Many thanks to our staff and parents for an excellent term. The children have had so many great opportunities this term with a leadership camp, swimming sports, Rippa tournament, Football Festival, our school sports teams, trips to the museum, parish centre, art gallery, marae and Moeraki boulders and our replaying of Holy Week.
Staff have been assessing children and it is pleasing to see our students making progress. For those children who need learning support this term we have provided more release time to give us greater capacity to meet as whole team to support children. This means our whole learning support team, with myself and the classroom teacher can get together and discuss in detail each child who is falling behind or in danger of falling behind and we put things in place. Some of this is managed and monitored by the teacher within the classroom and some is provided as intervention lessons or extra classroom support. We are extremely lucky that our Board of Trustees understands and promotes that learning is the reason we are here and puts extra money into providing staff and resources particularly in the areas where children are struggling.
I must take this opportunity to remind that attendance is paramount. Good attendance, above 90%, is needed for learning to be consistent and for any intervention to have an effect. So please ensure that your children are at school unless they are ill or there is a family bereavement and try to book trips and holidays out of term time if at all possible. We thank you and appreciate your support with attendance.
Friday Learning
Next term we are starting some specialist teaching on a Friday after lunch so that the children can have more exposure to learning, particularly in the arts. The juniors will work in their class groups and get half a term with each learning opportunity. The senior school will be split into whanau groups and work in four classes with half a term for each learning.
JUNIORS
Percussion Band - Mrs Brookes
Tapa Printing - Mrs Misiloi
Folk Dancing - Miss Sollano
SENIORS
Dance/Drama - Mrs Dooley
Environmental investigation - Mrs Thomas
Ukelele / STOMP - Mrs Streat
Band - Mrs Frances-Rees
We're really looking forward to changing it up with these opportunities.
Young Vinnies
We desperately need helpers. This is a very worthwhile service which our year 7 & 8s provide to our local community where they visit rest homes and IHC and sometimes do extra things like stacking firewood. They need transport to get to their service activity and back to school again. They go at 10.30am and come back at 11.30am on a Thursday. For some places we also need the adult to stay with them. We only have one parent who is available to help with this so we are extending the plea out to the rest of the school and the community to let us know if you can help. Please contact St Joseph's office.
Junior Publishing Party
The juniors had another great publishing party this week sharing their writing with family and with the rest of the school. I was very impressed with the quality of the writing and the confidence of our young learners to share and reflect on their learning.
Intermediate Celebration of Learning
At the other end of the school our intermediate students opted for a pyjama party to celebrate their learning around the book, "Wonder" by R J Palacio.
The sandpits have reopened after cleaning and we have some new sandpit equipment thanks to the Otago Community Trust Grant. It is great to see the children engaged in active, collaborative and imaginative play.
North Otago Pastoral Services
Thank you to the farming families who nominate St Joseph's to benefit from the Seed Treatment Program. We received $280 from them this week due to your nominations which will help us buy materials for learning.
I wish all of our families a safe and happy holiday and look forward to another great term of learning in term 2.
God Bless and Aroha
Lorraine
will be held at the Oamaru Services Lawn Cemetery, on Saturday 24th April from 3.30pm to 4.00pm. All Children are welcome to attend to remember the brave men and women. 
