St Joseph's Primary School - Principals news

St Josephs Primary School

Last Friday students from Years 2 through to 6 travelled to Manilla for a gala sports day against students from St Michael’s Manilla. This was a fun day of friendly competition. The purpose of the day was to expose our students to situations where they needed to demonstrate teamwork, resilience and leadership. Our students were able to meet new people and it was pleasing to see so many sitting with students from St Michael’s at lunch. We are looking forward to hosting St Michael’s next year, with our intention to expand the format of the visit to include cultural and academic challenges.

A team of students from Years 4,5 and 6 attended the Brain Olympia challenge in Inverell where we finished 2nd in the Small Schools Challenge which was a great achievement. Students competed in four discipline areas; general knowledge, mathematics, drama and public speaking. Congratulations to those students involved and a big thank you to Mrs Penny Kelly and teacher Mrs Justine Harris for taking the students.

Our leadership team attended a Professional Development day in Tamworth last week where we were introduced to the MaST Project. This project looks at the teaching and learning of mathematics. As a Nation, results in numeracy have not been as good as we would like. This is an exciting project that looks to develop teachers of mathematics and provide them with the latest research-based evidence of what works in the classroom for students. We will have a specialist teacher of mathematics whose role will be to support and coach our teachers to become even better at what they do. We will also be able to call on the support of subject matter experts from the Catholic Schools Office. 

In staffing news it is with a degree of sadness that we farewell Mrs Natalie Anderson from the front office. Nat has been a stalwart of the school over the past 17 years. I have found Nat’s knowledge of the community and its culture invaluable. She is also highly skilled in her position, reliable and trustworthy. Even though we will miss Natalie we know that she is looking forward to her new position and a new chapter in her life. 

Mrs Justine Harris has also decided to revert to her original teaching time being 3 days per week in 2023. We are seeking a part time teacher for 3 days but this can be negotiated. The application and role description can be found on the CSO Website. If you would like any information on any of these positions please contact the school and I would be happy to assist.

Kind Regards

Mr Simon Fleming

Principal