As a Principal, the words of children can be so humbling. At times I find myself in dialogues with, children or parents. A simple comment can sometimes stop me in my tracks and change my direction.

In a tough conversation with a student regarding some B choices, I queried the choices asking, ‘What do you want?’ She replied: ‘Friends’. 

This week, our community moves through Holy Week, leading to Easter – New Life. As a leader, Holy Thursday is one of my favourite stories as Jesus’ act of kindness, act of love, in washing the disciples’ feet is not the usual act of a leader. Jesus chooses to offer this humbles service. What a role model.

When faced with responses such as, ‘I want friends’, it changes a scenario, and reminds me quickly to re-look at situations to find kind ways to bring about new beginnings.

I hope that this Easter can be a wonderful time for you, your families and friends, and our world. Perhaps it may remind us to find new ways, to be kind to others or to see opportunity when things are tough, or we are challenged. There is so much to be grateful for, the weather, friendships, family, education, and health. I am especially grateful to work with children, who can make me see the best in tough situations, who bring joy and simplicity.

Happy Easter

AGM

On Tuesday night, we held our Annual General Meeting. At our meeting we gave thanks and reflected on 2023, as you can read in via the AGM booklet. It also provided an opportunity to share some plans for 2024 and beyond in line with the St Joseph’s School Kingswood Strategic Plan. As I outlined, 2023 was the first year of or Strategic Plan, a year of planning seeds, 2024 looks to be year of growth. A few significant projects are the redevelopment of ‘The Green’, upgrade of student technology and devices, and the Visible Wellbeing program. We are also continuing to make improvements in Literacy, Numeracy and enrichment programs.

I am encouraged and grateful for continuing members as we welcome Jessica Pisani and Angelo Latte as new members of our School Board, I look forward to their input in the coming years.

Kind Regards,

Jodie

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

As we approach the very special time of Easter in our religious calendar, it is the perfect time to stop and reflect on what has been a wonderful first term.

NAPLAN

Our NAPLAN window has officially closed, and we congratulate our Year 3 and 5 students who completed the tests.  A special mention to our Year 3 students who engaged with this for the first time.  It was great to see them excited to give it a go, as well as persisting through any issues that arose.  A NAPLAN individual student report will be provided later in the year. We will contact you once we receive these with some further information on how to interpret this.

STEM MAD

This year some of our students have been selected to participate in the STEM MAD project (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) which is endorsed by Catholic Education.  The focus of the program is to participate in the STEM MAD Showcase in August. This showcase is designed to acknowledge and promote STEM learning initiatives that address real-world problems and demonstrate how students in Catholic schools take action that matters. Student teams are asked to design a product, service or innovation to Make A Difference (MAD) to others or the environment.  We look forward to sharing the journey of our two registered teams, stay tuned!

Inclusive Education:

I am continuing to meet with parents regarding personalised learning plans as well as addressing any other queries, concerns or successes.  By the end of the week all families would have had the opportunity to meet with their child’s teacher, view their plan if required and discuss this further.  These plans have been sent via email with a letter briefly outlining their purpose and our endeavour to continue to work in partnership with you.  A huge thank you to all of our teachers for their continuing hard work and dedication in this space, we are wholeheartedly committed to each and every student here at St. Joseph’s Kingswood. I look forward to having ongoing conversations and meetings with you as I continue to build my relationships with both the students and families here.

Leaving with a Literacy Tip: Can your child your child hear, identify and say the separate parts of words?

Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear, identify and say the separate parts of words.  This has been shown in numerous studies and over many years of research to be one of the best early indicators of reading success.  As a staff, we are looking to engage in some further professional learning around this and would like you to come along on our journey. 

I have adapted the following from the Five from Five (2024) website to give you some further (and very brief) information. Phonemic awareness is a sub skill of phonological awareness.  It is the ability to identify, say and manipulate the smallest sounds in words (phonemes).  A simple example, being able to identify that the word 'cat' has three sounds (/k/ /a/ /t/) and being able to change the /k/ sound to /b/ to create the word 'bat'.  Children with good phonemic awareness tend to learn to read more easily.

It is important for beginning readers to develop an understanding that spoken words are made up of individual and distinguishable sounds.  Students need to be able to combine individual phonemes to construct a spoken word and when given a spoken word be able to break it down into phonemes.  As they progress, the phonemic awareness skills become more complex through deleting and manipulating sounds in words.

By encouraging your child to engage in some simple phonological and phonemic awareness tasks, you can set them up for every success as confident readers. Below are some websites with some great tips and games that can help at any age.

Five from Five: https://fivefromfive.com.au

Video: https://youtu.be/iIoZoh7EpGo?si=1own2ZjVhviMyU5J

Ideas:

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/blending-and-segmenting-games

https://www.hearbuilder.com/demo/phonological-awareness-demos/

As always, my door is always open if you would like some more information or to chat further.

Until next time…

Vanessa Saccardo

Assistant Principal

In our commitment to improving staff and student wellbeing across the school, our staff recently began the journey of Visible Wellbeing training.  The Visible Wellbeing approach aims to provide both students and staff with a psychological toolkit that allows them to lead flourishing lives where they are able to feel and function at their best.  We discussed the current state of mental health and stress for young people, and learned about using the illbeing-wellbeing spectrum to self-inquire about our current state of mental health, and explored ways that other schools support their communities to boost their wellbeing.

