This week as I sought inspiration for my prayer, I came across 40 prayers for Lent. There were lots that would have be great, but I came across this one, so on behalf of all our students and staff, we pray this prayer for our parents and carers.

“God, thank you for my parents. Please draw them close to yourself today. Give them peace, joy, strength and wisdom in decision making. Help them to know You, love You and want to serve You more.”

Our Professional Learning Community

Our vision at St Joseph’s is to grow in excellence within a Christ-centred community. We certainly aspire to keep this front and centre when working with and supporting our students. To be able to do this, as a staff we continue to challenge what we are doing and seek ways to improve and to learn. We aim to grow in excellence, so your children experience great teaching and learning.

This year our Annual Improvement Plan has three key goals –

Each week in some way, teachers meet in grade teams, TLCs (Teaching and Learning Communities) or as a whole staff to specifically work on these three goals. What it currently looks like in practice -

As a learning community, our staff continually strive to reflect on their practice and work collaboratively to find ways to improve and to provide a dynamic learning experience for the students. I thank all the staff for their commitment to what we do and know that as a school, we are growing in excellence within and Christ-centred community.

Catalyst

The above school-wide goals are also part of a systemic Catholic Education initiative called Catalyst. The underpinning belief behind Catalyst is that through providing targeted professional learning for our teachers, that improved student outcomes for all students in our schools will be the result. Catalyst has two bold goals –

At St Joseph’s we are confident that through our ongoing efforts to build professional capacity in our teachers, that we will be an example to others.

For the remainder of this week, I am attending a Principal’s Retreat where we will be continuing to learn more about these system-wide goals and how as a school we can engage fully in this professional learning opportunity.

Please feel free to speak to me at any stage if you would like to find out more about what we are working towards this year and beyond.

Have a great end to the week.

Yours in Christ,

Cameron Tarrant