At St. Joseph’s Primary School we pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land, the Kolorer gunditj people and pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.
The area around Mount Rouse is the country of the Kolorer gunditj clan of Aboriginal people. Their title is derived from their name for Mount Rouse which is Kolor. The permanent spring that is now located within the Penshurst Botanic Gardens was a traditional meeting place for Aboriginal people in the region.
This week's Book Week celebrations ignited our passion for reading, imagination and the love for Literacy. The Book Week Parade was a hit for all ages and was unforgettable fun that sparked creativity and made many memories. Thank you to all those who stated up late making costumes and supported the day.
On Monday 28th August, St Joseph's will be supporting the Kelly's AGnVET product breakfast at the Penshurst Football Netball Clubrooms. Some school members will be preparing the breakfast and I ask if anyone is able to help out, we would highly appreciate your help. School members will begin cooking at 7.30am on Monday.
For more details on the Kelly's AGnVET event, view the flyer at the end of the newsletter.
Have a great week everyone,
Darren.
Our Book Week Dress Up Parade on Wednesday was a huge success. We had so many visitors that we could not all fit in the Library. Luckily we were blessed with a beautiful day. Parents, students and staff all shared their love for books and enjoyed explaining their dress ups.
Our Penshurst Kinder students and families were shy to begin with but once they saw that the Parade day is all about having fun and dancing about in character, they quickly joined in the Book Week excitement.
Throughout the day, students joined in book related activities in groups and created some air dry clay penguin figurines from the text "Frank's Red Hat". Once dry the figurines will be ready to paint and play with, we wish to share these with Penshurst Kinder so they can connect with the funny story by Sean Avery.
We cannot wait for more community fun!
Thank you parents for confirming your appointments for the upcoming 3 Way Conferences on the 30th of August. It is an important process in the children's development to feel confident sharing learning achievements, challenges and future goals. The children are encouraged to take leadership of the conference, let their work samples assist the discussion and would benefit highly from your proud and positive feedback.
A 3-Way Conference actively involves parents, students and teachers reflecting on student growth as a learner, while acknowledging the most important participants in the learning process – student, teacher and parent/carer.
The 3-way Conferences strengthen the home-school partnership and allow children to see their parents and teacher working together with them.
To all Fathers and significant men in our lives, you are invited to join our students in attending St Joseph's Father's Day breakfast. Men, for many of you this will be an excellent chance to have an egg and bacon roll with the kids and catch up with other Dads from our school.
Breakfast rolls will be available from 8am on Friday 1st September.
The children have prepared a wonderful gift and fun activity to play over breakfast.
Please return your breakfast invitation ASAP.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Term Three - Special Dates to Remember:
August
September
At St Josephs we want everyone in our community to be respectful., responsible and safe. Our school wants us to develop these values so that they become a part of our life at school each day. This will lead to a safer, kinder and more considerate school community and will help everyone to be able to learn and grow to their full potential.
As a Catholic school, the example of Jesus is at the heart of all that we do. This is how Jesus lived his life and we encourage everyone to be the best versions of themselves each day and contribute to our school in a positive way.
At St Joseph’s we have developed a School Wide Positive Behaviour Matrix which outlines the Respectful, Responsible and Safe expected behaviours that we would like to see everyone doing. Currently we are having a few focusses or what we call blitzes from our Matrix to ensure students are following those expected behaviours. This will include:
Asking the rules before playing a game
Using kind and encouraging words
Keeping hands & feet and objects to yourself
Child Safe Standards (eleven in total) came into effect in July last year and are a vital part of what we do here at St Joseph's But, what do these standards look like in practice? Over the coming months we will look at these standards in closer detail.
Standard 3 - Children and young people are empowered about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them and are taken seriously.
At St Joseph’s we can see this standard in action in a variety of ways. All representatives of our school come together to discuss what is happening in their school and contribute their ideas. The most recent meeting was discussing the state of our cubbies in the playground and what the children would like to see as a suitable replacement. We also have student feedback that takes place each term. Students are given the chance to express what they have enjoyed about the term, any worries they may have and what their hopes for the next term are. This is expressed in the Semester Student Reports with each students comment section. We also conduct Wellbeing and Friendship surveys to check in with how the children are feeling. As a staff we analyse this data and make plans moving forward as to how we can address any concerns that the children may have. Often children contribute to this newsletter with excursion and sport reports, classroom reports or even safety suggestions.
There are many more things that we do that relate to this standard, but this is just a snapshot!
More information about these standards can be found here: Child Safe Standards
More information about these standards can be found here:
https://ccyp.vic.gov.au/child-safe-standards/the-11-child-safe-standards/
