Principal’s News Week 6 Term 2 2014

Fish & Chip Learning Evening

Thank you to all of our families who were able to attend on Monday evening. Our feedback suggests that the opportunity to socialise and share a meal together, combined with the early start as well as being able to listen to the students share their learning, helped to make the event a huge success.

This term, all of us have gone ‘open’ with our learning. We realise that sharing through our blogs has helped to engage our children and parents in learning at St Joseph’s. Research indicates that parent engagement supports student participation and achievement. Student engagement supports the motivation to learn.

Central to lifelong  learning for all of us is the ability for us to apply our knowledge and skills flexibly and creatively in different situations. Learning the skills necessary to adapt to 21^st Century technology are challenges for all of us. But if we have a ‘growth mindset’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN34FNbOKXc  anything is possible.

During the course of the evening we introduced our new Twitter handle. You can create your own account and follow us @StJoesOamaru 

 Congratulations to the Misiloi family who won the $50 petrrol voucher. 

Reading Workshops

Mrs Siobhan Burke will be running reading workshops next week to support you to help your child at home with their reading. If you are interested in attending a session on Monday at 3:30pm, Tuesday at 2pm or Thursday at 2pm then please contact sburke@stjoseph.school.nz

Confirmation

Congratulations to all of the children who celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation last Saturday. Thanks to Mrs Dooley and Fr Wayne for preparing our children and to all of the prayer partners and helpers who supported this special celebration.

Pasifika Fono Workshop

We were fortunate to welcome our South Island Pasifika Advisor,Tufulasi Taleni to St Joseph's to give a special presentation to staff, children and families at a recent Pasifika fono. We thank Mrs Misiloi for the beautiful welcome and Mrs Plieger for organising this excellent afternoon. 

Senior Production

St Joe’s Has Got Talent is coming together and we are looking forward to it ! The performances will be held at St Kevin's auditorium on Thursday 3rd July at 1:00pm and 6 pm. Food will be available from 5:30 pm onwards.The Home and School are going to provide the food so that families can enjoy a meal together. They will send out an order form closer to the time.  Next week, tickets to the matinee and evening shows will be available from the office for a gold coin donation. We will take the juniors to the matinee as a school group and we recommend that little brothers and sisters attend this session as well. 

Whitestone Learning and Change blog

Many of you are aware that we have formed a network with other local schools. We believe that together we can achieve more for our children and their learning and achievement. You can access some news about our developments here

Fr Wayne’s school and parish presentations

Last week Fr Wayne celebrated 40 years in the priesthood. After our presentation of a canvas that is now hanging in his office, there was a beautiful mass and Parish presentation of a trip to Raratonga. Congratulations on such an achievement Fr Wayne! We are so glad that you lead the way in showing us how to Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith.

Revised Basketball Draw for Wednesday 11 June 2014

INTERMEDIATE/COLLEGIATE DRAW:  WEDNESDAY 11 JUNE 2014

Waitaki Recreation Centre

 

ROUND 1 – WEEK 5 (Second Revision)

 

(Games 4 x 10 minute running clock quarters. 1 minute break at ¼ and ¾ time, 3 minute break at ½ time.)

FRONT COURT	Team	Team	Scorebench	Ref	Ref
4pm	OIS Celtics	St Joseph Magic	OIS Bulls	OIS Bulls	Merekite
4.50	OIS Bulls	OIS Honey Badgers	St Joseph Magic	Grayson Orr	Merekite
5.40	OIS Heat	OIS All Stars	OIS Lakers	Grayson Orr	Bronwyn Banks
6.30	OIS Lakers	OIS Hawks	OIS All Stars	Grayson Orr	Bronwyn Banks
7.20	WGHS Stealers	SKC Sisters	WBHS Wizards	Tim Hitchcock	Bronwyn Banks
8.10	WBHS Jnr A	WBHS Wizards	WGHS Stealers	Tim Hitchcock	Bronwyn Banks

 

BACK COURT	Team	Team	Scorebench	Ref	Ref
5.15	St Joseph Breakers	OIS Nuggets	OIS Breakers	Weston	Rebecca Moon
6.05	OIS Breakers	Weston	St Joseph Breakers	OIS Nuggets	Rebecca Moon
6.55	St Joseph Saints	OIS Knicks	WGHS Magic	WGHS Magic	Rebecca Moon
7.45	WGHS Breakers	WGHS Magic	St Joseph Saints	St Joseph Saints	Rebecca Moon

 

SKC GYM	Team	Team	Scorebench	Ref	Ref
4pm	WGHS Yr 9	SKC Stars	SKC Thunder	SKC Thunder	Tim Hitchcock
4.50	SKC Thunder	WBHS Gold	SKC Stars	SKC Stars	Tim Hitchcock
5.40	SKC Celtic	WBHS Red	WBHS Gold	WBHS Gold	Tim Hitchcock

BYE:  Ardgowan Hammers, SKC Sonic

PLEASE REMEMBER:  All players must be there 15 minutes before their game. 

Score sheet filled in before game.

All games must start on time. 

All Referees are to supply their own WHISTLE. 

Teams must supply 3 SCORE BENCH personnel.

Welcome, Congratulations & Sports

We warmly welcome Seth Bartley, Kacymea Tahitua, Chloe Bartley, Payton Bartley and Lilly Kelcher who recently started at our school. Congratulations to Lewis & Matthew Gough on their recent Tae Kwon Do success. Both boys competed at the South Island Championships in Invercargill last weekend with Lewis and Matthew both winning bronze medals in their age group. They travelled to Auckland at Queen's Birthday for the National Championships where Matthew won the gold medal for his age group. Well done to both boys. Congratulations to Elizabeth Plieger who received the Principals Award recently. She received this award because she was very supportive to Mrs Wilson during the Victorian Choir workshop. Well done to our sports teams over the weekend. Fr Wayne was out and about supporting our teams at netball and rugby.

