Tuesday 18 November 2014 Volume 37 Week 7 Term 4 Coming Events 11 Perry Street Alstonville NSW 2477 ( PO Box 265 ) Phone: 02 6628 1009 Fax: 02 6628 1508 www.alstplism.catholic.edu.au Email: sjpalst@lism.catholic.edu.au NOVEMBER Messages from the Principal Tuesday 18 November— PSF Meeting 7.00 pm in the Staffroom Thursday 20 November—Disco in McCarthy Hall @ 5.30 pm Wednesday 26 November—Prize bags for Tombola to be sent in to school office DECEMBER Monday 1 December—End of year Christmas Celebrations @ 5.30 pm Wednesday 3 December—Musicorp Concert Monday 15 December—School (2015) Swimming Carnival Wednesday 17 December—Year 6 last day & Farewell Dinner Friday 19 December —Last day of Term 4. School finishes at noon. Dear Parents & Carers, On behalf of Fr Max, our Parish Priest and the Catholic Schools Office I have great pleasure in announcing the appointment of Mrs Renay Condon as the new Principal of St Joseph’s Coraki beginning in 2015. This is wonderful news for Renay and I am sure you will all join me in congratulating her on this appointment. Calls for expressions of interest for an acting Assistant Principal for here went out last week to all Diocesan schools. This will be for the 2015 school year with a permanent appointment to be made during next year in preparation for 2016. I will keep you informed of progress in this matter. PARENT SATISFACTION SURVEY A very BIG thank you to the families who have taken the time to complete and return the Parent Satisfaction Survey sent out three weeks ago. We will be collating these on Friday so please return yours this week if you want to be included. STAGE 3 EXCURSION Stage 3 were at Lake Ainsworth last Thursday for a great day of learning about water safety, First Aid and kayaking. again but please be assured that there will be NO return to the playground until we are all satisfied about the safety concerns. Safety is paramount! We have enclosed a copy of the letter from Ballina Council for your consideration. Alternatively you can view the application online at http://da.ballina.nsw.gov.au/Pages/ XC.Track/SearchApplication.aspx? id=010.2014.00000583.001 CHRISTMAS DISCO The DISCO is on this THURSDAY night. Unfortunately we are very short on parent helpers to supervise and work in Canteen, set up or pack up. The Disco cannot run without parents putting up their hand to assist. It is a parent organised activity. Please advise if you can help prior to the night so a roster can be organised. If you are able to support in any way we need your help! SCHOOL REPORTS School Reports for Semester 2 will be sent home in Week 10. As this is very close to the end of the year it is advisable, should you wish to have an interview, to organise this prior to Week 10. END OF YEAR CELEBRATRION Accompanies this Newsletter Copy of letter from Fr Max to Therese Seymour re 2015 Fees with calculation for weekly, fortnightly & monthly payments on reverse. In Brief… Playground Clean-up: S3  Book Club orders are due Friday 21 November Our End of Year Celebration is being held on Monday 1st December from 5.30pm The night will start with open classrooms for families to visit while there will be a preordered BBQ running, tombola stall and sales of candles and glowsticks for the Hall sing along. There is a timetabled performance in the Hall with students not in the Hall being supervised by teachers in classes. The night culminates in a sing along in the Hall with all students involved. It is an expectation that all students attend the night. TREE UPDATE We have all been receiving replies to the letter writing recently regarding the tree situation. It now is up to a Development Application currently at Council to get permission to begin work to trim the trees and make them safe. We hope this means we will soon be able to use our playground LOOKING TOWARDS 2015 It is nearing the end of the year and we are seeking to hear from any families who may not be returning to our school in 2015. We need to know prior to the end of the year please. (Continued on page 2) Page 2 On Monday 8th December from 10am until 11.50am all students will ‘move up’ to their class for 2015 for an orientation time. During this time Year 6 will practise for their roles at the end of year Mass. Junior Joeys will conclude on Wednesday 10th December. END OF YEAR WHOLE SCHOOL MASS All families are invited to join us on Wednesday 17th December at 9.30am for our End of Year Mass. Following Mass there will be a Year 6 Morning Tea. We are looking for some Year 5 parents to assist at that morning tea or send in a plate please. After the morning tea Year 6 will leave for Ballina Waterslides for a fun afternoon. Year 6 will then have a family celebration that night at the Alstonville Bowling Club. All other students will finish school at 12 noon on Friday 19th December . Students will need to be picked up from school on this day. Buses will not be operating at noon, so parents will need to arrange transport for their children to go home. who supported the book fair. Congratulations to Anthony Bell and Aliyah Tamlin who both won book packs in our lucky draw. A special thanks to Meghan and Dominic Kingsford for their assistance too! STAGE 3 DELVE INTO DATA. Over the last few weeks, Stage 3 have been working with data. They survey the entire school at fruit break and have spent the last week using this data to create