News & Events

Dear Families,

We hope this newsletter finds you well as we start a new school year. We are excited to welcome both returning and new families to our school community. 

I would like to welcome our Leadership Team for 2024:

* Principal, Adam Slater

* Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission, Grace Vassallo-Wakefield

* Inclusive Education Coordinator, Toni Benci

* Leader of Learning, Aimee Caruso.

Together, we look forward to serving you and your family in the exciting year ahead.

On the first day of school, we welcomed 41 reception children and their families. Many of the children were having their first day at school, joined by students from Years 1 to 6. We also welcomed new staff members who have joined us: Annie Brearley (Year 5), Tania Montin (Preschool Coordinator), and Janice Bataduwage (Educational Support Officer), who is replacing Claire Tienek on long service leave in term 1.

PRINCIPAL’S AWARD STICKERS

One of my favourite moments each day is going into the classrooms and seeing the wonderful learning that is happening. I also really enjoy speaking with the teachers and students to hand out Principal sticker awards for students who have demonstrated the three school values of kindness, love, and care. It is a wonderful opportunity to recognise students for their daily positive actions and the pride they take in making great choices at school.

LEARNING ACROSS THE CLASSROOMS

It has been an absolute delight to go into the classrooms and see all the wonderful learning that the students and classes have been exploring in the first two weeks. Last week, the year 5 students shared a task in Humanities and Social Sciences where they created Aboriginal artwork to include specific painted features to represent meeting places, such as clapping sticks, rivers, and kangaroo footprints.

The Year 1 students explored learning about sea and beach environments in science. It was great to see the students reading about and investigating the various types of seashells and marine animals.

Adam Slater

Dear Families,

How quickly has this term flown by! We have been getting into the Christmas Spirit at SJMS and the Carols last Friday night was a perfect example.

As we draw the year to a close, it is important to reflect on the new initiatives that have been introduced this year, that have made a positive impact within our community:

• Co-constructing the new school pillars (faith, learning and community) and values (kindess, care and love).
• New school lunches in collaboration with Louie’s Deli are provided for students on Monday and Friday.
• Establishing the new interschool sports competition between our school and St Raphael’s, Parkside to provide increased unique opportunities for students to represent the school and play sport from Year 1 to Year 6.
• Using the Performing Arts Studio for the first time to host two school musicals, written by the students, based on the life of St Mary of the Cross Mackillop. Both performances were sold out and demonstrated an extremely high level of talent from the students.
• A new Music and Sports assembly to recognise the efforts of parent volunteers and students to share their instrumental talents to the community.
• Introducing student traffic monitors for students to demonstrate their leadership responsibilities and capabilities.
• Introducing whole school assemblies to be held in the Performing Arts Studio with both Bridge and William Street classes hosting.
• Introduction of SEQTA assessment and reporting to be digitally emailed to parents.
• Introduction of Clarity learning practices for students to know learning intentions, success criteria and improve their work.
• Opening up more opportunities for students to complete the Children’s University, with more than double the students from 2023 receiving acknowledgement from the University of Adelaide at the graduation ceremony this year.
• Introducing the new opportunity for families to have a shared picnic celebration after the Christmas Carols at William St.
• New sporting clinics and opportunities including martial arts, gymnastics and SANFL sessions.
• New lunchtime clubs for drawing, chess, games and dance.
• New extension opportunities for students to participate in the G.A.T.EWays program.
• New social justice initiatives with students working with Catholic Mission for Socktober to raise over $1000 for East Timor.
• New ICT initiatives whereby the Year 1 and Year 5 students worked collaboratively to created 3D printed objects through Makers Empire.  
• New Parents & Friends events, including the school stall at the St Peter’s Fair.
• Introducing the Book Fair for students to purchase new reading materials, held in the Performing Arts Studio.
• New student-led break time competitions for soccer and netball.
• A staff retreat to reflect and evaluate on school Catholic Identity.
• Staff undertaking the Apple Teacher accreditation program.
• Staff commencing sessions on AITSL accreditation through moving from Provisional to Full registration status and upgrading to Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher Status.
• Introducing new parent information sessions for Mid-Year Reception and William Street transition.

