St Joseph’s Primary School, Red Cliffs

Newsletter 35

Term 4, Week 6

13th November 2017

Phone: (03) 5024 1654 Fax: (03) 5024 2042

Principal: Mark Gibson

email: admin@sjredcliffs.catholic.edu.au

Web: www.sjredcliffs.catholic.edu.au

Address:17 Fitzroy Avenue, Red Cliffs, 3496.

Page 1 School Vision: As partners collaboratively educating our students to ensure they learn at high levels,

we are inspired by Christ and our Catholic Faith & Tradition as we pursue fullness of life for all.

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL Dear Parents,

We are now in our fifth last week of the school year for the students. Where has the year gone we are asking ourselves? With the end of year approaching I would like to highlight a few important dates:

Tuesday 5th December - Grade 5 visit to St Joseph’s College

Wednesday 6th December - School Christmas Concert

Sunday 10th December - End of Year Mass and Graduation Lunch

Tuesday 12th December - 2018 Sunraysia Orientation Day (current Grade 6’s going to RCSC and SJC in 2018) and St Joseph’s Transition Day (2018 P-6)

Wednesday 13th December - RCSC (2nd day for students going to RCSC in 2018)

Friday 15th December - Last day of classes for students

We have a number of our students receiving the Sacrament of First Eucharist, at Mass this Sunday. Please support them with your prayers in this significant step along their faith journey. We know that the celebration will be a special one for them and we congratulate all the candidates.

Well done to the junior choir who sang at the launch of the Special Forever Art Exhibition at the Mildura Arts Centre last Thursday. Thanks also to Ms Leamon for her amazing work with the children. Congratulations also to Connie and Jackson who explained the Year 2 /3’s work on the endangered parrot that is now on display and well done to all the children who worked on the display, as part of their Unit on Creation.

Next Monday 20th November, we welcome our 2018 Preps for the first time. The session will run from 9.15am-11.15am. Parents will stay at school and have a coffee and snack. If available it would be great if some of our existing parents could attend to welcome our new families into our school community.

On the back page of the newsletter we have architect plans for our courtyard and new nature based playground. This whole project would be too expensive to do at once. With setting a Community Club fundraising goal for $12000 in 2018 we would hope to complete stages 1 & 1a. I am seeking feedback from parents.

Please complete relevant forms in regards to 2018 enrolment that were recently sent home and return to the office by this Wednesday. Thanks to families who have already handed these in.

Our next School Advisory Council (SAC) meeting will be held on Tuesday 28th November from 6.15pm in the Hall Meeting Room. This meeting will be attended by our new and past members of the SAC.

We look forward to having an assembly again this week with the RACV team leading the assembly.

Mark Gibson

School Calendar

The following dates are scheduled for the near future. Make sure you are aware of the ones that are applicable to you.

NOVEMBER Sun 19 First Eucharist Mass 10am Mon 20 Prep Transition 9.15-11.15am Thurs-Sat

23-25

RACV Energy Breakthrough Challenge

Tues 28 Prep Transition 9am-11.30am Tues 28 School Advisory Council Mtg

6.15pm

DECEMBER Mon 4 Prep Transition 9am-1.30pm Tues 5 Gr 5 SJC visit Wed 6 School Christmas Concert –

7pm Fri 8 Gr 6 Retreat Sun 10 End of Year Mass &

Graduation Lunch Mon 11 Swimming Program Tues 12 Swimming Program Tues 12 Prep Transition 9am-2.20pm Tues 12 Gr 6 SJC Orientation Day Tues 12 Gr 6 RCSC Orientation Day Tues 12 SJC Yr 7 2018 Information

Evening (7.30pm-9pm) Wed 13 Swimming Program Wed 13 Gr 6 RCSC Orientation Day Thurs 14 Swimming Program Fri 15 Swimming Program Fri 15 Last day of School for

Students 3.20pm finish

2017 School Closure Days The following dates are confirmed as school

closure days. No school will occur on these days.

18th & 19th December – Staff Retreat 20th December – Synthetic Phonics PD

21st & 22nd December – 2018 Preparation

The following students/staff celebrate birthdays over the next week.

No birthdays this week

Page 2 School Vision: As partners collaboratively educating our students to ensure they learn at high levels,

we are inspired by Christ and our Catholic Faith & Tradition as we pursue fullness of life for all.

RE & PARISH NEWS Mission Month: As we still have Crunchas left in the freezer we will continue selling them each Wednesday for $1 until they have all been eaten.

First Eucharist: This Sunday is a very special one for our children celebrating their First Eucharist. We pray for: Megan and Abby Collihole, Liam Dowling, Sumah Foster, Isabella Manno, Ellesciah Romeo, Rustyn McCarthy along with Tom, Reba, Tenzin and Jessica from our parish. We would love to see our school families in attendance at Mass at 10:00a.m. to support the children as they complete their Sacraments of Initiation.

End of Year Mass: Sunday the 10th of December at 10:00am.

GENERAL NEWS & UPDATES Breakfast Club Roster: Tuesday - Sara Napoli, Wednesday - Jodie Pascoe, Thursday - Christina Everett, Friday - Fiona Diamantis.