tables and graphs to record their information. They have drawn, line graphs, column graphs and pictographs and have used excel to tabulate their information and create pie charts. The Pie Chart below shows the fruit eaten by the school on Wednesday. Thanks for this interesting information Stage 3. Therese Seymour MUSICORP CONCERT Musicorp Concert will be held on Wednesday 3rd December in afternoon- more information coming from Mr Earl next week. ACTS OF KINDNESS AWARDS At Assembly this Friday the last Acts of Kindness Awards for 2014 will be awarded. The Quota ladies have sponsored this award in 2014 and we thank them for their support in this. The recipients have been great ambassadors for our school. AUSTRALIAN PROBLEM SOLVING MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIADS. In term 3, 27 students from stage 3 competed in the Australian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiads. The student sat five separate tests where they were required to solve complex mathematical problems in a given time frame. The aim of these Olympiads is to foster flexible thinking and develop strategies for problem solving and working mathematically. Sean Nicolas was the highest score in the team and scored in the top 10%. Molly O'Toole, Lily Delman, Ruby Parker and Thomas Johnson scored in the top 25%. Students who received a certificate of achievement were: Taneisha Boonham, Megan Harris, Mia Hayes, Olivia Mosse, Jack Condon, Zac Hipkins, Maddox Parsons, Imogen Boyce, Andrea Chapman, Imogen Dwyer, Elise Hatchman, Lara Leslie, Ciara O'Sullivan, Sophie Pereira, Breanna Rhodes, Emily Wright, Sam Donatsch, Luke Oates, Lee Pagotto, Andrew Payne and Declan Robinson. SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR The Scholastic Book Fair was a resounding success, we sold over $3000 worth of books and gifts. From this the library received books for the general collection totalling $900. Thank you to everyone Making Jesus Real Ask the Big Question Where Was Jesus in My Life Today? We have all had thousands of days in our lives and if we are not careful they can all melt into one another—we don’t learn much about life unless we take time to reflect. You need to be prepared to give a minute at the end of your day to ask yourself the question … Where was Jesus in my life today? Even when we have bad days there is always some kind of highlight. You can get twice the benefits of a day if you can get into the habit of Reflecting on each day. Reflection is like sucking out the goodness of each day it only takes 30-40 seconds. Another good question to ask is: Did I see God, or the Good in myself and others today? Page 3 SWIMMING NOMINATIONS WILL CLOSE THIS FRIDAY 21ST NOVEMBER. Please log on to www.schoolinterviews.com.au and nominate at least four entries for your child to swim at the school swimming carnival. Remember that it is one event per stroke excluding 100m Free and 200m Individual Medley. If your child wishes to be considered for the school representative swimming team please ensure that they are nominated in 50m events. LAKE AINSWORTH EXCURSION—STAGE 3 On Thursday, the 13th of November, Stage 3 went on an excursion to Lake Ainsworth. Firstly, when we got there we were divided into two groups, S31 and S32. S31 went to the pool to learn CPR, what to use to save someone in dangerous water without putting yourself in danger and how to swim out with a boogie board or a surf board and help save someone. When we finished we switched activities with S32. The activity that S31 did then was kayaking. We would of done sailing but there was not enough wind. When we were kayaking we had to be really careful because in the lake there was blue-green algae in the water so we had to make sure we didn’t drink it because we would have got sick. During kayaking we got to try to stand up in the kayak and paddle. It was hard to keep balance. The best part of the excursion was getting to stand up and falling when we lost our balance! Finally when we finished kayaking we had to get changed, get our stuff together and get back on the bus. Even when the bus got home late we were all buzzing about our day. We all had a great time at Lake Ainsworth and I hope you do too when you go there. Elsa Brown—Stage 3 Engaging Adolescents—2 Part Parenting Course Learn the skills for resolving teenage behaviour problems Part 1: Sat 6 December Part 2: Sat 13 December 8.30am—12noon @ Mullumbimby High School 9 Jubilee Avenue Mullumbimby Learn  Some common ground shared by parents & reasonable expectations to hold about teenagers  New understanding of adolescent brain development  A handy flow chart for decision-making  Building relationship with your teenager—and making the best of your non-crisis conversations with them  Skills for tough conversations for handling those problems you just can’t ignore Spaces are limited—Bookings Essential Cost (Part 1 & Part 2 inclusive) $59 per person or $99 for 2 people* (*Parents) Presented by Psychologists, Michael Hawton, MAPS & Peter Chown, MAPS in conjunction with The University of Southern Queensland. See website for more information and to register: www.parentshop.com.au Last Tuesday night we held a parent meeting in regards to the implementation of the new Mathematics syllabus in 2015. Thank you to the parents who came to find out more about the new syllabus and for their questions