REPORTS
Your child/ren’s reports will be emailed home, on Monday, December 11^th.  If you have any changes to your email addresses, please make sure you update these with the front office before this date. On Monday, we will also send out the teacher / class allocations for your child/ren.

STAFF APPOINTMENTS AND WELCOMES

I am happy to announce that Tania Montin has been appointed as the Preschool Coordinator commencing in 2024. Tania has led in a range of Catholic and Government Preschools (St Joseph’s Payneham, St Joseph’s Kingswood and St Thomas. Goodwood and we welcome her warmly to our community. I would also like to announce that Izabella Callisto has won a contract to teach in Year 3 in 2024.

As we are approaching the end of the 2023 school year, we have finalised staffing and classes for 2024:

STAFF FAREWELLS

Serena Razon
Serena has worked in the Preschool and as our school Chaplain. We wish Serena all the very best as she moves to St Joseph’s Kingswood as a Reception teacher.

Nicola Cuiffini
Nicola has worked at Bridge St in the Junior Primary classes. We wish Nicola well as she moves to St Mary’s Memorial.

Eloise DiSisto
Eloise has worked at William St in the Upper Primary classes.

On behalf of the school, I would like to sincerely thank Serena, Nicola and Eloise for their work in our community.

BRIDGE ST LIBRARY / OSHC BUILDING PROJECT UPDATE

Currently, we are finalising the timeline to commence with the architects from Design Inc and building company Horizons Construction. on refurbishing the OSHC / Library Space to commence work through the school holiday break and early into next year.

UNIFORM UPDATE

After receiving consensus from the community regarding the selection of the optional sports jacket, Belgravia apparel is organsing samples of the selected soft shell sports jackets for families to view from the start of next year. We are hoping to provide the opportunity for families to order the jackets from the start of next year.

As we wrap up a productive school year in 2023, I want to thank all of our incredible teachers and whole school staff for the amazing work they undertake each and every day to help the students in our school thrive in their faith, learning and wellbeing.

I would also like to thank our sensational 2023 P & F Committee leaders Pina Bria and Rebecca Humphrey for their exceptional leadership throughout the year. I know our community is deeply appreciative for all of your selfless work to help our school.

Just a reminder that in 2024 school resumes on Monday 29 January 2024.

Regards

Adam Slater

Dear St Joseph’s Memorial Families,

As Week 6 of Term 3 draws to a close we can already stop and reflect on the myriad of events and experiences that have taken place so far this term.

Book Week Parade

Last week we celebrated the Book Week, the theme this year was "Read, Grow, Inspire". As a whole school we celebrated with a Book Week Parade at the Performing Arts Studio.

Not only did families and staff enjoy a wonderful morning together, we also got to see the children from Preschool through to Year 6 join the parade.

A very special thank you to all students who participated and to all families for assisting children in organising their costumes. 

Book Week also reminds us about the joy of learning through reading and the important role of reading in developing vocabulary and comprehension.

Quiz Night

Last Saturday night we held a community Quiz Night with close to 100 people who attended the event. Thank you to everyone that came along and all the wonderful sponsors for their kind donations. An enormous thank you to our incredible Parents & Friends team for all their work to ensure the event was a huge success to fundraise to benefit our school community.

Father’s Day Stall and Breakfast

This week we celebrated Fathers and Grandfathers with the Parents & Friends committee hosting the Father’s Day Stall and Breakfast. It was great to see many people out to celebrate the important Father figures in the lives of our community. Thank you again to the Parent’s & Friends team for all of their organisation to ensure all events ran smoothly.

SJMS Extra Curricular

Well done to all our extra-curricular teams and their volunteer coaches who wrapped up an extremely successful season and year of school sports.

