

MONDAYS”…..

Term 2 Options

1. Toasted chicken, cheese & tomato sand-

wich

2. Toasted Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich

3. Ham & pineapple pizza

If you are available to assist at all please contact

Erin Thompson on 0414 386 747 or the school

office on 6559 9466.

Our annual Easter raffle raised $986.

What a fantastic news!!!

CROSS COUNTRY CARNIVAL: Congratulations to all competitors who participated in our School Cross Country at the beautiful Rainbow Beach, Bonny Hills. We now have a strong team who will compete at Zone Cross Country in Bowraville (Term 2 Week 1 more information to come next week). The winning house for the 2018 Cross country carnival was Melaleuca (199pts). In second place was Callistemon (187pts) and third went to Grevillea(169pts). Age Champions and Runners Up U/6’s Boys – Harry Swain and Eddie Harris U/6’s Girls - Annabelle O’Hara and Venice Fenner 7Yrs Boys – Roman Riethmuller and Riley McCullough 7Yrs Girls – Ruby Norrie and Jayla Jolly 8Yrs Boys – Byron McCullough and Harry Hoad 8Yrs Girls – Ruby Whitelaw and Ciara Hoare 9Yrs Boys – Joseph Fede and Cruz Tate-Whalley 9Yrs Girls – Olivia Morgan and Jayde Gray 10Yrs Boys – Haine Eames and Zac Ashby 10Ysr Girls – Paige Hudson and Claire Whitelaw 11Yrs Boys – Blake Ellis and Cooper Stanford 11Yrs Girls – Emma Wheeler and Maddison Murphy 12Yrs Boys – Dan Reeves and Riley Armstrong 12Yrs Girls – Zoe Hedges and Sienna Gill Thank you again to our amazing staff for their assistance in the running of the carnival, and huge thank you to all the parents who were able to assist on the day. Without you our carnivals would be much harder to run. The staff and students really appreciate all your help.

Michael Marshall

Sports Report

Thursday Sports

This Thursday students will participate in sports at school as the pool is now closed for the season.

More photos can be found on our Facebook page, St

Joseph’s Laurieton Staff and Parent Channel

Around our school

Year 2 had an Easter craft morning last Wednesday to celebrate the Easter holiday. We had a busy morning sewing, cooking and colouring followed by the Stations of the Cross to end a wonderful morning. The students sewed their own Easter bunny purse, they made and decorated their own Easter cookies with icing, marshmallows, chocolate chips and sprinkles and finished it off by making their own Easter cards. It was an engaging morning and we were very lucky to have some parent helpers assisting with our craft. Thank you to those parents for giving up their time to help and also a big thank you to Kristie Walker who helped organise the craft for the day. We will now be writing procedures about what we made in class. We love having fun in Year 2

Last week Year 6 re-enacted the stations of the cross

After stations of the Cross we had our annual Easter Raffle. There was also a surprise visitor who left some presents

Stage One Hatching Chicks

Stage One are eagerly waiting for their chicks to hatch. The students have been looking after some eggs in an incubator for 18 days as part of their science unit ‘Watch it Grow’ where they are investigating how plants, animals and humans grow and change. The students are very excited for the arrival of their chicks and hopefully they will hatch in Week 11.

We have been participating in both Hockey skills and Cricket skills.

This is a great way to introduce student to new games and skills.