From the Principal's Desk

Dear Members of St Joseph’s Family,

Junior Primary Sports Carnival

On Wednesday, the sun was shining brightly and we were able to hold our Kindy to Year 3 Athletics Carnival.  Thank you and congratulations to all our students for their outstanding sportsmanship, resilience and perseverance.  Thank you also to Ms Frost for organising our carnival, to the Year 11 Food Students for providing a delicious morning tea and to the Year 6 Student Leaders and parent helpers for all they did to assist in making our carnival so successful!                 

Cyber Safety Presentations

On Monday 13 and Tuesday 14 September, all students from Years 5 to 12 will listen to presentations from renown speaker Paul Litherland, from Surf Online Safe.  Paul’s sessions are age-appropriate but are designed to really make the students question what they are doing online.

A parent session will be run on Monday 13 September at 6:30pm in the Primary Performing Arts Auditorium.  This is not to be missed as it will really open your eyes to what your children are able to access online and how to keep them safe.  This session is open to other members of the community who may like to hear him so please spread the word to friends and family.  Topics addressed will include:
 Cyber Bullying – Legislation surrounding this and how it is affecting our kids.
 Digital Citizenship – Where our kids are going online, the Apps they are using and the information they are sharing.
 Online Footprint - How easy it is to find kids online and what they can do to minimise their risk.
 Social Networking & Networking in general - How the systems work and how to overcome their reach.
 Online Gaming and Website Use - Risks and uses.
 Tips & Tricks - How to keep an eye on your kids through software and hardware.  Easy instructions on what we can do to keep them safe.

And of course, anything else you wish to discuss.  If you would like to have a look at Paul’s website, please go to: www.surfonlinesafe.com.au

Whilst the parent session is free, we are seeking an RSVP via the link below to ensure we have sufficient seating available for those who wish to attend:  https://forms.office.com/r/XUFRtqGqnb

Family Games Night

Please mark next Friday 17 September in your diaries and come along to our Family Games Night being held from 4:00pm- 6:15pm on the Secondary Campus oval and tennis courts.  We will have a free sausage sizzle, bouncy castle and lots of games for the whole family.  I look forward to seeing you all there.

2022 School Year

It is that time of the year when we start looking at 2022 classes and enrolments.  Should you not be returning to St Joseph’s School, please ensure you let us know as soon as possible and place your intentions in writing addressed to the Principal.  It helps us with forward planning and allows time for interviews and orientation.  We thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Condolences

On behalf of St Joseph’s School community, our deepest sympathy is extended to Secondary staff Renee Marasco and family on the passing of her brother and Jada Yengkopiong and his family on the sudden death of his mother this week.  Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families during this difficult time.

God Bless

Andrea Woodgate
Principal 

Primary News                                            

Northam Show

If you are attending the Northam Show this weekend, please go along to the Education Pavilion to see some of the brilliant work that has been created by our students.  Thank you to Ms Dymnicki for her work in setting up our School display.

Spirit of the Arts Festival

This coming Tuesday, 14 September, our Primary Choir have been invited to perform in Yagan Square and Forrest Chase as part of the Catholic Schools Spirit of the Arts Festival.  This will be the first public performance by the Choir and under Mr Reidy’s guidance, they have been practising incredibly hard.  I look forward to attending their performance next week.

Primary Learning Journey Postponed

The Primary Learning Journey originally scheduled for next Friday as part of the Family Games Night is postponed and will be held on Friday 22 October (Term 4, Week 2) when we celebrate Grandparents Day.

May you all have a lovely weekend with your families.

Michelle Christian
Head of Primary

Class in Focus:  Kindergarten Gold

This term, the Kindergarten students have been learning in an ‘Under the Sea’ classroom.  We have been exploring the text ‘Orange Fish’ through our talk for writing program.  We welcomed a class pet, a goldfish the students named Diddums.  Each week we have enjoyed investigating different sea creatures, making artwork and had a lot of fun with our hands-on activities.

We have experienced our first Book Week!  And, we all looked great in our costumes. This week, we ran a race at our first sports carnival and made our teachers very proud.

Jess Morris, Sr Glory & Deb Palmer
Kindy Gold Staff

Class in Focus:  Year 2 Blue

This term, the Year 2s have been learning all about communities.  In our classroom, we have a coffee shop, mechanics, detective agency, farmer’s market and a veterinary/doctors’ corner.  We absolutely love role playing how we would run each of these shops.

In English, we have been learning how to write a procedure.  The text we are practicing at the moment teaches us how to make a lemonade stand.  Did you know that you should set up your lemonade stand in a good spot in your neighbourhood?  It is very important for people to see your sign from the street.  Later in the term we will be teaching Ms Drudi and Mrs Smith how to set up our own shops. We love being creative in our writing.