Well done to our Year 5 & 6 debating teams for ending their season with great success. Our Year 6 and 5 team finished with a win and congratulations to Lucy for being awarded speaker of the night. Our Year 6 team impressively went undefeated all season! We are very proud of all the students who participated and represented the school so well this year. A huge thank you must go to Mrs Vassallo-Wakefield who coached the teams throughout the year and Ms DiSisto for helping out on the debate nights.

On Thursday, I had the privilege as the Chair of the Catholic School Music Festival to see our choir undertake the whole group combined rehearsal. I was amazed of the exceptional standard of singing by all of the school choir members and we are all looking forward to the event at the Adelaide Festival Centre on Thursday of week 9 at the end of this term.

Clarity Project at St Joseph's Memorial School

We are delighted to announce that as a result of the school's work this year to implement the Clarity project, we have been selected as a Catholic school to host the project founder, Dr Lyn Sharratt in week 9. Our school has been selected for the visit due to the extensive work of all teachers and classes to implement the Clarity parameters and practices including using learning intentions, success criteria, bump it up walls, learning walks and talks, data walls and case management approaches.

In the past few weeks, I have been undertaking learning walks and talks in classes to ask students questions about what they are learning, how they are going, how they know they are going well, how they can improve and where can they go for help. The students have provided wonderfully insightful feedback about their learning in this process.

QUIZ NIGHT

Our 2023 Quiz night is fast approaching on Saturday 26th of August and we would like to acknowledge and extend our deep appreciation for the 2023 sponsors:

Platinum – Surreal Hair

Gold – Taarnby, Linden Park Pharmacy & Numberworksnwords

Silver – Sportitude, Astora Handmade & Big Egg Media

Bronze – Adelaide Oval, Switched on Kids & Gin Long Canteen

I would also like to share my appreciation to our hard working Parents and Friends Committee who have been instrumental in the organisation and preparation of the Quiz Night event.

RECESS AND LUNCH TIME ACTIVITIES

In the past few weeks, we have introduced new activities for the students to undertake during their break times. As a part of National Science Week, Ms DeSisto organised an experiment with slime and making bubbly toothpaste for the students during a break time.

Our new Social Work students from UniSA have introduced drawing and games activities for the students too.

Mr Ryan has also organised lunctime actvities including a paper plane club.

CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY

Congratulations to Sienna and Iris for receiving a gold star to recognise their commitment and work towards the Children's University program. Both students have undertaken the most hours and activities so far this year.

CROSS COUNTRY

Well done to 56 students from years 3 to 6 who attended the SACPSSA Cross Country Carnival. The students had a great experience running against their peers from all different Catholic schools. Congratulations Paris who finished in first place overall in the Division A Boys competition. Well done to all the students for their strong running performances throughout the day. Thanks to all the teachers, and parents who volunteered their time to help, and it was great seeing so many parents spectating on the day.

HAVE YOUR SAY ABOUT OUR SCHOOL – SURVEY CLOSES 18 AUGUST 2023
Each year we run a survey to get parent feedback about our school. This survey helps us keep track of what we have been doing and helps us plan for what we should do in the future. This is your chance to share your thoughts.

Parents go to…

www.NSIPartnerships.com.au

    and enter the code SJMPLLLP

SCHOOL PERFORMANCE & COMPLIANCE REPORT

The St Joseph’s Memorial Performance Report, for the 2022 school year, can be accessed via the following link:  https://www.sjms.catholic.edu.au/__files/f/23272/2022_School_Compliance_Report.pdf

The report has a focus on various aspects on our school’s performance.

Wishing you well!

Adam Slater

Dear Families,

I hope everyone had a wonderful break and have enjoyed the return of school for semester two.

OUR COLLECTIVE SCHOOL PILLARS AND VALUES

After receiving close to 200 community responses from staff, students and parents we have finalised our three school pillars and values that will guide our school moving forward into the future.

