Dear families,
We have had a relatively smooth beginning to term 2, and at the time of writing, covid wasn’t impacting too significantly on St Francis. My thoughts are with all families who are currently sick with covid, and I hope you recover quickly. While we have moved – again – into a new phase of living with covid 19, it continues to be important to maintain protocols around keeping everyone safe and well. Please read carefully, my most recent circular, which outlines the current protocols in place to keep our community safe.
Last week’s Mother’s Day morning tea was a wonderful celebration of our mums and important female role models in our children’s lives. My sincere thanks to the P&F for their great coordination of the event, and to Suzanne Adams, our new communications & community liaison officer for her support!
This week, our year 3 and 5 students have been engaged in this year’s NAPLAN assessments. For these cohorts, this is their first attempt at NAPLAN, given the year 5 students didn’t complete the tests in 2020 due to covid. NAPLAN assessments provide the school and families with a snapshot of the way students are progressing with their learning. We use the data gained from NAPLAN, along with a wide range of other datasets and teacher judgement, to shape the learning experiences we provide for the children. Hopefully, results will be available later this year. My thanks to Nives Kresevic for her excellent coordination of the assessments.
As we have commenced term 2, our year 3 and year 6 students have been provided with brand new devices to support their learning! The year 3’s all have an iPad, while the year 6 students have brand new Mac Books. The roll out of this new technology was delayed in term one due to ongoing licencing issues, however this was resolved late last term. The children and their teachers are very excited by these new devices, which represent a significant investment in our ICT capability. Other classes in R-2 and year 5 and 4 have benefitted as well, with the students now having either 1:1 or 1:2 laptop and iPad devices to use in support of their learning. We will continue to invest in our ICT capability into 2023 and beyond. My thanks to David Giannotti for his hard work in getting everything up and running.
Federal Election 2022
Education is an important topic at every election. As we head towards the Federal Election on May 21, Catholics are being asked to consider how their vote will benefit the whole community. It is essential that everybody who cares about Catholic schools understands the key issues. A number of resources are available at Federal Election.
Catholic Education Week
Is being celebrated in Catholic schools throughout South Australia from 9 – 15 May 2022. This week is an opportunity to thank the people that make our schools special and work hard Raising Hearts and Minds every day.
Join us on social media this week in sharing a ‘thank you’ post to our staff and teachers using the hashtag #LoveMyCatholicSchool.
Raising Hearts and Minds Prayer
Loving God,
Guide us to know life in its fullness, to raise our hearts and minds to know God’s love.
Raise our hearts and minds to be inspired by Jesus, the Catholic faith and tradition.
Raise our hearts to be loving, compassionate and respectful.
Raise our minds to be inquisitive, capable and seek truth.
May we be aware of listening to the stirring of our hearts to prompt action.
Guide us to respond to the needs of others and all of God’s creation.
In all our thoughts, words and actions, help us raise our hearts and minds
in creating the world you desire.
Loving God hear our prayer
Amen
Phil Schultz
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