Term 2 Week 1

Principal's message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back to school following the autumn student break. I spent some time in Sydney with my adult children and grand daughter, and for the first time in a very long time, enjoyed some of what the Easter Show has to offer. I hope that you all had special time with your family and friends too!

For the Catholic Church community it has been a time of celebration with all that comes with the promise of the Risen Lord on Easter Sunday; and a time of sorrow with the passing of Pope Francis. The leadership of Pope Francis inspired many through his messages of inclusion, of ensuring the voice of all people is heard and the needs of the poorest within our community are met, his recognition of the importance of caring for our earthly environment and giving generously of ourselves for the common good. The connection of these messages of love shared by Pope Francis to the thoughts and feelings of many people was observed in the impact of his passing across different faith groups and people from all around the world. I now pray that the person chosen to be the next Pope continues the work of Pope Francis to unite people from across the globe.

The focus of our School Improvement work this term includes:

Catholic Identity 

• Development of the draft Vision and Mission Statements shared with the community for final review.  

Learning 

• Aligning assessment information practices and English teaching for effective intervention.
• Using the new PDHPE syllabus to plan learning sequences to use from the start of Term 3 this year. 

Wellbeing 

• Using a positive focus to support students in understanding how to be a good friend as part of the social emotional teaching of students each fortnight. The first fortnight is called ‘Relationships that Rock’. 
• Aligning our student management procedures with the Positive Behaviour for Learning Framework. 

This term is a reporting term, meaning that Student Reports and Parent Teacher Interviews will be planned for the final weeks of term. Between now and then, there are many events planned and I remind you to keep your eye on the calendar in Compass to know what is coming up. We have already acknowledged ANZAC Day through our leadership of schools in the community Anzac Day March and will celebrate Easter & acknowledge the ANZACs again this week. Other significant events this term include Mother's Day, Catholic Schools Week, Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. There are of course academic and sporting events and on Friday May 23rd, the Round 1 for Kinder 2026 enrolments will close. Round 2 will open immediately following Round 1 but in order to avoid missing out on a Round 1 offer, we encourage families to enrol prior to this date. Please let anyone you know who is planning to enrol their child for Kinder 2026 to follow this link.

As posted last term, the final day of Term 2, Friday 4th July is a Pupil Free Day. With the rollout of new syllabus documents over the next few years, and the preparation for staff required to implement the changes, we will be reviewing and planning using the Human Society and It's Environment Syllabus. At the end of last term, we focused on the new Personal Development Health and Physical Education Syllabus. It was great to see a greater focus on Online Safety, the concept of Consent (with an age appropriate focus in primary schools) and Wellbeing of students within the learning content. 

On Monday this week, staff worked through the final stages of our review of the St Joseph's Primary School Vision and Mission Statements, with a plan to have the drafts out to the community for review in the coming weeks. As foundational to the way we do things at St Joseph's Taree, this draft will have captured the voice of students, staff, families and the Catholic School Maitland Newcastle over the last 18 months. 

This term we welcome some changes to our staff. Miss Walton will commence working with the Kinder team each week, releasing Mrs Riddiford for her leadership role on Wednesday and Thursday. Mrs Sandilands will return following a period of parental leave and work each Wednesday to allow our Pedagogical Mentors time with teachers in classrooms. Mr Hunt will work as a Learning Support Teacher for the remainder of the year and Mrs Clark will take a full-time role in Yr 4 Yellow, having worked in the class 2 days each week during Term 1. Mr Bramble will move from Year 6 to work alongside Mrs Burke in Year 4 Blue every Thursday and Friday. We welcome Mrs Gail Young back to Year 6 after a period of leave. Ananth will join our staff team full-time, although we will need to share him with St Clare's and Holy Name Forster at times. Ananth is an excellent addition to our staff and a great support for our families from diverse backgrounds. We welcome the changes and are grateful for the incredible work that our staff commit themselves to each term.

Wishing you a great start to Term 2!

Brooke Stephens

Primary Coordinator

Welcome back! 

PB4L 

Relationships that Rock will be our Term 2 theme while we focus our attention on teaching friendship skills explicitly. Our first fortnight will focus on self regulation and self awareness. 

Self-awareness for kids involves understanding their own emotions, thoughts, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses, which helps them make better choices, handle emotions, and connect with others. Encouraging self-reflection, recognizing strengths, and practicing mindfulness are key strategies to foster this crucial skill. Self regulation is all about recognizing and understanding emotions and helps children manage their feelings more effectively. Even as adults we need to reflect on our emotions and responses to be more effective communicators. 

Staff will engage students in self awareness activities that provide opportunities for self-reflection about emotions eg How am I feeling? or times where we can discuss hobbies, strengths and interests. 

Or at other times we can learn to identify our triggers or challenges, which helps us better plan how to react next time and make more responsible decisions regarding our behavior and our emotions. With younger students, we will be teaching them the language to use to describe their emotions. In Kindergarten to Year 2 we are using the language of ‘Zones of Regulation’. Older children will have knowledge about the zones. We try out various strategies that can help us get back to the green zone to be ready to learn. 

If you are interested in learning more- How it Works | The Zones of Regulation 

Loretta Riddiford 

K-2 Primary Coordinator

K-2 Pedagogical Mentor Report

This next term is when some rigorous learning really kicks off! The first term of the year is all about building positive relationships and setting up classroom procedures that enhance the teaching and learning environment. The children have started to make new friendships in their class groups whilst getting to know their teacher. Term two is where the rubber hits the road! 

As you would be aware, we are building a culture of feedback in our classrooms that enhances the learning for all students.  Our K-2 teachers are continuing to focus on the skills that students need to create quality written texts. We will collect samples of students' written texts, analyse them to identify the specific needs to inform our teaching. Students will receive feedback from their peers and teachers on ways they can improve the quality of their text. ‘Learning Walls’ will display some examples of texts that students can use to compare their text to, which is self-assessment. We want to empower our students to look at their own work and compare it to the class success criteria or exemplar texts. The students can then identify what they need to include to improve their work. This is all feedback. 

The students’ written texts will be measured against the syllabus outcomes in each stage to ensure our students are meeting the expected outcomes. 

Loretta Riddiford 

K-2 Pedagogical Mentor 

FACE meeting

We are going to host a FACE (family and community engagement) meeting with Craig Moore, our CSMN wellbeing partner on Wednesday 7th May at 2pm and then repeated at 5pm. We would like to offer an opportunity to all families to come to our Learning Hub to join the conversation and learn more about the PB4L framework.
The topic would be general information about the framework and what that looks like at St Joseph's Taree. What we do, how we approach the management of student behaviour and respond to skill and/or performance deficits.  Caregivers and parents will also have the opportunity to learn more about how they can support this process.

If you are interested in attending either the 2 pm or 5pm FACE meeting please register your interest below.