Special Character Term 2 Week 6

Special Character - Term 2, Week 6

We had a very special weekend.  First the parish celebrated Father Wayne's 40th anniversary of his ordination on Friday 6 June.  It was a very special mass celebrated by the Bishop and reverently served by seven altar servers.  The celebrations afterwards in the school hall were a chance for members representing different sectors of the parish and school to share what makes Father Wayne special to them. This was a very moving celebration.

Then on Saturday 7 June we celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation and the feast of Pentecost.


This week all children will be getting an opportunity share what they understand about the Holy Spirit. We will be asking open ended questions to find out what the children know in their own terms. The questions are:

1. The Holy Spirit in action -  What do you know about how the Holy Spirit acts in people or in the Church? Show/explain how it relates to your life. Draw or write.

2. Can you tell a Bible story about the Holy Spirit? What does this story tell us for our own lives? - write/draw

3. What is the Trinity? Explain what you understand about the Trinity

4. What are some images of the Holy Spirit? What do they mean to you? What do you think of the images?

Principal’s News for Week 5 Term 2

This week you can read about :

1. 40 Years for Fr Wayne 2.Confirmation Saturday 3.Learning Evening Monday 
4. Victorian Choir 5. Bread ! 5. Special Character

1.Congratulations Fr Wayne’s  40 Yrs Priesthood

On Wednesday we celebrated this special occasion by giving Fr Wayne a large canvas photo of our school family. The choir sang beautifully too.

The parish will be celebrating this momentous occasion with mass on Friday 6th June at 5 pm followed by a finger food buffet in the St Joseph’s school hall.  Everybody is welcome and please bring a plate to share.

2.Sacrament of Confirmation

This Saturday 7th of June at 5 pm mass a large group of our students will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation where they confirm their initial commitment to the Church made at Baptism and fully receive the special strength of the Holy Spirit.

We look forward to welcoming Bishop Colin to school tomorrow and to sharing this celebration on Saturday evening with the children, their families and the parish.

3.Celebration of Learning and fish & chip evening Monday 9 June at 5:30pm 

Every family will get a free raffle ticket to enter the draw for $50 Petrol 

You must attend to qualify 

Learning in our 21st Century digital world - What does that mean? 

Many of you have already begun to read our school blogs and have a chance to learn about what is happening in our classrooms. Some of our children are creating their own blogs and sharing their learning with an audience that goes way beyond the classroom.
How can this kind of learning really work? Why is it important? 

We invite all of our families and friends to come to a special evening on Monday to find out the answers to some of these questions and more. Share your fears, hopes and dreams for your children with other families.

Come along and listen to some of our students, staff and parents share the way that they learn as well as find out how we can deeply engage our children in their learning and how you can support them too.

Bring along your fish and chips or picnic style food to share with your family at 5:30pm and enjoy having a St Joseph’s family get together. After we finish eating, we will begin our celebration of learning. We aim to be finished by 7pm.

4.Victorian Steampunk Choir Performance

 

Congratulations to the children who joined our Victorian Choir last week. You were stars. Here is the special message of thanks to Mrs Brookes from Emma Wilson who led the singing workshop at school last week.

Dear Leanne,
Thanks very much for the music conference link. 

I really enjoyed working with the children and they were beautifully behaved at the concert! There wasn't even one single moment when I had to ask anyone to stop what they were doing. It was lovely for me to be able to watch the rest of the show after they had performed when they were all sitting together at the front. I was able to concentrate on the perfomances - usually with a group of children I would expect to have to split my attention and watch the children as well as the performers.
And they were so focussed and concentrated during their singing - what a pleasure to work with! I was delighted that the words all came across clearly in the singing and in the jokes, and all the soloists came in right on cue. Often I have found that children want to change things round at the last minute, or to swop their solo section, but they all worked as a real team, did the part they had been given, and supported each other. They shared the clothes well too, and were a real credit to you and to the school.

Regards
Emma Wilson

Thank you to all of our children who continually show us how to Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith. 


5. Bread
Coupland's Bakery kindly gave every child at our school a loaf of bread today!!
Thank you for reaching out to our community.

Learn about Pentecost Sunday on the blog from Mrs Francis-Rees below.

PENTECOST

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church.  Jesus had promised to send an advocate, the Spirit of Truth, to help his disciples after he was gone.  Only after the Holy Spirit had come to them did they have the courage and ABILITY to go out and spread the Good News.  Gathered together locked in an upper room were Jesus’ disciples including Mary His mother.  The Holy Spirit came to them in the form of a strong wind and flames (tongues) of fire appearing above their heads.  Then, and only then, were they able to go out and spread the Good News as Jesus had asked them to do.

We believe the Holy Spirit has been active in the Church since Pentecost and continues to inspire the Church to both interpret and spread the Good News.

This Saturday 7 June at 5.00pm mass a large group of our students will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation where they confirm their initial commitment to the Church made at Baptism and fully receive the special strength of the Holy Spirit.

Father Wayne’s Celebration of 40 Years of Priesthood

The parish will be celebrating this momentous occasion with mass on Friday at 5.00pm followed by a finger food buffet in the St Joseph’s school hall.  Everybody is welcome and please bring a plate to share.