1. What's new ? Principal updates Week 5 Term 1 2015

Thank you for bringing 21st Century Learning to our school for my children !!

This was the comment from a parent who popped their head into my 'collaborative workspace' at the start of the week. Thank you for making my day :)

We are nearly approaching our fifth week of the new year and our teaching and learning site is continuing to evolve. Teachers met with 90% of our parents last week and Mr Cartlidge will finish his meetings this week. Goals based around the key competencies have been set as we strive to support learners to engage in deep learning and become self-managing lifelong learners.
Mrs Burke shared a very interesting visual image with me that encapsulates our approach to learning. It's worth looking at it carefully and reflecting on the different components of deeper learning.

Mr Moore's visit to Auckland
Mr Moore spent the day with Room 7 (Year 7's and 8's) at St Pius X Catholic School in Glen Innes, Auckland, on Monday. Mrs Frances Rees and I visited this school a couple of years ago as part of our Manaikalani Cluster visits. Mr Moore was very impressed and has organised to stay in touch with Mrs Ana Tui so that our Year 8's and Room 7 can foster a relationship between the two classes. They can learn from each other, be an audience for each other's blog posts and build friendships. As Mr Moore explains, "Our commitment to utilising e-learning as an effective learning tool is allowing this to happen, to the benefit of children from both schools."

You can check out the Year 8 blog at www.year8stjosephs2015.blogspot.com to see more photos and the latest developments between two classes 1300km apart.

Parent Forum updates
You can read about the discussions and outcomes from last week's parent forum by going to this link. Topics of interest include ties, Subway, emails, independent learning, paint shirts and e Permission forms

Home & School Annual General Meeting (AGM)
This took place on Tuesday evening. It was great to see some new parents come and join the established and hardworking group of dedicated parents. Only 10 sleeps until the big Food Fair !!! 

Here are the annual reports.

St Josephs Home and School Chairperson’s report for AGM 3^rd March 2015

It is with pleasure that I present this report at our 2015 AGM.  This has been my first year in the role and it has been a challenging but rewarding year. It has been a year spent building a strong relationship with the school so that we can work together for the future of our children.

This last year has been a difficult one for our committee as we have had such a small group. With a bad run of health for our secretary seeing me spend most of the year as chairperson and secretary which brings many challenges.

The Home and School is the fundraising body for the school, and this past year our funds have helped with things such as school council badges, bibles, school swimming, art supplies, leadership camp and the last payment to finish the junior school playground.

Our major fundraisers for 2014 were The Entertainment Book, Peastraw, hot dogs, Cake Stall and Xmas Raffle. Some of these were obviously more successful than others but we can only do so much if we do not have the support of all of our school families.   

We have also been involved with other events including the discos, Year 8 leavers Social and pastoral care.  This helps build our relationships within the school and parish community.  It can be time consuming but is an important part of our role.  I’m sure that our community appreciate this, so thank you all for helping with these areas, especially Maria for the pastoral care.

I would like to thank you all for helping me to grow into this role and I hope that we can all continue to build the committee so that the workload lessens and we can share the jobs among more school families.

 A big thanks also to Jo Gilbert and Megan Phillips (when she has been well) for their roles last year.  You do a great job and I appreciate all the work you put in.  All of you have put a lot of hours into making our year successful, you are all very supportive of the school and me by giving up your time, resources and energy.

I am looking forward to our fundraising ventures for this year, in particularly the Food Fair.  The main reason for the fair is fundraising however, I am hoping that we can build a strong community spirit within the school as the various cultural groups share with us their love of food, fun and entertainment. 

Thanks

Rachel Fowler

 Principal's Report Home and School AGM 

On behalf of the board, staff, parents and children of St Joseph’s school, I sincerely thank the Home and School parent association for their financial and pastoral contributions to our school during  2014.

 I would especially like to thank Rachel Fowler for her leadership as president and for her continued focus on fundraising efforts for our school. Special thanks to Jo Gilbert for her work as treasurer over the past three years. Thanks to Megan Phillips for her perseverance as secretary considering her health challenges during the year. Thank you to each and every one of our Home & School team who have been proactive in a wide variety of ways around our school.

Following the generous donations towards the new junior playground from the end of 2013, the school received a further $2,600 towards other playground costs including the junior storage shed. The school also received the annual donation of $10,000.00 from the Home & School last year. This was made up of a $2,500.00 donation received once each term that enabled the board to maximise the limited operation grant that we receive from the government. This donation contributed to the annual budgeted wish list which included: PE gear, engraving of trophies, library books, art and craft materials, Young Leaders Day costs, school council and leadership badges and bibles for New Entrants.

Thank you again to our enthusiastic and hardworking Home and School team who give up hours of their own time to help make St Joseph’s a better place for all of our children. We appreciate that this is a challenging job that they do for our families in a voluntary capacity. If we had more of our parents stepping forward to help, it would ease the pressure as often it is the same dedicated core group who we rely on. On behalf of our whole school community, we wholeheartedly thank them all.

We are looking forward to the planned Food Fair and hope that this will be a successful fundraiser for our school.

I look forward to working with the Home and School again as we continue to “Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith” during 2015.

Jenny Jackson

Principal