Wow what a great week Catholic Education Week has been!
On Monday our school was lucky enough to have received a visit from Terri and Robert Irwin. They shared informative talk about the croc research project that they have been conducting, share some amazing photos and animal facts. They also reminded us to always be croc wise. Do you know how long a crocodile can stay underwater? They showed us the tracking data and we were shocked to see that Drew a 5m crocodile cross Stones crossing a least one a day and is a permanent resident of that area. We believe that one of his favourite spots is a rock hole with an overhanging swing. Every child was very fortunate to receive gifts and a magazine from Australia Zoo. Ask your child about the story Terri told about the Couscous.
This week we joined in Celebrating Catholic Education Week with the other 305 Catholic schools in Queensland that educate around 149,000 students and employ more than 20,000 teachers and staff. This annual event is held to promote the special ethos of Catholic schools and to highlight the great things that take place in Catholic schools every day.
This year’s theme was: Many Voices. One Spirit.
Catholic education is committed to making a difference in the lives of those in our schools and in the wider community by challenging young people to live out the message of Jesus and to reach their full potential as compassionate, contributing, life-giving members of society.
At St Joseph’s we strive to be the image of Jesus to all those around us. We are his representatives and our actions should reflect his values. These values are incorporated into our everyday life at school through the use of basic manners, a positive attitude, showing tolerance towards others, giving time for reflection and using encouraging language to highlight the behaviours, values and attitudes that we want to see in our students.
We began the Celebration with a whole school liturgy on Tuesday morning and had activities in each class each day around living out the message of Jesus. Thursday afternoon we had a wonderful afternoon of song with each class presenting a hymn or song that inspires the class. We then all sang together the Mary MacKillop song ‘Never See a Need Without doing Something About It’ and the Torres Strait Islander song ‘Adatat Mili’.