Our staff learnt about the practice of making wellbeing visible to ourselves and those around us – through the “See Hear Feel” practice.  “See Hear Feel” is a process of thinking and language use that clues us into the physical, visual and auditory signals that allow us insight into how we or other people may be feeling in the present moment.  These insights allow us to make choices and act in ways that are more effective in increasing and maintaining higher levels of wellbeing.  Staff have begun to implement the See Hear Feel practice by using the language in classrooms, in classroom agreements, linking this language to the learning pit and our learning dispositions.  If you’re interested in exploring this practice at home, you may like to try the See Hear Feel practice when watching television with your kids, and promoting discussion about how you know what characters in some of your favourite series are thinking and feeling!

- Felicity Davies, Visible Wellbeing Coordinator for St Joseph's School, Kingswood

Save the date!

Make sure you pop Thursday 7th November in your diaries for our biennial whole school musical performance. More details to follow.

Festival Choir

On Wednesday March 27, Denise Rothall, the conductor of the Catholic Schools Music Festival visited our Festival Choir. The students were excited to show her a song they have already learned and Denise taught them some  choreography. This is our second visit from Denise this term and the students are looking forward to seeing her again in Term 2 at our Hub group assessment. 

Mrs Rebecca Pfitzner

Music teacher

In week 6 the year 4 cohort went on a fun and exciting camp to AFL MAX and a fascinating tour to Adelaide oval. While we were on camp we did multiple activities, including rock climbing, fun and games, a variety of activities about staying healthy and some free play. As it was most of our first time at school camp we were all very excited and nervous at first but in the end it was amazingly enjoyable and a great experience. Most of the year 4s found that the bump, aerial and skills zone were most fun and were visited a lot during free play breaks. When we went on our fun filled tour to Adelaide oval we probably liked seeing the score board, change rooms and running up the race. The food that was served at AFL MAX included some scrumptious beef lasagne for dinner, some fruit and a chocolate donut for snack, cereal and toast and juice for breakfast. At Adelaide oval we were provided Subway lunch. Overall we had an amazing and memorable camp that will be remembered throughout our entire life. I’m sure everyone who attended had a great time and a big thank you to the teachers who organised all of this. Thank you!

- Sophia Wallace

This year the Year 6 students headed to Kangaroo Island for camp. Some of the fun activities we participated in were, sandboarding, visiting Flinders Chase National Park and Stokes Bay.

On the second day of camp, we went to a place called Little Sahara where we did sandboarding. We could choose to either use an actual sandboard or a toboggan which you sat on and could hold two people. I went on a toboggan. I sat at the front and when I slid down from one of the lower parts of the sand dune, I got sand sprayed in my face. Some people were very brave and slid from one of the higher parts of the dunes.

On the third day, which was our final full day on camp, we went to Flinders Chase National Park where we visited multiple places, they were Admiral’s Arch and Remarkable Rocks before stopping at the entrance for lunch. At Remarkable Rocks we could explore and most people chose to play hide and seek. Some of the giant rocks had very interesting shapes like a bird’s head and beak, a pig’s head and there was also a rock that had a small opening so you could go inside.

After all these fun adventures we travelled on the bus for around an hour while listening to a playlist that the bus driver had kindly created for us. Eventually we arrived at Stokes Bay. When we arrived, we were on a small beach but to get to Stokes Bay we had to walk through some rocks which were huge. At the end of the path, through the rocks, there was a beautiful beach with a big rockpool separate from the ocean because it was surrounded by rocks. We also went in groups of six to explore the rocks and the caves they formed.

We had an amazing time on camp from spending time with our families, visiting new and exciting places, learning about the landmarks on Kangaroo Island and of course enjoying this special time with our friends.

 - Amelia Veale, School Co-Captain

SAVE THE DATES!!

Student Disco - Friday 17th May 

If you would like to assist by volunteering to help supervise the children, please complete this form. 

We will be turning this into not just a fun event for the kids, but also solve the "What to do?" question many have between drop-off and pick-up, with a social gathering for parents, complete with a pop-up bar and snacks onsite at school. 

Bogan Bingo - Saturday 1st June

Book the babysitters, source the flannos and ugg boots and get ready for a super fun evening.

Bec and Michelle, on behalf of the P&F

Bookings are open and spaces are filling for our upcoming vacation care program

Make sure you don't miss out and book through FullyBooked ASAP.

Pupil free day Monday 29th April - no OSHC

Please note that there is a school-wide pupil free day on Monday 29th April and OSHC will not be available as staff will in attendance of the PD. Please ensure you make alternative arrangements for your child's care. 

The Children's University program is back at St Joseph's School, Kingswood for 2024. We are so pleased to be able to bring this opportunity to our students in years 1-6. The well-established Children's University program is a way for students to extend their learning beyond the classroom and develop some additional knowledge and skills. Children can earn points by visiting designated learning destinations, completing workbooks/tasks, writing reviews on their extra curricular activities and more. 

All children wishing to participate must complete and sign the form here, and pay the registration fee on Qkr! by the end of the term (a copy of the form is also available in the Front Office if needed). If you haven't participated in the program previously, and don't have a passport and login, you can collect your temporary passport and login from the Front Office, when you drop off your registration form. 

Children who have previously participated in the program (must still complete and return a registration form, and pay the $38.50 fee (or $16.50 School Card)).