Welcome back to Term 3.  I hope that all of our St Joseph’s families had a nice break and time to recharge the batteries.  I know that lots of families unfortunately experienced a lot of sickness during the holidays.  It is still the expectation that if your child is experiencing symptoms such as runny nose, fever or coughing they should not be at school.  It can be frustrating that symptoms linger, however it is important that children and staff at school remain well.

We welcome three new students and their families to St Joseph’s this term - Talia Taufu’i in Yr 3, Harriett McGowan and  August Smith in Yr 1, which takes our enrolments up to 54. 

We congratulate Taylor Maher, Henry Roche, Alice MacDougall, Edward MacDougall, Eva Corbett, Barney Roche and Billy Bamblett who travelled to Batlow last Friday to ‘Speak off’ against St Mary’s Batlow. (Lily Pearce was unwell and unable to attend).  All students were confident and did a great job and the judges were very impressed with all of the students and the content of their speeches.  Taylor was runners up in Yr 6, Alice was runners up in Yr 5, Edward was the winner in Yr 4 and Barney was the winner in Yr 3.  Congratulations to all of the students.  

Term three is busy with many events and excursions coming up.  Please ensure that you are providing consent to excursions in a timely manner, as you will appreciate there is lots of administration involved with any event/excursion and we need to meet our deadlines and compliance requirements.

Years 3 – 6 will head off to Borambola in Week 3 which is indeed a fabulous opportunity.  There is no cost to our families as this excursion has been made possible through the Commonwealth Governments Well being boost grant.

At the end of Term 2 staff wrote a behaviour script for the entry and exit routines to assembly and classrooms. The children are now lining up and leaving the assembly area in silence.  This has lead to a more settled and calm approach to enter all classrooms and has already seen an increase in settled work habits and the children’s readiness to learn. The children have settled into the new routines very quickly which is fantastic.

Kirsty Beavan

Principal