Dear Families and Friends, 

Last week we held our AGM for 2024. It was a great opportunity for Board members and I to express our gratitude.

A significant feature of our community is our Parents & Friends Committee. The impact this group has, through events that provide resources and build community, cannot be understated. I am particularly grateful for the work of the committee, led by Michelle Poole and Rebecca Clark. I acknowledge the work of the many the parents who support so many events as well as the ongoing behind the scenes work such as running the second-hand uniform shop and coordinating Scholastic Books.  

In 2024 our School Board members continued to represent the community and provide a voice in the strategic direction of the school. I offer my heartfelt thanks to all the Board Members particularly Chairperson Victor Cantone, Treasurer Mark Stansborough and Secretary/Finance Shelly Youngs.  

Special thanks to Katie Routley and Belinda Fox for their contributions over many years. I am encouraged by the number who want to give their time to support our school in its mission. I am grateful for continuing members as we welcome new members Nick Ward, Sophia Sahlos and Steph Burke.  I look forward to their input in the coming years.

At the AGM Vanessa Saccardo (Assistant Principal) and Kate Mueller (Lead Teacher Gifted Education), provided a wonderful presentation on our STRETCH Program. Those at the AGM have suggest we share it with the community.  Keep an eye out for a presentation. 

I am privileged to lead this community and value the trust placed in staff as we continue to flourish as a school of excellence, making lifelong connections and are always grateful. 

Congratulations Everyone

Thank you for supporting the P&F Colour Fun Fundraiser to contribute to the upgrade of The Green. 

New Chaplain 

We are pleased to welcome Charlotte Serafini as our new Chaplain at St Joseph's Kingswood. Charlotte is already a familiar face in our community, having completed her Social Work practicum with us last year. Her genuine passion for our school and students makes her a perfect fit for this important role. Working one day per week, Charlotte will provide pastoral care, spiritual guidance, and support for the social, emotional, and spiritual well-being of our entire school community. Her responsibilities will include offering counselling, attending to student wellbeing at all levels, providing support during difficult times, promoting social justice initiatives, and facilitating prayer. Please join us in welcoming Charlotte to our St Joseph's family.

Jodie Higgins

Principal

In all things, Charity

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

It is hard to believe that we are approaching the end of Term 1 already!  We have so much happening behind the scenes and it is exciting to see it all come together – with plenty more to come!

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.

ST JOSEPH’S KINGSWOOD STRETCH PROGRAM

As mentioned at the parent information evening, we have been spending quite a bit of time in the background developing and expanding our STRETCH program.  The aim of this is to provide multiple opportunities for our students to be extended and challenged across a range of disciplines. Included in this has been ongoing professional learning for staff with focus on assessment and curriculum planning and ensuring an increase in complexity of tasks and assessments within the classroom. To assist with this, we have involved some key personnel on staff, as well as from the Catholic Education Office:

Key Knowledgeable Others:

Kirsten Maycock: System Coach: Gifted Education (Formerly Innovation and Enrichment Coordinator at St. Dominic’s College)

Brooke Hopkins: System Coach: Assessment and Curriculum Planning, working alongside Vanessa and other staff members on a fortnightly basis.

Kate Mueller: Lead Teacher Gifted Education

As a part of this initiative we have also developed some small group opportunities for students to excel. As mentioned in my previous newsletter we have joined the Science Oliphant Awards for the first time.  Further information regarding this can be found on SZapp but be quick as registrations close at the end of Week 11.  In addition to this we are excited to announce the following:

STEM MAD IS BACK!

Our school will be participating in STEM MAD (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Make A Difference) again this year, a project which is endorsed by Catholic Education.  The focus of the program is to participate in the STEM MAD Showcase in August for identified students from grades 3-6. 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 to others or the environment.  We look forward to sharing the journey of our three registered teams, stay tuned!

Ethics Olympiad

This year we are excited to announce that our Year 5/6 students will have the opportunity to participate in the Ethics Olympiad. The Ethics Olympiad is a competitive yet collaborative event in which students analyse and discuss real-life, and timely, ethical issues. It differs from a debate in that students are not assigned opposing views rather, they defend whatever position they believe is right and win by showing that they have thought more carefully, deeply, and perceptively about the cases in question. The event encourages and promotes ethical awareness, critical thinking skills, civil discourse, international engagement, and an appreciation for diverse points of view.  Teams will be selected based upon current student data and mock sessions where students will have the opportunity to showcase their skills.  We look forward to competing against other schools in Term 3 of this year, we will keep you updated with their progress. 

