1. Principal's News - Week 1 Term 4 2018

Learning Around the School

Daniel, Michael, Sami and Joaquin enjoy a cross-grouped PE lesson

Term 4 has got off to a great start.  We're looking forward to lots of Education Outside the Classroom opportunities for our older students this term.  All classes will be doing something with the school gardens and we are also investigating technology.  Its been great to see teachers collaborating together to put their own gifts and talents to the best use.  Its great also to see the students collaborating across age groups.

Ayla and Pippa investigate the Lucky Book club

William and Vili learn about Firewise

Our year 7 and 8s are learning dancing for their social at the end of the year

Mrs Asi putting her dance teaching skills to good use.

Serah, Libby and Eva plan their passion projects

Mrs Herbst, Mrs Jones-Hogan and Mrs Frances- Rees are helping the year 6s transition to Intermediate

The Pit of Learning
This refers to the learning process and how real learning involves challenge and some discomfort.  Miss Tangney and Mrs McRae's year 2/3 classes have been learning about this and Mikayla explains it beautifully in this short video.  (This was filmed during the pack up time of the afternoon learning session - so not as quiet in the class as normal learning time.)

Athletics
This year our athletics for the whole school will be at the Whitestone Stadium.  The day is 14th November.  We will need lots of parent help and the juniors will finish after lunch and can be taken home then if you wish.  Children will need to be dropped off at the stadium and picked up from there at the end of the day.  There is more information in the news section and you will be getting further information as we get closer.

We have zones for Athletics, Cross Country and Swimming.  A certain number of children qualify for North Otago's from each zone.  For instance the country schools join together for their sports and have 400 children and can only nominate the same number that we can.  The main intention of school sports is to give all the children a fair go and so our zones have been revised and we are now zoned with North School.  That means we will do our athletics and cross country competitions with North School.  We will still do swimming on our own but take careful timings and the top children across both schools will go through to North Otago's.  The St Joseph's trophies for each sport will still only be given to the top performing St Joseph's students.  


Bear with us, this is something new and Paula Brien is flat out organising it, keeping on top of every detail.

Fixed Term Appointment for 2019
We are pleased to announce that Ange Asi has been appointed to the fixed term position for 2019 with the year 5/6 class.  Ange has worked for St Joseph's for many years in a part time capacity and helped us out on many occasions when a class has needed a new teacher part of the way through the year.  She is looking forward to setting up her own class from the start of the year and we're very happy to have her expertise and wisdom with us full time for the whole of next year.

St Joseph's International Food Fair
Tell your friends - opening 11.30am Sunday 28th October at St Joseph's.  Its always a fantastic day for everyone.

God Bless and Aroha
Lorraine Frances-Rees