Our three pillars that will set the direction for our mission are:

FAITH – LEARNING – COMMUNITY

Our values centred on the example of Jesus Christ that will support our daily actions and interactions are:

KINDNESS – LOVE – CARE

Thank you to everyone for your input and support throughout the process of constructing our shared pillars and values.

2023 NAPLAN RESULTS

EXCEPTIONAL PERFORMANCE AGAIN with the 2023 NAPLAN RESULTS

Once again, we have managed to produce outstanding results!

ALL RESULTS IN YEAR 3 ABOVE THE NATIONAL AND STATE AVERAGES

Congratulations to all our Year 3 & 5 students who sat the test. A special thank you to our leaders and teachers who have looked closely at our testing data over the last three years and adjusted teaching practices to achieve such excellent results:

Student results have been sent home to families.

NEW RECEPTION CHILDREN

Our mid-year intake consists of 23 children who have enjoyed their first two weeks at school. They are a delightful group of children taking their next step into the wider world under the incredible leadership of their teacher Mrs Haddad.

OSHC & VACATION CARE

SHAYLA COOPER – NEW OSHC DIRECTOR

We welcome Shayla who will be our new OSHC Director. Shayla has worked in various OSHC services as a leader and most recently at St Francis of Assisi in Newton. We look forward to the positive impact she will have on our community.

During Vacation Care, one of the highlights was the excursion to the Hahndorf Farm Barn. The children enjoyed feeding the animals. Thank you to the staff for ensuring the excursion was a huge success.

YEAR 1 & 5 SHARED MAKERS EMPIRE SHOWCASE
This week our Year 1 and Year 5 students shared their collaborative buddy project for the ‘Learning by Design’ Showcase event at Stone & Chalk. The two year levels worked together to solve a problem of soccer balls passing through the goal nets at Bridge Street and used Makers Empire technology and 3D printing to resolve. Thank you to both teachers for leading this impactful initiative to enhance student engagement and purposeful learning.

SCHOOL HOLIDAY UPGRADES

Over the school holidays we organised for maintenance and upgrades works to be undertaken. One specific holiday makeover occurred in the Preschool with the floorboards being replenished.

Dear Parents and Caregivers

As we journey through the Lenten Season, we are asked to focus on prayer. Have you ever thought of praying the Stations of the Cross as a family during Lent? There are many sites you can go to but here is a link that you might like to use with your family with simple text:

https://wau.org/resources/article/re_stations_cross_kids/

You might like to search for some images on the stations of the cross to reflect on as well or you might like to reflect on the words and ask your children to draw images for each station. You can even visit the Church, when it isn’t being used and pray as you view the images on the wall.

HOLY WEEK

During Holy Week, the school will be coming together to pray and reflect on some significant events for Jesus during this week. Parents and Caregivers are welcome to attend.

ST JOSEPH’S DAY MASS

St Joseph was the husband of Mary and the father of Jesus. God called Joseph, a simple carpenter, to care for and protect Mary and Jesus. With great faith and trust, he accepted God’s call. You are all warmly welcomed to join us at our School Mass to honour St Joseph on Tuesday 21 March in St Ignatius Church at 9:15am.

TERM 1 LITURGIES AND MASSES

There has been some confusion regarding Class Liturgies and Masses for this term. Please find below the dates of masses and liturgies for Term 1.

Dates can also be found at the link below:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/embed?src=jess@sjms.catholic.edu.au&ctz=Australia/Adelaide

Prayer to St Joseph the Father

St. Joseph, guardian of Jesus and husband of Mary,

you passed your life in loving fulfillment of duty.

You supported the holy family of Nazareth with the work of your hands.

Kindly protect those who trustingly come to you.

You know their aspirations, their hardships, their hopes.

They look to you because they know you will understand and protect them.

You too knew trial, labour, and weariness.

But amid the worries of material life your soul

was full of deep peace and sang out in true joy.

 Assure those you protect that they do not labour alone.

