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

This week for staff prayer, I posed the statement “Never have I ever …” to the staff. They had to think about something they had never done, felt or experienced before COVID19. Their responses brought to light the many changes we have faced in recent weeks. Some of the responses highlighted insecurities and anxieties of living with the current restrictions in place, the positives of spending more time with family, the loss of not seeing students, the change in everyday routines (particularly shopping for toilet paper) and there were plenty of humorous responses as well!

Today I posed the same statement to some of our students, Never have I ever …

• done home learning or felt locked in – Maddie, Yr 6
• missed school – Diego, Yr 4
• experienced having barely any books – Anon, Year 5
• missed a tennis class – Esmee, Yr 3
• had to stand 1.5m apart from people – Knox, Yr 5
• done gymnastics online – Myah, Yr 3
• exploded a science experiment with my dad – Anon, Yr 3
• spent the holidays without going to a movie at the cinema, Anon, Yr 3
• missed a school piano lesson – Anon, Yr 5
• been in a pandemic before – Anon, Yr 6

I invite you to take a moment to reflect on our new ‘normal’ and think about your “Never have I ever” statement. It is a rather therapeutic process to stop and ponder all that is, all that was and all that will be.

Mother’s Day Breakfast, Iso Style

Whilst we are not able to celebrate Mother’s Day with our usual breakfast and Prayer Celebration, we are looking forward to seeing many of you for our ‘drivethru breakfast’ this Friday. We will be delivering fresh bacon and egg rolls to your car between 8am and 9am. Pop the kids in the car and drive through to celebrate Mother’s Day in iso style. For catering purposes, we did ask that you RSVP’d to our SZapp survey by 3pm today … however, if you missed this deadline please email me amy.doszpot@cg.catholic.edu.au by 8am tomorrow morning if you will be ‘joining’ us for breakfast and advise how many bacon and egg rolls you will need.

We Are all in This Together

I would love to share on our Facebook page how, as a community, you have been participating in the remote learning program. Please email me a photo of your child/ren using our Seeds to learn, be, create and collaborate from home or even a “Never have I ever” statement so that we can share the notion, even though we are apart, we are still together. We are St Joseph’s! We are a Christ-Centred Community!

Return to School

In the coming days we will be communicating via SZapp our plans for the recommencement of face to face teaching at St Joseph’s and the measures we will be putting in place to ensure the safety of our students, parents and staff. Please continue to monitor all communication from the school to ensure you are ware of developments. Be reassured that we cannot wait to have our community back together again.  

Installing SZapp

As the main platform of communication between school and home, please ensure you have downloaded SZapp onto your device and set up the required notifications. If you feel you are not getting notifications at the moment, we suggest you delete the app and reload. There have been updates throughout recent months. 

How to install SZapp

Yours in Christ,

Religious Life of St Joseph’s

Season of Easter and Mother’s Day

This coming Sunday is the fifth Sunday of Easter. In the Gospel (John 14:1-12) Jesus starts by telling his disciples, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me.'

During times of challenge, Jesus’ message to not let our hearts be troubled and to trust in God can be hard to live. We are currently all in unchartered territory and the ground beneath us keeps shifting. The Gospel this week also encourages us to examine family relationships. In Jesus, we see and know the Father. And the Father is known through the life and work of the Son, Jesus.

As we approach Mother’s Day, we often spend time reflecting on the mother’s in our lives and the role of motherhood. As we reflect on mothers, we think about their significant role in our lives.  In families, we often share physical or behavioural mannerisms. We might hear, “she’s her mother’s daughter.” In children, we see and know the mothers. At St Joseph’s we are so blessed to have the mothers and grandmothers that we do in our community. Though we spend less time with these amazing women, we see them and their influence in the children we are so grateful to work with every day. At this time more than ever Mothers, you need to know that you are doing an amazing job looking after your families and your children really do appreciate all you do (even when they do not tell you they do).

Melanie Stratford

Religious Education Coordinator

melanie.stratford@cg.catholic.edu.au