1. Principal's News - Week 8 Term 2, 2018

Intermediate Interschools

A big thank you to Paula for your arrangement and Sara and parents for your supervision and engagement in the Quadrangular tournament and St Mary's Mosgiel interschool (which we won) over the last couple of weeks.  The feedback regarding the children's attitude and participation was very positive and the children loved it.

New Enrolments
If anyone knows of anyone intending to enrol at St Joseph's in the next 12 months would you please ask them to contact me as soon as possible.  This will help us make decisions regarding classes for 2019.

We really enjoyed meeting some of our newer families on Tuesday evening at our induction evening.  It really struck me how we come from all four corners of the world to be in St Joseph's in Oamaru.

For those families as promised, and all families, here is the link to our Family/Whanau book which is a guide for parents of children in a Catholic school and covers all year levels.

http://www.faithalive.org.nz/assets/Resources/Family-whanau-book.pdf

To view Family Whanau book click link

Confirmation and Bishop Michael Dooley

A group of our students will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation on Sunday at 9.30am mass.  The Dominican Choir will be singing and we invite all our community to join us for this joyous occasion.  We look forward to welcoming our new Bishop, Bishop Michael Dooley to our school on Friday and for the Confirmation Mass on Sunday.  If you would like to meet him he will be at our celebration assembly on Friday.

Welcome Mass
We warmly welcome all of our community to our Welcome Mass on Sunday 1st July at 2018.  The children new to our school in the last few months will be welcomed and presented with Bibles by our Home and School Association.

Reports
We are in the process of reviewing how we do reporting as explained in the last newsblog.  All parents and caregivers are invited to join us in the school hall at 6.30 pm on Monday 2nd July.  We will have a 30 minute session explaining the background of what we're aiming to do and giving you some guidance in interpreting and making use of your child's report.

Union Meeting
Another reminder that the teaching staff are attending a Union Meeting on the afternoon of Wednesday 28th June at 1.30 pm.  School will be open till 3.00 pm but children are allowed to be collected at lunch time.  Please sign them out of the office.

Pasifika Fono
We had a great turnout at our Pasifika Fono last night:

Staff Emails
Please note our staff will endeavour to reply to emails within 24 hours on weekdays.  If you have any concerns about anything please contact your child's teacher to outline your concerns and book an appointment with them.

The Holy Spirit
The children are presently learning about the Holy Spirit.  Our four key ideas for this are:

1. The Holy Spirit acts in people and in the Church
2. The Holy Spirit appears in Bible stories
3. The Holy Spirit is the third person the Trinity
4. We have images of the Holy Spirit but these are not the Holy Spirit
There is more information on the parent's page and we encourage you to access this to enable further conversations with your children.

Aroha and God Bless
Lorraine Frances-Rees