Dear Parents and Carers,
How quickly have we reached the half way mark of the term, we trust everyone is travelling ok and looking after each other during these challenging times.
It is lovely to see the learning that is taking place in the classes and the care and support that everyone is displaying.
Student Leadership
Yesterday we held a ‘Jacket Presentation’ for our Year 6 leaders in the middle yard. It was lovely to be able to present our 36 students with their senior jackets, just in time for the beginning of the cooler months. This item of clothing is always a prized possession for our leaders and many do enjoy wearing them no matter the temperature. I encourage you to checkout our Facebook and Instagram pages for some photos. The Jacket and Polo Tops are a great symbol and acknowledgement of their final year at St Joseph’s school. We look forward to our Year 6 students developing and building their leadership skills over their final year and assisting in the overall running and life of the school. We hope to share more information soon about our student leadership program and how we foster and develop student leadership throughout the school.
Exciting Announcement
On behalf of the School Board, I am pleased to announce that we were successful in obtaining a State Capital Grant to commence Stage 2 of our Master Plan. We have been provided with a financial assistance grant for $1.6M to assist in the construction of three new general learning areas incorporating high-level outdoor maker space and refurbishment of two existing general learning areas. This project will commence later in 2022, in accordance with the grant program guidelines. The learning spaces will be built parallel to the existing classrooms that run across the site in the bottom yard. This project will be the start of our “learning street design’ incorporating inside and outside contemporary learning spaces, providing a more flexible classroom design for students and staff.
Classrooms have come a long way in their design over the years, as we move away from the original rigid structured place of teacher- centred learning to a more embracing technological and flexible approach towards learning. Students are encouraged now to have greater agency in their learning and the classrooms need to adapt to these changes in order to enhance student engagement and wellbeing.
This exciting financial opportunity will allow our school to begin the second stage of our master plan and provide our school with additional learning areas for the benefit for the whole school community.
It is wonderful to see the continuous improvements that we are making to our beautiful school and I would like to thank the School Board for their governance and support. We look forward to the completion of Stage 1 as we begin the initial process with our architects on the concept designs for Stage 2.
I will continue to keep you informed of future developments in this space and we hope to display the new learning street design for the school community on our website.
Diary Dates
- A reminder about our Pupil Free Day tomorrow as staff will be attending the Eastern Region Professional Development on student wellbeing. We also hope you have an enjoyable long weekend and school will resume on Tuesday 15 March 2022.
- We wish our swimming team the very best as they prepare for the Catholic Schools Swimming Carnival on Thursday 24 March 2022 at the Marion Indoor Pool. We thank all students who participated in our trials this week.
- Our school Resource Centre will be a Polling Booth for the State Election on Saturday 19 March 2022.
- Parent/Teacher interviews over week 9 and 10 of this term. More information soon about how to book for an interview with your child’s teacher(s)
- End of Term 1 - Thursday 14 April 2022 at 3pm
- Start of Term 2 – Monday 2 May 2022 at 8.45am
Wishing you a lovely long weekend,
Kind regards
Adrian
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