Welcome to the first newsletter of the 2025 school year! It is my pleasure to kick off what promises to be an exciting and productive year for all our students, staff, and families.

As we embark on this new year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the positive energy and potential that our school community holds. We are committed to providing an environment where every student feels valued, supported, and challenged. With our new school build due to be completed very soon, our community is a buzz with how wonderful our new environment will be. The positive impact this infrastructure will have for all at St Joseph’s is greatly anticipated.

• New Staff Members: We are thrilled to welcome Josie McInerney to our team this year. Josie is our Kindergarten teacher and brings with her a great warmth and enthusiasm and wonderful fresh ideas to our staff.  Cat Dawson is returning as our Creative Arts teacher and executive release teacher and brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to our school, and we are excited for them both to get to know our students and families.
• Grace Braun is our Aboriginal Education Officer and we are looking forward to working with Grace and the positivity that she brings to the role.
• Upcoming Events: We have several events coming on the horizon, including:
• Swimming carnival – Friday 14^th February
• Opening School Mass – Tuesday 18^th February.  Followed by morning tea and our Classroom Information sessions – all are most welcome to attend.

Please mark your calendars!

This year, we continue to focus on Catholic Educations two bold goals for our system:

• Every student is a competent reader and
• High Impact Teaching Practice is visible in every classroom

As we continue into the year, I encourage all families to stay involved in the school community. Whether through working bees, attending events, or simply staying in communication with teachers, your support plays an integral role in the success of our students.

Thank you for your continued partnership. I look forward to seeing what we will accomplish together this year.

Blessings for the week ahead,

Kirsty Beavan

Principal

Welcome to 2025!

A special welcome to our 7 wonderful kindergarten students - Alfie, Archie, Charlotte, Alexandrea, Stella, River and Isabella. 

Opening School Mass

St Joseph’s Opening School Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday 18th February at 9.30am in the Church. During the Mass, we officially welcome our 2025 Kindergarten students. Our Year 6 leaders will be presented with their badges as they formally accept their positions of responsibility in our St Joseph’s community. 

Please note that reserved seating will be provided for Year 6 and Kindergarten parents. If parents/carers can please fill the seats to ensure everyone can fit.

Parish Mass 

St Joseph’s is rostered on for Parish School Mass on Sunday 2nd March at 8.30am. Please let me know if you are able to attend so I can distribute jobs/readings. It would be lovely to see as many children and families attend. 

Upcoming dates 

• Ash Wednesday Mass -  Wednesday 5th March 10.00am
• St Joseph’s Feast Day - Wednesday 19th March 

Jubilee Year - Pilgrims of Hope

 2025 is a special year for the Church. It is a Holy Year, a Jubilee Year. A Jubilee Year is celebrated every 25 years and is a time to come together with kindness, share hope, be fair, and happily serve God while living in peace with everyone around us. The theme for the Jubilee Year is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. Staff joined together in prayer to celebrate the beginning of our 2025 school year with the focus centred around our school theme for 2025 ‘We are Pilgrims of Hope’.

Many thanks,
Stacey Braun

Religious Education Coordinator

Kindergarten students have rest days on Wednesday the 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th of February.  We hope our Kindergarten students enjoy the day to rest and get ready for the remainder of the week.

We are looking forward to our swimming carnival this Friday 14th February.  Reminders were sent home today to give consent on compass and pay the entry fee of $2.50 per student if you do not have a Season ticket. A reminder that it is a $1entry fee per spectator.  

Students may bring a small amount of money to buy something small from the canteen at the pool at set times throughout the day, but please ensure that your child has fruit, recess and a packed lunch with lots of water!

Our Kindergarten and Year 1 students will join with the rest of the school at the pool a little later in the day for recess and a swim.

We would love parents to assist with time keeping if you are able to help us out it would be much appreciated!

Please feel free to email or ring your child’s teacher to make an appointment to see them if you would like to discuss any matters or check in. Teachers are always busy preparing and planning for lessons so it would be great if you could arrange a suitable time for both yourself and the teacher.  Please be mindful that teachers will endeavour to respond to emails/phone calls as soon as they can within school hours.

St Joseph’s is an Allergy Aware School.  There are quite a number of allergens in food that students can be allergic to.  In the extreme, this allergic reaction can lead to an Anaphylactic reaction in students. 

