St Joseph's Alstonville

What an amazing Family Day! 💙🩵

Thank you to all our families who joined us for such a wonderful celebration of our St Joseph’s community. Our students, staff and parents looked fantastic in their costumes, bringing our Book Week theme, A Symphony of Stories, to life.

Families joined our students for dance, an Auslan-signed song, digital escape rooms, family CD painting and our Beat the Buzzer music quiz. It was wonderful to see students, parents, grandparents and friends having fun and spending time together.

The generosity of our community was once again incredible. Our bake sale raised more than $600 for St Vincent de Paul, more than 100 books were donated to our library, and almost $5,000 worth of books were sold through our Book Fair, helping to support further improvements to our library. Thank you to everyone who baked, donated and purchased books.

A special thank you to Emma, Pam and our parent volunteers for looking after the canteen and bake sale, and to everyone who helped with the BBQ. Thank you also to Mrs Graveson, Mrs Keogh, Mrs Hall and Miss MacDonald for the huge amount of work they put into transforming our library for Book Week and Family Day.

We began our day together in prayer, and we thank Fr Max and Mrs Jones for leading our beautiful Family Day liturgy.

We were also very proud to present our Family Day Reading Awards to Phoenix, Henry, George, Kalahni, Rhys, Remy and Mitchell, recognising the strong growth they have shown as readers.

These awards have been named in honour of Mrs Nikki Wagner, a long-serving former staff member who made a significant contribution to literacy and to our St Joseph’s community. It was particularly special to have Nikki join us for Family Day and celebrate with us and present the awards.

Finally, a huge thank you to all our staff. A day like this takes an enormous amount of preparation, organisation and teamwork. Thank you for everything you did to create such a memorable day for our students and their families.

Family Day is always a wonderful reminder of what makes St Joseph’s such a special community: our students, families and staff coming together, enjoying one another’s company and celebrating all that we share.

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We would love you to join us for our Family Mass tomorrow at 8.30am! 💛

It will be an extra-special celebration as several of our students make their First Holy Communion, and our school choir will lead the singing.

After Mass, our generous parishioners will be serving pancakes, and families are invited to stay for a chat while the children enjoy a play on the playground.

Everyone is warmly welcome - we would love to see you there!

🎉 ONE WEEK TO GO UNTIL FAMILY DAY 2026! 🎉

We’re getting very excited for Family Day next Friday, 21 August, as we celebrate Book Week: A Symphony of Stories and enjoy a fantastic day together as a St Joey’s community! 📚🎶

Families will join one of our five Aussie music icon groups, Kylie, Wildfire, Powderfinger, The Wiggles or AC/DC, and make their way through a range of fun activities across the school.

There’ll also be plenty happening throughout the day, including our Book Week Parade, Best Dressed Family, Book Sale, Bake Sale and Coffee Cart. ☕🧁📖

It’s always one of the highlights of our school year, and we can’t wait to welcome our families through the gates for a day of fun, stories, music and time together.

Only one week to go! 🎉

🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ Richmond Zone Athletics 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️

What a fantastic day for our Joeys at the Richmond Zone Athletics Carnival!

We were incredibly proud of the 36 St Joseph’s students who represented our school so well. It was a lovely day of competition, fun and great sportsmanship, with our students giving their best across a wide range of events.

Congratulations to all of our competitors. Below are some who achieved outstanding results:

🥉 Darcy – 3rd, 100m
🥇 Kassian – 1st, 100m
🥈 Olly – 2nd, 100m and Runner-Up Age Champion
🥉 Orlando – 3rd, 100m
🥉 Spencer – 3rd, 200m
🥉 Rory – 3rd, 200m
🥇 Hugo – 1st, 1500m and 1st, 800m
🥈 Luca – 2nd, Long Jump
🥇 Jack – 1st, Shot Put

A big thank you to Mr Seymour for coordinating the day and to Miss Clark for supporting our students throughout the carnival.

A number of our Joeys will now progress to represent Richmond Zone at the Diocesan Athletics Carnival in Coffs Harbour next Thursday. We wish them every success and know they will represent our school and the Zone with pride.

