Dear Parents, Carers and the St Joseph’s Community,

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Tomorrow we will be celebrating Mary's Assumption into heaven with Mass at 12:00 pm and I warmly invite members of our school community to join us. The assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven has long been held as an important Catholic belief. The belief was not defined as dogma, however, until 1950 by Pope Pius XII. The dogma teaches that Mary, who was without sin, was taken, body and soul, into the glory of heaven. Thursday’s Gospel highlights Mary's faith. Mary's faith enabled her to recognise the work of God in her people's history and in her own life. Her openness to God allowed God to work through her so that salvation might come to all. Mary is a model and symbol of the Church. May we be like Mary, open and cooperative in God's plan.

Working Bee

Thank you to the MANY families and staff who gave their time to help at our working bee for the school Musical last Saturday. It was a tremendous display of what an amazing community we have here at St Joseph’s. Watch this space for information about another working bee!

Science Week

Today we celebrated National Science Week: Destination Moon, with a showcase of student work in our mini Science Fair. Congratulations to the following students who received prizes for their contributions:    

On Friday, Max G, Ella O, Emmanuel A and Ivan S from Year 5 and 6 will be attending Government House to compete in the Governor General’s Design Challenge. We wish you the best of luck! A big thank you to Mrs Annette Carroll who has coordinated our Science Week activities and initiatives.

Book Week

Next Wednesday, students are invited to come to school dressed as their favourite book character. We will be having a parade at 9:15 am and as always invite members of our school community to join us. I know the staff have been busy organising their costumes!

Father’s Day Breakfast

Don’t forget to save the date for our Father’s Day Breakfast on Friday 1 September at 8am. Invitations with further information will be sent out early next week. If you are a mum and are available to help set up, cook or serve for our dads please email me on amy.doszpot@cg.catholic.edu.au Set up and cooking will begin at 7 am.

SZapp to Replace Skoolbag

As we continue through the second half of the year, we will move more that we do across to the SZapp platform that we use for our newsletter and website. The next phase of the transition begins this week with the addition of the Student Absent Note capability to the app. If you already have SZapp on your device, there is nothing additional that you need to do – you can simply start to submit absentee notes for your child via SZapp, rather than Skoolbag. The format and functionality is very similar and the process here at school remains the same. The note is received at the Front Office email address and forwarded directly to the class teacher. This is a great way to complete the required notice when your child is absent from school.

If you are yet to download SZapp onto your device, the instructions are included again with this newsletter. Please download the app and then subscribe to the newsletter and set up any wanted alerts. The next phase of the transition will be to use SZapp to communicate alerts to the school community, which will be pushed out via SZapp and also populate on the school website. Further details regarding this will be communicated in the coming weeks.

Catholic School Insurance (CCI)

As part of enrolment at St Joseph’s Primary School, Catholic Education arranges cover (Basic) on behalf of all students attending schools that form part of the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn and this policy provides protection to students who are injured whilst engaged in school-based activities. The policy covers for lump sum benefits for death, disablement, broken bones and damaged teeth and extends to cover school fees if a fee-paying parent dies in an accident whilst the student is attending a Catholic School. Additional expenses such as medical expenses (only where law permits CCI to pay), emergency transport, home tuition and school fee relief are also payable under the policy. For further information, please refer to the CCI website and information sheet -https://ccinsurance.org.au/Insurance/Documents/CCI_Student%20Care_InfoFlyer_WEB.pdf

I hope you have an enjoyable end to the week and enjoy some warmer weather over the weekend!

Yours in Christ,

Amy Doszpot

Assistant Principal