St Joseph’s at all times reduces the exposure of its students to ALL TREE NUTS and RAW EGG.  As a result, parents need to assist the school by not sending food with tree nuts and raw egg listed in the ingredients and to check the allergen information on all food products coming to school to help reduce the risk of exposer to these allergens of allergic students.   

We strongly encourage students not to pack raw nuts and bring nut products to school such as peanut butter, Nutella etc.  Eggs cooked within cakes, biscuits, quiches are fine but an egg sandwich or an egg in a salad not encouraged.

Food from home:

*  Students lunch boxes and water bottles are clearly labelled with the student's name.

*  Educate students and the school community about food allergy so they understand why they should only eat their food and why they should not share or offer food to students with food allergies.

*  All students should be encouraged to wash hands before eating (especially children with food allergies).

*  All students should be encouraged to wash their hands after eating, especially if they have eaten something that another student in their class is allergic to.

Whilst our new school build is still underway we are still using our alternative drop off and pick up points for buses and cars. 

Buses ONLY are to use Gundagai Street for bus drop off and pick up. 

Students travelling by car are to be dropped off and picked up at the top of Gilmore Street where students will walk from Gilmore street, down the stairs and onto the school grounds. There are witches hats to guide students. For afternoon pick up, parents que along gilmore street remaining in their cars, and staff will wait with students in Gilmore St until their car is the first in line. Once your Child/ren is in your car, you will loop back around Gilmore street and the next car will move up.  

Students walking home or riding a bike will leave the school AFTER the buses have departed from Gundagai Street. 

The ONLY exception for parking in Gundagai Street will be if you child/ren need to be dropped off or picked up (for appointments etc) between the hours of 9.00am and 3.00pm. If students arrive to school late or are departing early, please see the office and ensure your Child/ren are signed in or out. 

If you need to notify the office of changes/notification about the way in which children are being transported home from school, a phone call is the best method. If you send an email, we ask that if you do not receive an acknowledgement email back that the message has been received, can you please follow up by calling the school to ensure the message has been received and passed on. If the changes are after 1.30pm it is advisable to phone through the changes. While we do our best to check the emails regularly, sometimes school can get quite busy and the office can be unattended for periods of time, meaning it could be possible for emails to be accidently missed.  

St Joseph's will be continuing to use the COMPASS Parent Portal for all absences, events, email notifications. 

We will use Compass for excursions and events the children will need to attend eg; swimming, carnivals etc. Our emails will also come through Compass.

If you need assistance or have any questions, please don't hesitate contacting the office.

St Joseph’s students are looking great in their full summer uniforms.  A reminder that students are to wear their school hat at all times when they are outside.  Please ensure that your child packs their hat every day and their hat and all items of clothing are clearly labelled!
Wendellie's Tumut are able to embroider students clothing/hats for $5 per item. 

Please remember to separate student's fruit break from the rest of their lunch boxes as this makes our students' first routine of the day much easier.

St Josephs is working towards being a zero waste school where we have our scrap buckets that feed some local chooks, and we encourage students to use reusable containers and lunch boxes to reduce the amount of waste that we produce. Plastic packaging, chip packets etc are placed back into lunch boxes to take home.  

Piano/Keyboard lessons are available at school during school hours in 2025. 
Ages: Year 1 upwards.
LessonDuration: 1/2hour individual tuition by Vanessa Edwards.
For enquiries please phone: 0448609479

Daily routine:  The first bell rings at 8:55am, the afternoon bell rings at 3:10pm.

Our recess bell times are 11.00am - 11.30am and lunch bell times are 1.05pm - 1.40pm.

The school grounds are open to students from 8:40am each morning and remains open until 3:30pm each afternoon. 

Therefore, supervision is provided between these hours and the school accepts no responsibility for the activities of pupils outside these hours.

Please be aware that students arriving at school before this time are instructed to sit in the weather shed until a teacher asks them to move onto the playground in the morning. Teachers supervise all play times and after school dismissal. 

Our Media Leaders, Amber and Primrose will showcase our new Kindergarten Students in our Newsletters! 

Keep up to date with events happening at St Joseph's via our electronic school calendar (please note dates can be subject to change).