                            

                       

The Year 2s have also been learning about multiplication and arrays.  We made array cities to go in our classroom.  We have also been learning about 3D objects.  This week we have been making cubes, prisms and pyramids using match sticks and marshmallows.  It is so much fun being able to do both Maths and Art at once!

In Drama, we have been learning about improvisation.  Mrs Smith has been teaching us all about the different drama elements and how to perform in front of an audience.  Next week, we will be going to the Fremantle Big Top (Circus WA).  We will have the opportunity to showcase our great dramatic skills in front of 3 circus professionals.  We cannot wait!

Term 3 has been very busy but also extremely fun!  We cannot believe we have nearly finished our time in Year 2 and can’t wait to see what Term 4 brings!

Rebecca Drudi
Year 2 Blue Teacher

Secondary News

Learning Area in Focus:  English

Year 12 English ATAR
Year 12 English ATAR students have been busy working on assessments this term, applying all the concepts and themes they have been learning throughout the year.  The term will be completed with Exam Preparation and resources to assist with this process.  Teams is brimming with resources and materials that have been analysed throughout the year, past exams and practice exam sections for students to utilise in their studies.  Students will be back in Week 2 of the holidays to complete their Semester Two Exams and then will be deep in preparation for their ATAR exams.

We have had a busy year with a lot of new concepts to learn about and apply to other texts.  We wish English ATAR students all the best with their studies and their efforts in the final exams!

Year 9 English
Year 9 English students have been busy studying the novel, “The Outsiders”, by SE Hinton this term.  We have completed comprehension questions and learned about Representation and Context of Production.  In our studies we will be analysing other texts to research Context of Production and to determine the Representations that have been made of groups in our own society.  From this, students will elicit the meanings and purposes of the creation of texts and complete a short answer Assessment on these concepts.

Rebecca Doughty and Annette Fox
Secondary English Staff

Learning Area in Focus:  Mathematics

Statistics
Recently the Government conducted a nationwide census.  This exercise captures the information of virtually every Australian in our population.  However, it is a very expensive activity costing approximately 300 million dollars.  For this reason, most information is gathered by surveys.  The Year 9 Mathematics, Year 10 Course B, Year 11 Essential and Year 12 Methods students have all been studying statistics gathered from surveys.  The Year 9 and 11’s have been investigating the heights of grown women and men.  The Year 10’s are investigating people’s favourite car colours and Year 12’s can calculate the confidence interval of a survey estimate containing a population value from a census.

Group Work
Group work in Mathematics provides students with the opportunity to apply critical and analytical thinking and communication skills.  It helps to develop effective teamwork, appreciation for other people’s views and perspectives and promotes a variety of problem-solving methods.  It also allows students to demonstrate active learning and enhances their understanding of Mathematics.

Students explore challenging problems to solve, discuss all possible outcomes and present their findings amongst their peers.  These discussions give individual students a chance to practice verbally explaining their ideas in a clear and logical manner, whilst the other members of the group can develop their effective listening and question asking skills.

Peer Tutoring
This term, Year 12’s have assisted Year 8’s in their Mathematics classes once a week.  Today was a classic example where students were learning the capabilities of the Excel program and completing an exercise involving a frequency table and the corresponding column graph.  This peer tutoring enhanced the Year 12’s understanding of the applications of Excel and aided the Year 8’s in achieving the completion of their tasks.

Mike Hillyer & Caroline Parnham
Secondary Mathematics Staff

Australian Barcode for Life Science Project

On Thursday 2 September, a group of four Year 10 students from our da Vinci Club travelled to the University of Western Australia (UWA) School of Molecular Sciences to gain knowledge and experience about genetic sciences, biochemistry. gene sequencing and extracting of DNA.

The day commenced with a short introduction to the inaugural Australian Barcode for Life (ABFL) project, and we were then assigned our laboratory ambassadors, ours being 2018 St Joseph’s School graduate, Belinda Johnson, who is currently in her final year at UWA in Biomedical Sciences and utilises these skills in many areas of her coursework.

The first step to the project was extracting the DNA from a leaf.  This involved learning how to use a handheld pipette and using a micro-pestle to grind the leaf down with an extraction liquid in a buffer in the sample tube.  After grinding to break down the cell membrane, we added more extraction liquid and placed the sample into the centrifuge.  After our samples came out of the centrifuge we carefully extracted the supernatant (the liquid left in the sample), then we added alcohol to the supernatant and let it precipitate for ten minutes.

PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) is a reaction in the process of which is needed to allow the DNA to be amplified and identified from the prepared solution.  Once the added alcohol has precipitated with the DNA, it is ready to enter the 'incubator' or mini-PCR.  This machine makes millions of copies of specific DNA strands by breaking and reforming the hydrogen bonds connecting the nucleotides in the DNA.  The same type of mini-PCR is currently on the International Space Station and being used to conduct biochemical experiments in orbit.  The PCR machine also detects any viruses that may have entered the DNA sample - this includes COVID-19!

Gel Electrophoresis is the process used to separate charged molecules.  This is according to size and commonly used for DNA.  When we had the supernatant prepared, we used a large pipette to drop 10 micro-litres into the wells of an agarose gel block.  This was then put into a Blue Gel Electrophoresis unit, which gives us the sequences of the gene from our DNA sample.  This then allows us to form a sequence of nucleotides and place them into an online database called BLAST, that does a comparison of this gene compared to all others entered in the database.  This then gives us the species and related species of our sample.  We found that there were many different matches for our species, meaning that it has been previously barcoded and is not a new species, which for this first session was quite deliberate.

At the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but so excited to go back in two weeks for the Biodiversity Conference and livestream.  It was an amazing opportunity to work with research grade equipment and learn about the large threat to biodiversity.  The ABFL project aims to have students learn use the latest technology in a university laboratory to barcode DNA, while learning about ecosystems and biodiversity to build the mindset and skills to foster awareness and stewardship.

Now onto our homework and to begin to prepare our samples, which will form a part of our presentation to the delegates at next week’s academic conference.

Hannah, Kate, Stephanie and Gubek

Curriculum Matters

As we get into the final weeks, it is very important that the required effort is maintained right up until the end as to ensure all the good work completed this term is not undone with the last task or two.

By putting in the hard work now, you can rest and be satisfied in a few weeks’ time that you have done the best that you can do. Speaking of coming close to the end, this is something that the Year 12 ATAR students are currently dealing with.  Next week in most instances will be the final week of content teaching, leading into a review week prior to their end of year school-based examinations in the second week of the school ‘holidays’.  Prior to that, students involved in Physical Education Studies will be completing their WACE practical examination during the first week of the ‘holidays’.  Even before that at the beginning of Week 10, ViSN and SIDE students will be sitting their school-based end of year examinations.

A reminder to all Year 12 students sitting examinations to ensure you have logged into the SCSA student portal and downloaded a copy of your personalised written examination timetable as soon as possible.  This copy must be brought to every examination!

A very busy time ahead for the Year 12 students and one we wish them all the best for. Remember students, be organised, create and follow a study plan.  If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

Mark Gargano
Years 7-12 Curriculum Coordinator

Catholic Performing Arts Festival

On Thursday evening 2 September, our Secondary Choir competed in the Catholic Performing Arts Festival Choral Category.  This was the first time our Secondary Choir have competed in the festival since the days of Sister Leonard McCarthy's famous choirs...

Our choir opened the evening singing, 'Copperhead Road', by Steve Earle and 'Soldier, Poet, King', by the Oh Hellos with great enthusiasm.  The crowd was very appreciative of the performance and our students were thrilled to be able to get the chance to sing in front of a large captive audience and in the presence of 12 other magnificent choirs.

The choir thoroughly enjoyed the evening of choral entertainment have vowed to be back next year, bigger and better.

Lloyd Reidy

Marist Champagnat Cup

On Wednesday 1 September, students from Years 10 to 12 competed in the annual Champagnat Cup.  The Champagnat Cup is a combined Netball, Basketball and Football Carnival involving the ‘Marist Schools of Western Australia'.  This year was the first year our School has been involved in the event and we battled well all day across the sports in wet and windy conditions.

Our students did an incredible job representing our School, especially considering the talent that they had to face across the three sports.  Our teams performed above and beyond their own expectations and it was incredible to see the unexpected positive efforts and resilience among members who are not regulars to certain sports.

                   

It is moments like these that we truly witness the fantastic school spirit that St Joseph’s School Northam possesses.  We would like to thank Mrs Leanne Hunt and Mr Ryan Sinclair for coaching the Netball and Football teams and we look forward to competing in the Champagnat Cup in future years.

