Principal's Message
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Welcome to St Joseph’s Primary School Red Cliffs, where we are committed to celebrating our Catholic identity, developing successful life-long learners, maximising student belonging, engagement and connectedness, promoting a welcoming environment and strong community partnerships.
At St Joseph’s we support students to become successful learners, confident individuals and active and informed citizens by providing a comprehensive and inclusive curriculum built on essential skills and authentic contemporary learning which is interactive and innovative, allowing students to think critically, work creatively, analyse information and solve problems. Our highly qualified and caring teachers are committed to developing innovative teaching practices that better prepare our students for life and work in a contemporary world. We assist all students, including children with additional learning needs, to produce their best possible results. We cater for individual needs, learning styles, backgrounds, perspectives and interests through our specialised music, Italian, sport, camps and technology programs as well as involvement in engaging hands on learning opportunities such our participation in the RACV Energy Breakthrough Push Carts Program and Kids Teaching Kids. In addition to this we have a wide range of specific evidence based intervention programs that our trained staff are able to employ to support the individual needs of each child. Children at St Joseph’s are invited and supported to discover God’s presence in their daily lives. The school has a close connection to the Parish Church, participating in school Masses. We strive to make faith real in the world by supporting students to grow in relationship with Jesus Christ and to develop to their full potential as active members of the faith community, through participation in prayer, liturgy, sacraments, social justice and service to others. St Joseph’s has a comprehensive technology program with a school wide 1:1 iPad program, access to laptops and very excitingly a range of robots that allows for stimulating and engaging lessons around coding, mathematics, science and design. We understand the important role technology provides for relevant, engaging learning tasks and the importance of preparing our students to be capable digital citizen in a rapidly evolving technological age. Our extensive music and performing arts program gives each child a strong foundation in the performing arts where students learn to create, read and perform music on instruments such as the marimba (large xylophone), ukulele, recorder. Students are also given the chance to participate in a school musical, compose their own music in the app Garage Band and develop confidence and connectedness to community through a variety of performance opportunities including the Red Cliffs ANZAC Day service and Carols by Candlelight. We provide a variety of extension programs, such as our Junior and Senior Choir, Grade 5/6 Marimba Band and Drumbeat, as well as our pre-school music program ‘Music & Movement for Munchkins’ for three to five year olds. These programs provide a rich variety of experiences that connect directly with our community. At St Joseph’s we provide students with a friendly, caring, and safe environment. We support our students to develop and maintain a strong sense of wellbeing and to be resilient, confident and successful. Wellbeing is a key area of our mission as a Catholic school, where the social and emotional aspect of learning is seen as an essential component of the education of the whole child. At any point in time we have a wide range of preventative, early and critical interventions and our staff have a strong shared commitment to the care of all children at our school. We employ a Pastoral Care worker each day who works with students and other family members in need. Our staff are proactive in the area of wellbeing and approach social learning through restorative philosophies. We promote a family-friendly environment and build strong community partnerships by welcoming and actively encouraging a wide variety of participation in the life of the school. By working together with parents and carers we know we can provide the loving, compassionate, supportive and safe environment crucial to nurturing creative and successful young adults. Principal Mr. Mark Gibson |