SALA Exhibition

I am thrilled to be a part of the SALA Exhibition for the first time – what a wonderful and unique opportunity for the students at St Joseph’s Kingswood. 

We are lucky to have Katie Routley, an experienced art teacher leading this within our school.  Each student will produce a piece of artwork to contribute to the exhibition and each class will have specialised art lessons with Katie. Participating in SALA fosters creativity, school pride and community engagement. It offers participants the opportunity to connect with the vibrant visual arts scene and allow students to exhibit alongside over 10,000 South Australian artists. We cannot wait to see the exhibition come to life in our hall in August this year.  Please keep an eye out for key info and dates. 

Inclusive Education:

As always, it was a pleasure meeting and continuing to meet with families to discuss individual learning plans.  Please keep an eye out in your emails for these as they will be sent prior to Learning Talks so any concerns or comments can be discussed then.  If you require a further meeting with myself, please let me know, my door is always open.

Until next time…

Vanessa Saccardo

Assistant Principal 

Junior Choir relished the opportunity to sing at St Joseph’s Feast Day Mass/Harmony Day. It was great to see their confidence in performance growing, as they work hard in our rehearsals.

Festival Choir had their second visit from Denise Rothall, the conductor of the Catholic Schools Music Festival this week. She led our choir rehearsal and was again really pleased with the students singing and engagement. Thanks to Orlando and Violet our Music captains for walking her up to our rehearsal and being great role models in choir.

Just a reminder that our Instrumental tutors for piano, guitar and percussion are currently at full capacity and have a wait list.

Rebecca Pfitzner

Music teacher

Please note the below information, and share with all family members/caregivers who drop-off/collect children from St Joseph's School, Kingswood:

School gates open and a teacher is on duty on the Green at 8.30am. Children must not be dropped-off at the gates/Front Office prior to then. The cost of our OSHC program is very reasonable, with before school care costing $10 (minus your childcare subsidy, for many families it's $3-$5). If you need to drop-off earlier than 8.30am, children must go to OSHC.

Children should be guided to play on the Green, where there is a teacher on duty. Younger children can be supervised by their parent/caregiver in the Reception courtyard area, however the castle playground is out of bounds. 

Prior to 8.50am and after 3pm, the main passages of entry to and exit from the school are through the gates on Seafield Avenue and Cambridge Tce (entering onto the courts). The school office can be particularly busy prior to and just after the school day and staff may need to tend to urgent matters, please consider entering through the gates to decrease traffic in the Front Office. If you have new medication to be signed in/need to submit your volunteer registration etc., please continue to do this through the Office. 

We have enjoyed almost a full term of school for 2025, and children have settled into the daily routine. It's great to see so many children arriving between 8.30-8.50am and connecting with their classmates and other school friends. Any arrivals after 8.50am, must be signed-in via the ipad in the Front Office (please do not drop your child off for them to come through without an adult). Children are given a yellow Late Card, to hand to their teacher and marked on the roll.

We greatly appreciate the dedicated volunteers we have at St Joseph's School, Kingswood. Volunteers enrich our school-life and make many events possible! If you are onsite after 8.50am to volunteer (e.g. listening to reading/attending an excursion), you must sign-in and out via the ipad in the Front Office, and wear the sticky label as evidence when in the school grounds. If you are not volunteering, we ask you to depart when the 8.50am school bell sounds at the latest. If you have younger children who enjoy being at school, please come and join us on Friday mornings at Playgroup!

Families are reminded, in line with our Extra Curricular Sports Policy, either parent supervision or alternative arrangements must be made for siblings of students attending before school/after school training. 

Thank you for your understanding and adherence to the above safety measures to help ensure our students are safe.

It’s hard to believe we are nearly at the end of Term 1!  This term has certainly flown by. We hope your children had a wonderful time at the Disco on Friday last week!

In other news, we have confirmed dates for our Mothers Lunch – Saturday 17^th May.  Please book now on SZapp so you don’t miss out!

Tickets will be available soon for our Winter Wonderland Cocktail Party.  Saturday 30^th August. Please save the date, it is looking to be a fantastic night!

Information about Second Hand Uniform sales will be shared soon.  Please keep an eye out for that in the lead up to Term 2 and Winter Uniforms.

Thanks

Michelle and Bec