1. Principal's News Term 3 Week 4 2020

Singing Cup

Well done to our senior students who auditioned for our annual Singing Cup this year.   I'm not sure how long Singing Cup has been happening at St Joseph's - but it is at least 40 years.  It is a real legacy to the musicality of the Dominican Sisters who founded our school.  Katrina Crowder, our judge this year really encouraged the students to give it a go and have fun.  Each child received feedback on their singing in terms of tune, volume, diction, timing, and presentation.

The finals are on Thursday 27th, 11.00-12.30.  I hope we will be in Level 1 and would love to welcome our parents to the finals.  The house choirs, presentation of trophies and staff choir are on Friday 28 August starting at 1.30 pm.  This is usually a great celebration for our school and again, I hope you will be able to join us.  If we are not in Level 1 we will endeavour to life stream the performances.

Cross Country

We are also hoping our Cross Country can happen next Tuesday 18th August as planned.  We will wait until Friday to see what is happening and a paper notice will go home on Friday.  Please check your children's bags for the notice.

As we are in Level 2, this means that Oamaru North School cannot join us for our cross country as they are in a separate school bubble and cannot join our bubble as it would be over 100 people.  Our school is one bubble.  This means we are short of 10 people to help as marshals for our cross country and if you can help please let Mrs Brien know asap otherwise we may have to hold the cross country at St Joseph's.

Ned's Mindset Mission

We had planned to have Ned's Mindset as an assembly but instead it was Zoomed into each class this week.  Children learnt:

-  The Power of Yet – If you’re not good at something, it just means you’re not good at it yet

-   How to spark courage in others

-   How to keep learning and growing, even when they think they already know something

This ties in with our teaching on growth mindset.  Many of the children have purchased yo-yos to "pay it forward" so other children can see the presentation.  I was pleased to see we were selling yo-yos because I can do yo-yo.  I can make it go up.  And I can make it go down.  Then I saw what the children can do.....

Tik Tok

I've been around a wee while and there is always some "trend" in schools that causes some concern but eventually passes.  As educators we can see the effect of the "trends" in the children we educate.  Attitudes, demeanour, and language tend to reflect the latest trend.  At the moment, I am worried about some of the attitudes some of our girls aged 8-11 are showing.    I have checked out the Tik Tok app and after about 10 minutes of random scrolling there were several things I thought were pretty poisonous and if children are using Tik Tok, they will be seeing this sort of thing too.   The biggest concern for me was the language, the body image and attitude (it's a sassy and not a particularly tolerant or respectful attitude) portrayed by young women and copied by very young girls.   Please check out your child's use of Tik Tok because like all quick dopamine rushes, it is addictive.

Church

We have been learning about Church at the moment.  If you want to find out more as a parent in order to have conversations with your child please check out our blog.

I will send out emails if things change or if there is information I think you need to know.

God Bless and Aroha

Lorraine Frances-Rees