Lloyd Reidy
Religious Education Coordinator

ACC Athletics Carnival Results

Last Friday, 3 September, our small but enthusiastic ACC squad participated in the annual ACC Athletics Carnival.  I would like to congratulate all our athletes as everyone put in their best efforts on the day, displaying fabulous sportsmanship and we came home with several wins, as listed below:

Senior Boys 3rd
Overall Boys 4th
Overall School 5th

Individual rankings were achieved by:
U13 Boys   Jayden Oliver 4th
U13 Girls   Kayla Willmott 2nd
U14 Boys   Kale Treloar 4th
U14 Girls   Alivia Parker 2nd
U15 Boys   Seth Clark 3rd
Open Boys   Aiden O'Driscoll 4th
Open Girls   Carmen Reynders 2nd

A big thank you is extended to our staff, Mrs O'Driscoll and Mr Vernede, who helped make the day run smoothly and assisted with compiling the team amidst a busy term.  Thank you to all involved with the ACC Carnival.

Adrienne Suckling
Secondary Sports Coordinator

Our School

Family Games Afternoon - 17 September

On Friday 17 September, from 4.00pm-6.15pm, our School will be hosting a Family Games afternoon.  We look forward to having many of our families join us on the Secondary Campus oval and tennis courts.  Come and join in a fun Family Games Afternoon for students and their families.  There will be a Jungle Obstacle inflatable, Bouncy Castle, games, free sausage sizzle and coffee van available to purchase coffee, etc.  Please direct all queries to Mrs Johnson, Chaplaincy Worker, on 9621 3565.

2021 Parent Participation Levy

Parent Participation Levy cards are now due to be handed in to the Business Manager by the end of Term 3.  These can be dropped into either Admin Office and Mr Johnson will arrange for the deduction of the Levy from your Fees Account.  We thank you for your ongoing support of our School.

Steve Johnson
Business Manager

Our Community

Sacred Heart Goomalling Commemorative Paver

Sacred Heart Catholic School (formerly Presentation Convent) Goomalling are conducting a commemorative brick paver drive.  The aim is to construct a brick path through our History Garden to honour the legacy of all those past and present who have contributed to our School over the past 110 years.  Bricks are $30.00 each.  Order forms can be collected from Sacred Heart School office, by phoning 9629 1174 or emailing admin@shcsgoom.wa.edu.au and we will send an Order form to you.

Extend B&ASC

Extend is the place for your children to thrive, learn and play, so what are you waiting for? Come along to Before School Care for a healthy breakfast and a great start to the day. 

We are now advertising places for the coming October holidays with a program that holds thriving experiences, non-stop entertainment and blissful activities for all our children to enjoy!  Our theme for the holiday program is, “Discover, Learn, Play Spring”.  Enrolling is easy and ensures we have the information to safely care for your child so enrol and book now via extend.com.au   

Better Health Program

Is your child aged 7 to 13 years of age, above a healthy weight and in need of support to improve eating and activity habits?  The Better Health Program is a free, 10-week, online program for children and families.  The weekly sessions offer free resources and weekly coaching calls with trained and qualified health coach to help keep you on track.  Participants are provided with a fitness tracker as well.  Get involved and start collecting weekly tokens and prizes.  To register or find out more, contact 1300 822 953 or email betterhealthprogram.org

VacSwim Summer Program

The Department of Education’s VacSwim program is now open for enrolments for both the October and summer school holidays.  Help keep your child safe in the water and enrol them in VacSwim.  Applications should be made online at; education.wa.edu.au/vacswim

Holiday Adventures @ Perkins

Calling all budding young scientists!  Join the BioDiscovery Centre at the Perkins Institute during the coming school holidays.  These sessions are open to students aged 10-14 years only and are held at the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, QEII Medical Centre, Nedlands.  In October, the focus will be on Microbiology and in January participants will look at Cells and Proteins.  For details, including cost of sessions, please visit: perkins.org.au/community or email: education@perkinsorg.au

Central Districts Tennis Zone Coaching/Competition

The Central Districts Tennis Association in partnership with Cunderdin and Quairading Tennis Clubs, is offering a series of coaching sessions for interested players.  The sessions will look at introduction to tennis, technical, fitness and tactical aspects of the game.  This is a great way for juniors throughout the zone to meet with each other and get involved in tennis.  Sessions commence on Sunday 12 September at the Cunderdin Tennis Club and involve a session at Quairading and a day camp in October prior to the D’Arcy Slater Cup being held in Busselton in the school holidays.  For all details, please contact Aimee Leeson (0409278015) or Michelle Gethin (0428128153).

Northam Volunteer Fire & Rescue Service Open Day

The Northam Volunteer Fire & Rescue Service is throwing open the massive doors of the Fire Station on Sunday 19 September between 10.00am and 2.00pm - we are at 43 Wellington Street, Northam.

We are not only looking for new volunteers but also showing the community what we do and what fire trucks that we have in Northam! We will have a free Sausage Sizzle running that rivals Bunnings, and there will be activities for kids and information on Emergency Services Cadets if and when they are old enough!  Parents bring your kids down, check out the trucks, squirt some water.

