Newsletter – Term 2 Week 9, 2023

June 14, 2023

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents & Guardians

It is aways great to see our Performance Arts assemblies go from strength to strength each year and to put time aside to celebrate the many and varied talents of our student body.  Well done to all of the students who performed and to their teachers who put the time in to prepare them.

Next week we will be holding our Semester One Academic Awards Assembly.

During this time, we will acknowledge our students who will be awarded Gold, Silver, Bronze and Maroon Academic Awards as well as our Navy Effort Awards.  To achieve these awards is a tremendous feat and definitely deserves acknowledgement of the consistent effort and commitment these students are putting into their educational journey.

Parents of students that will be receiving an award will receive communication from the school.  We ask that you please keep this communication ‘under wraps’ from your child so the awards still hold an element of surprise for them.

Reports will be posted in the last week of school and will look quite different to recent reports as report cards have been reviewed across all primary schools.

Hopefully, the new report format will be more accessible for parents and students to understand.  Some notable differences you will see will be the inclusion of our Learning Dispositions of Resilience, Persistence, Independence, Creativity and Collaboration being central to each student’s Overall Comment.

You will also notice that Religion, English and Mathematics all have individual comments all of which will mention specific student achievements but also will have ‘next steps’ suggestions for students to work on to improve their future habits as learners in each of these subjects.

The inclusion of these ‘next steps’ suggestions make our report cards even more relevant for our students to set future educational goals for themselves.

Mrs Senini and the staff have put a tremendous amount of work in preparation of reports and I hope you enjoy the new format.

CAR PARK SAFETY ISSUES

I would like to bring to your attention that we have been made aware of concerns raised within the community regarding the safety of our students in the carpark.  Those concerns will be detailed briefly in the following four dot points.

• Please ensure that your child be fully fastened into their car seat before pulling away from the pick-up zone. Several instances have been reported with students hanging our car windows waving and calling out while their car is pulling away.  This is very dangerous and quite illegal.
• Please be aware that children under 7 years of age should be restrained in a properly fastened and adjusted Australian Standard approved child restraint.
• By law, children under 7 years of age should be seated in the rear seats of the car. Children aged 7 years and over can travel in the front seat.  However, research shows that children under 12 years are much safer travelling in the back seat.
• Many students are crossing to the school entrance at the curve in front of the entrance to the office. This is the area where students are most hidden from oncoming cars.  Please ensure students either use the crossing or the area adjacent to the pick-up/drop-off zone where students and exit straight into a safe zone away from moving traffic.

Please help by paying attention to these requests/laws that all centre around keeping our students a safe as possible.

Finally, the Catholic Parishes of Rockhampton are collecting for the St Vincent DePaul Winter Appeal.  If you have spare blankets, warm clothes or non-perishable food that can be donated, please drop it into the school office and I will make sure it gets to the Parish office.  Thank you.

Don’t Forget….

• Rockhampton Show. 14^th – 16^th June
• Rockhampton Show Holiday. Thurs 15^th June
• Children’s Mass. Saturday 17^th June @ OLHC 6:30pm
• Semester 1 Academic Awards. Monday, 19^th June @ 8:35am in MPA
• State of Origin – Game 2. Wednesday 21^st June
• Semester 1 Report Cards posted to Parent Lounge. Wed 21^st June
• SJPA Under 8’s Day. Thursday 22^nd June
• Term 2 concludes. Friday 23^rd June
• Term 3/Semester 2 commences. Monday 10^th July
• Challenge Cup. Wed 12^th – Fri 14^th July @ St Brendan’s Yeppoon.

Kindest Regards
Bernard Fitzgerald
Principal – St. Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Park Avenue