regarding Mathematics in our school. We will answer your questions over the next few weeks in the school newsletter. What is the Australian curriculum? The Australian curriculum, assessment and reporting authority (ACARA), in collaboration with states and territories has developed agreed curriculum for English, Mathematics, Science and History. Each of these learning areas includes content statements that represent essential learnings for all Australian students. Here at St Joseph’s we believe… Agreed curriculum - the critical skills, knowledge and dispositions each student must acquire. Learning intentions - a statement which describes clearly what the teacher wants the students to know, understand and be able to do as a result of an activity. What will my child learn at school in Mathematics?  students develop their mathematical knowledge, skills and understandings through a range of learning experiences across:  number and algebra, eg. whole numbers and fractions and decimals  measurement and geometry, eg. length, area and time  statistics and probability, eg. data and chance  they develop their problem solving skills and mathematical reasoning and communication  students in stage 3 develop deeper understanding in statistics and probability Language and Terminology For instance  Times tables will now be called ‘multiplication facts’ A Glossary of terms is available in the support materials for the Mathematics curriculum. More information can be found at the Parents page on the Board of Studies website http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/parents Board of studies NSW syllabuses website http://syllabuses.bos.nsw.edu.au RAINBOW REGION KIDS WOLLONGBAR VACATION CARE IS NOW TAKING BOOKINGS AND ENROLMENTS FOR THE DECEMBER-JANUARY 2014-2015 SCHOOL HOLIDAYS VACATION CARE Come and join us in our fun filled program with caring and fun staff To find out more information go to www.lnci.org.au Or phone 66217397 Enrolment forms, programs and booking sheets are available from the Northern Rivers Community Gateway web site www.lnci.org.au , Northern Rivers Community Gateway 76 Carrington St LismoreEmailing rrkassist@lnci.org.au And Wollongbar After School Care at Lismore Public School between 3-6pm. Page 4 CANTEEN ROSTER Open Wednesday & Friday Leanne Harris Coordinator Ph 66281990 Date Duty Starts at 9.00am Wednesday 19 November Volunteer Please 21 November Cathy Simmons Healthy Snack Donation ASSEMBLY ROSTER (Held @ 2.20pm in McCarthy Hall) ALL WELCOME Reminder: Boom gate closes at 3 pm. Date/Week C Simmons & Z Cluff CANTEEN SPECIAL WEDNESDAY ONLY Fish with Oven Baked Fries $4 with lemon and tartare sauce — Four St Joseph's Staff members are participating in Movember – Mr Wilde, Mr Coyle, Mr Maslen and Mr Murgha. Please donate generously so these four teachers can contribute to changing the face of men's health!!! Visit http://au.movember.com/ and type in Joey's Moey's in the search box and this should take you to the school team!!! Thanking you in anticipation. “Joey's Moey's” Host Week 7: 21 November Stage 1 Week 8: 28 November Awards & Acts of Kindness Week 9: 5 December Kinder Week 10: 12 December Final Assembly The following children have celebrated their birthday since our last Newsletter Cohen Duncan & Liana Alley HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALTAR SERVERS ROSTER Saturday 22 November: Ethan Plunkett, Joshua McWilliam, Charlotte Voss, Olivia Voss & Georgia Shirley Sunday 23 November: Ellesha Lloyde, James McElligott, Alyssa Iles, Joshua Simmons, Sebastiano Astone 23 November: Children’s Sunday Liturgy Luke & Lucy Hogan Margaret Scroope Stage 1 Christmas Bowling Afternoon! For all stage one kids and parents- Please join us on Tuesday 9th December from 4- 6pm at Lismore Ten Pin Bowl, Krauss Avenue, South Lismore for a Christmas bowling extravaganza! Cost: discount deal of $5 per person, per game (including shoe hire). Cafe available. RSVP by 01/12/14 to Kirsty McKinley at ‘kshaw@rpalaw.com.au’ or Beth Newton 0431 777 458.” Come and try GOLF Golf week: 17—23 November Come and try golf at Teven Valley Golf Course with this offer for beginner golfers: FREE: Golf Clinic with our pro, Phil Dolby, for kids aged 10-14 years. Saturday 22 November from 3.00pm—4.00pm Adults from 4.30pm—5.30pm. Free sausage sizzle afterwards. Bookings essential PH6687 8386 Christmas for kids: Come along to this fabulously Christmas themed workshop. Fun activities will include making a citronella floating candle in a jar, a floral cupcake arrangement and a watercolour card. All classes are conducted by Del Strong a national multiaward winning teacher, author and artist. Guest florist from Sydney Rae West will impart floristry skills. $25 per class including all materials) booking essential. Saturday December 6th (10am-12 pm) or (2pm – 4pm) studio: ‘delstrongart’ at 88a Main St Alstonville, phone: 02.6628 1749, mobile: 0401447717, web: art@delstrong.com January art classes for children Bees, butterflies and bugs 12th/13th/14th Jan (10am-12 noon) All about horses encore 19th/ 20th/21st Jan (10am-12 noon). Every day is different. All classes are conducted by Del Strong a national multi-award winning teacher, author and artist. $20 per class. Bookings are essential studio: ‘delstrongart’ at 88a Main Street Alstonville, phone: 02.6628 1749, mobile: 0401447717, web: art@delstrong.com