Congratulations to all 36 of our Joeys on a wonderful day! 💙

🌿 St Mary MacKillop Feast Day | Service in Action 🌿

One of St Mary MacKillop’s most famous sayings is, “Never see a need without doing something about it.” On Friday, as we celebrated her Feast Day, our students had the opportunity to put these words into action.

We began our celebration with a beautiful liturgy led by Fr Max and prepared by Mrs Jones. A special part of the liturgy was a dramatisation presented by our Year 6 students, developed with Miss McDonald and Mrs Jones. Through the story of the Good Samaritan and the calling of Mary MacKillop to her ministry of education alongside Fr Julian Tenison Woods, our students helped us reflect on what it means to recognise the needs of others and respond with love and action.

Following the liturgy, students across the school took part in acts of service in our school and wider community. They planted our new gardens, made by Mr Wardrop, cleaned and cared for our school environment, created artwork, visited residents at Maranoa Aged Care, and spent time at local early childhood centres playing with and reading to younger children.

Mary MacKillop’s life reminds us that faith is lived through what we do for others. It was wonderful to see our students following her example, looking for where they could make a difference and then doing something about it.

A wonderful celebration of the life and legacy of Australia’s first saint, and of the Josephite spirit that continues to guide our community today. 💙

We're delighted to share that St Joseph's Primary School has been featured in Ballina News Daily for our recent NAPLAN results.

The article recognises the consistent work of our dedicated staff, the effort of our wonderful students, and the strong partnership we share with our families. While we're pleased with the results, we're even more proud of the learning that happens in our classrooms every day and the growth we continue to see in our students.

Thank you to our teachers and support staff for their hard work and commitment, to our students for always striving to do their best, and to our families for your ongoing encouragement and support. These achievements belong to our whole school community.

You can read the full story here:https://ballinanewsdaily.com.au/2026/08/naplan-success-how-one-local-school-is-changing-the-way-children-learn/

NAPLAN success: How St Josephs is changing how children learn To many parents, it might look like a return to the classroom they remember. Children are learning phonics, reading aloud together, practising handwriting, mastering maths facts and being taught by a teacher standing at the front of the room. At St Joseph's Primary School in Alstonville, however, ed...

✨ Our Stage 1 renovations are now complete! ✨

The classrooms have been refreshed with new plaster, paint and carpet. 🎨

The old operable walls have been removed and replaced with a solid wall and door, while acoustic panelling has been installed to help reduce noise and support our focused learning environments. 🔨

We have also removed the fixed storage from around the rooms and introduced more flexible storage solutions, allowing the spaces to better adapt to the needs of our students and teachers. 📚

The renovated classrooms look fantastic, and we know our students will be excited to see the finished spaces tomorrow! 🌟

🖤💛❤️ NAIDOC Assembly 🖤💛❤️

Join us this Friday at 2:15 pm for our NAIDOC Assembly as we celebrate the 2026 theme, “50 Years of Deadly”.

We look forward to welcoming representatives from several local Indigenous organisations, who will present our awards and share the important work they do within our community.

We hope you can join us for this special celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures, achievements and community.

Thank you to all our Mini Vinnies, Year 6 students, parent helpers and staff who braved the cold and came along to support the Vinnies Winter Sleepout!

Our students learned about solidarity, compassion, and what it truly means to care for those in need. We are incredibly proud to have so many young leaders in our school community committed to social justice!

supported🏃‍♀️🏃 What a wonderful day we had at our Athletics Carnival on Friday!

We were blessed with beautiful weather ☀️ and it was a joy to share the day with our friends from St Joseph’s, Coraki. Our students had a fantastic time participating in events, cheering one another on and enjoying the chance to be together as a school community.

A special thank you to Mr Seymour and Mr Maslen for their organisation and leadership in bringing the day together. Thanks to our staff who supported students and ran the activities throughout the day. Thank you also to our parent helpers who supported events and assisted in the canteen, and to Mrs Thrum and Mrs Towns for their amazing work in arranging the canteen for the day. 👏

We are especially proud of the way our students joined in with enthusiasm, showed great sportsmanship and encouraged each other throughout the day.

Well done to everyone involved!