Come and meet some of the ordinary people doing extraordinary things for this community! 

Northam Lawn Tennis Club Junior Tennis Coaching

Enrolments now open for Junior Tennis Coaching Sessions which will take place at the Northam Country Club on Wood Drive each Wednesday afternoon for eight weeks beginning Wednesday 13 October 2021.  Lessons cater for all ability and ages from 4 to 18 years and are conducted in small groups with experienced coaches from Frontier Tennis, who travel from Perth each week.  Groups will be set up dependent on ability, ages, enrolment numbers, and coordinator and coach decisions.

Coaching groups will be finalised on 6 October 2020 and notifications sent soon after.  Placement cannot be guaranteed if a session group is already at capacity at time of enrolling.  Please request an enrolment form via email: alice.warner@bigpond.com  For further information, please contact Alice on 0418 951 153.

Junior Basketball ‘Come & Try’ Day

Northam Amateur Basketball Association invites all teams, players and families to come along on Tuesday 21 September to the Northam Rec Centre.  Enjoy some skills and fun games, teams already formed can get together, players needing a team can meet up with others and form a new team, parents can meet each other and lots more.

Come & Try session times are:
Years 3 and 4 at 4.15pm
Years 5 and 6 at 5.00pm
Years 7 and 8 at 5.45pm
Years 9 to 11 at 6.30pm

For our Girls’ competition, we encourage as many girls who would like to play to come down at your session time as we need to know numbers to navigate how we will group the divisions.  Each session is split up into 45mins according to your current school year group.

Registrations will open soon.  A link will be sent out to previous team coaches/managers and anyone else starting a team.  This link is to register your team, then it will generate a code for you to send to your players.  Registrations close on October 5.

Northam Running Club

This local Sports Club is currently meeting at Henry Street oval at the undercover area at 5.15pm on Thursdays to do running drills.  The best place to find out about our Club is by following us on Facebook @northamrunclub   Please direct all enquiries to Enrika on 0424 399 053.

Uniform Shop 

Opening Times:                             Mondays - 3.15pm to 4.45pm       
                                                      Thursdays - 2.45pm to 4.15pm    

Update on School Sports Shorts supply - unfortunately, there are still delays getting our sports shorts back in stock.  As soon as they arrive, all backorders will be filled and distributed to students to bring home.  Thank you for your patience with this extended delay.  Please check St Joseph's School Facebook page and our School newsletters regularly for updates.                                  

Can’t Get To The Shop?

The restriction on the number of families able to access the Uniform Shop at one time will remain in place due to the amount of stock we are now carrying.  Families are encouraged to continue to order uniform items via the online shop.  Please note we are no longer accepting email or telephone orders.

Please keep in mind when ordering, that your items will go home Tuesday and Friday of each week, as Monday and Thursday are the days the Shop is open.  When placing an order via the Online Shop, it will appear on a report the following day.  For example; if you place your order on Monday, the report issues on Tuesday which means it will not be organised until Thursday and so go home on Friday.

Michelle James 
Primary - 9621 3524

Canteen News

Primary Canteen - Volunteers Required

The Primary Canteen is now averaging 300 lunches over the four days each week.  As the number of lunches is increasing and the number of helpers is minimal, we are making changes to the Menu (as some of you will notice).  Going forward our regular menu of Sausage Sizzles is moving from Tuesday to Thursday.  Thursday's menu of nachos, sausage rolls and pies will now be available on Tuesdays.  If we do not receive any further helpers, more changes to the menu will occur to make it more manageable for our regular volunteers so you will see less options to choose from.

Our Primary Canteen Helper Roster for the next two weeks is below:   

Primary - Week 9  

Tuesday	14 Sept	Julie Sandrini
Wednesday	15 Sept
Thursday	16 Sept	Julie Sandrini
Friday	17 Sept	Desrae Smth	Soup of the Day:  Chicken & Sweet Corn

Primary - Week 10

Tuesday	21 Sept	Julie Sandrini
Wednesday	22 Sept
Thursday	23 Sept	Julie Sandrini, Sandra D'Costa
Friday	24 Sept	Desrae Smith	Soup of the Day:  Chicken & Vegetable

We are desperately seeking volunteers to work in the Canteen.  Anyone can volunteer; mums, dads and grandparents are all welcome and appreciated!  We are more than happy to operate with two shifts per day if this is more convenient for volunteers.   If you are able help out, please sign up online at   https://signup.com/go/LQaHAbC

We are both looking forward to working with you.  If you have any queries, you are always welcome to contact us on the number below.

Kerri & Angela
Canteen - 9621 3525