 Teach them to find Jesus near them and

to watch over him faithfully as you have done. Amen

Pope John XXIII

Dear Families,

It has been so wonderful to see many families in our school and connecting with our staff and each other. We look forward to a year of reconnection and celebrating our beautiful school and
community.

2023 Vision

At the Annual General Meeting in Week 3, I shared the areas for vision for St Joseph’s Memorial School for 2023 and beyond.

The key areas of focus are:

Relationships & Culture: Co-constructing three school pillars and values.

Literacy and Numeracy School strategy and shared practices to create a shared school curriculum handbook.

Wellbeing Creating a school wellbeing policy of whole school shared practices.

Community Partnership and events.

Infrastructure: Site developments at Bridge St and William St.

Preschool and Ready for Reception Program development.

Communication: SETQA school planning, reports & parent engagement.

Catholic Education South Australia Clarity Project – Making learning visible for all students.

Graduate Leadership Program – Providing opportunities for all students to enhance their leadership capabilities.

Creating shared school values and pillars

This year we will be constructing three school pillars to guide our future direction for growth and three shared school community values that will guide our actions in everything we do. We would like all community members including staff, students, parents and the community to have the opportunity to share in the creation of the three school pillars and three school values, so we have devised a short two question survey to gain your integral input to help us in this process. The survey will ask to you to name the three pillars and three values that you feel best represent the school moving forward with the opportunity for elaboration and discussion. We sincerely appreciate your insights into this process and look forward to sharing the collectively co-constructed school pillars and values with you.

Please feel free complete the short survey by clicking the link below:

SJMS Values and Pillars

Catholic Education South Australia Clarity Project in action at St Joseph’s Memorial

As mentioned above, one of our areas of focus this year is to undertake the Clarity Project to create shared teaching and learning practices that help make learning more visible to students. We have commenced this project with teachers creating and sharing learning intentions for tasks that focus on what students would have learnt by the end of the lesson or activity, such as what is the learning they should retain and take away with them. Then next practice we have introduced involves teachers creating and sharing success criteria for tasks. Success criteria help students to know what's expected of them to know exactly what they need to know or do to be successful with their learning.

Below we have an example of Literacy learning intentions and success criteria used in our classrooms:

Another Clarity practice we have introduced is a ‘Bump It Up Wall’, which consist of linear visual rubrics presented in the classroom that clearly show students how they can progress in their learning for a specific task. The walls can be used for any subject and students use them to gain specific information to help them enhance their learning and work.

Below we have two examples of Literacy ‘Bump It Walls’ used in our classrooms that focus on narrative writing and persuasive writing progression:

I am looking forward to seeing the positive impact that introducing the Clarity practices will have to enhance student learning and achievement outcomes.

Chess Club

In recent weeks our Year 4 students initiated a Chess Club at recess and lunchtime. It has been great seeing students from various year levels play against each other whilst learning more about the game.

School Board

Our School Board has an advisory role in supporting the Principal in planning and implementing the overriding direction of the school. We formulate and approve policies and hear updates from staff. Alongside the School Board sits the School Finance Committee. Some members of the Board also sit on this committee and we discuss the specific financial situation of the school, monitor income and expenditure and plan the annual budget for each year. The Chair of the Finance Committee then presents to the whole School Board. At our Annual General Meeting the group voted in three new parent representatives to the school board. In addition, we have a new staff representative in Mr David Holmes. In future newsletters, we will be sharing information about the members of our school board for you as a community to know them.

School Sports Program

The school sports program is well underway this term with the Cricket, Basketball and Netball. We are appreciative of work the parent volunteers as coaches have been doing to help the afterschool and weekend sports program run smoothly. It brings me great joy to see the positive buzz of energy on mornings that practices are held at the school. 

Southern Cross Article

Recently, I was interviewed by the Southern Cross Newspaper and was featured in the March edition. In the article I shared my passion for education, building positive relationships, and faith. Here is a link to the article if you would like to read it:

https://thesoutherncross.org.au/schools/2023/02/28/strong-faith-guides-young-principal/