RACV Energy Breakthrough Fundraiser: Thank you to the parents of our Energy Breakthrough team who cooked and sold sausages at the Community Day at the Red Cliffs Golf Club on Saturday to raise money to get our team to Maryborough.

Walk to School Results: What an amazing month it’s been! We’ve seen so many Victorian schools, families and kids get involved by walking, riding and scooting to and from school, each making a huge difference to their health and the environment. Our Grade 5/6 class will each win a gift voucher to Inflatable World. We had a total of 77 out of our 87 students participate with a total of 1284 walks which is outstanding. Results are outlined below (average for the days across October):

Grade 5/6: Average of 23 walks per child Grade 4/5: Average of 20 walks per child Grade 2/3: Average of 10 walks per child Grade Prep/1: Average of 5 walks per child. Swimming Program: This year we will be conducting our Swimming Program at the First Stroke Swim School in Mildura. We will source 3-4 instructors for each class. Our sessions will be for 30 minutes for each class. The program will be conducted on 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th December, our last week at school. Our Grade 5/6 class will have longer sessions on 11th, 14th and 15th December due to Grade 6s having their Orientation days. Children will be transported on buses. Nude Food Lunch Celebration as part of Enviroweek: Congratulations to the Grade Prep/1 students for having the greatest number of Nude Food lunches this Thursday with 71%!

National Recycling Week: Our school is participating in this program by running a lead-acid recycling drive. If you have a large collection and are able to directly drop your batteries recyclable metals directly to MAW (Mildura Auto Works) @ 741 Koorlong Ave, Irymple VIC 3498, just let them know you are from St Joseph’s Red Cliffs and they will add it to our list. We will also be having our weekly rubbish free lunch on Thursday and conducting a lunch shed bin audit on this day to see how we are going!

Transition to Prep Dates: Dates have been set for practice dates for our new 2018 Prep Enrolments. Enrolment letters will be sent out soon outlining more details.

1. Monday 20th November - 9.15am-11.15am

2. Tuesday 28th November - 9am - 11.30pm (Parent Meeting)

3. Monday 4th December - 9am - 1.30pm

4. Tuesday 12th December - 9am - 2.20pm

Grade 6 Graduation: Our Grade 5/6 Graduation Dinner for parents and family will be held at the Irymple Hotel Function room on Sunday 10th December from 12pm. More details will follow shortly.

Notes Distributed

The following notices have been distributed over the last week. If you missed them, copies are available from the school office.

Prep/1 No notes sent home Grade 2/3 No notes sent home

Grade 4/5 No notes sent home Grade 5/6 No notes sent home Whole School 13/11/2017 Our Diocesan Community

Congratulations to Gabby for being awarded her black belt in Rhee

Taekwondo.

Page 3 School Vision: As partners collaboratively educating our students to ensure they learn at high levels,

we are inspired by Christ and our Catholic Faith & Tradition as we pursue fullness of life for all.

JUNIOR UNIT NEWS & UPDATES Last week may have been a short week but the children have had lots of fun learning about minibeasts and life-cycles. Unfortunately we were all very disappointed to hear that our silkworms did not like the cold weather and passed away, but on the up side, we have more on the way. The twos and threes have learnt some interesting facts about worms. Did you know that a worm has 5 hearts! While the Preps and ones have been busy creating wriggly worm paintings with spaghetti, they also made great scientists looking for minibeasts in the garden.

Congratulations to Mia for reaching 200 nights of reading. Well done! Congratulations to Connie and Jackson on the confident manner in which they addressed the crowd at the Special Forever opening ceremony explaining about the Elusive Night Parrot, which was the focus of the Year 2 and 3 art exhibition. Congratulations to all the children who came along to join the opening at the Arts Centre. That helped to make it extra special! The exhibition will be open for a while, so please feel welcome to explore the wonderful work created by children from many schools around Sunraysia. (Free entry)

SENIOR UNIT NEWS & UPDATES Last Wednesday and Friday we had two teams attend the T20 cricket blast in Mildura. They competed against several other schools in the district in warm weather conditions.

A big congratulations to all of the students who competed for their efforts both on and off of the field. Thank you to all of the people who went along and supported the teams as well as a big thank you to Mrs Hawkes, Mrs Tiller, Mr Hawkes and Kyah for supervising or umpiring at each of the games.

Term 4 Week 5:

No. of students who reached individual target

Grade Prep/1W 21/21 Grade 2/3F 20/23 Grade 4/5M 18/20 Grade 5/6H 20/23

The following students won awards last week: Grade Prep/1W - Danita - for always trying her best at everything that she does. Grade 2/3F - Jackson and Connie - for confident speaking at the Mildura Arts Centre. Grade 4/5M - Grace K - for always being on task during journal writing time. Grade 5/6H - McAyla - for taking pride in her presentation and working diligently in all areas. Music - Junior Choir - for their lovely performance at the Special Forever exhibition opening. PE - Dustin - for always trying his best to improve his skills during PE lessons.

Be responsible Junior Unit Nicole - for always doing the 5 L’s. Senior Unit Bianca - for being a responsible learner and completing tasks with independence.

Page 4 School Vision: As partners collaboratively educating our students to ensure they learn at high levels,

we are inspired by Christ and our Catholic Faith & Tradition as we pursue fullness of life for all.

Nature Based Playground & Courtyard