Week 2 - Term 4

Dear parents and caregivers,

Welcome to term 4! As you will have read, in my letter to the community last week, we have a very busy few weeks ahead! All of the children have returned to school happy and ready for engagement in learning, which has been pleasing, and the weather is beginning to warm up. Dare I say it…..Christmas is coming!

There have been some significant events and activities already this term, which have given life to our community.

Sports Day

Last Monday’s Sports Day was once again a resounding success! Congratulations to all the children, who participated with great energy and spirt. Special congratulations to the Gold team and the Blue team who took out the trophies for the day. I was particularly impressed with the year 6 Team leaders. I was a part of their presentations to be appointed and have watched them flourish with the responsibility of leading their teams into competition.

My sincere thanks to all of our staff, and in particular Mr James Daley and Mr James Goldy, who meticulously planned and oversaw the entire event. As an old PE teacher and Sports Coordinator myself, I have a keen appreciation of what goes into hosting such an event!

Sincere thanks also, to our wonderful P&F sports day committee for arranging a special lunch for the children, and coffee for the adults!

I am very much looking forward to next year’s event!

Master Plan

Last Tuesday, we hosted our Architects-Stallard Meek Flightpath-for wide ranging consultation sessions designed to inform the implementation of our new Master Plan for building developments. Representatives of all members of our school and parish community were invited into the process, and the information shared was rich and varied. Our next meeting with the Architects will be on Monday 8th November – I can’t wait to see what they will have for us!

Communications app coming!

After an engaging presentation last week, we have decided to engage the services of Schoolzine – a community engagement platform that will allow us to engage with the community in a contemporary manner through the use of a simple communications app – yes, there really is an app for that! We are in the early stages of app development, and I look forward to sharing this with you in the very near future.

Community picnic and carols

I am excited to inform you that we will be hosting a community picnic and carols evening this year! These types of events had to be cancelled last year, and it is fantastic that we can come together again this year, to bring the year to a close. The event will be held on the school oval on Friday December 3rd – please add this date to your diaries-there will be further information to come!

Interfaith day

On the first day of this term, our staff engaged in a day of inter faith reflection consisting of visits to and prayer with members of the Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist and Moslem communities at their places of worship. Our staff came away with a deepened appreciation for their own Catholic faith, as well as the connectedness with other faith traditions. Nurturing the faith of our teachers and staff is an important part of being a catholic School community. My sincere thanks to Helen Wilson-Smith for her organisation of the day’s activities.

Have a great week everyone!

God bless,

Phil

Dear Families,

ICAS competition

Earlier this year, students were offered the opportunity to participate in a number of UNSW Educational Assessment Competitions. These academic competitions gave students the chance to ‘compete’ in an Australia wide competition in Spelling, English and Mathematics.

Our congratulations to the following students who took up the challenge:

Year 3

Charlotte Formato, Scarlett Holmes, Reuban Horgan, Layla Shqemza, Grace Warburton and Sameeya Dumra

Year 4

An Nguyen, Billy Palasis, Giorgia Guidi, Siena Pegoli, Neil Sharma, Charlize Sinclair, Sienna Rabica, Nathaniel Williams, Connor Robertson, Nicholas Petridis, Alessio Marrone, Chelsie Chittleborough, Zac Hermann and  Rocco Fontanelli

Year 5

Ollie Lewis and Michael Pegoli

Year 6

Zane Bowbridge, Zoe Cross, Audrey Fisher, Angus Bullen, Nicola Seltsikas and

Lewis Horgan

PIRLS Assessment

This year, our school has been chosen to take part in PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). PIRLS is a large-scale assessment designed to inform educational policy and practice by providing an international perspective of teaching and learning in reading literacy.

PIRLS has been conducted every five years since 2001, with Australia participating for the first time in 2011, again in 2016 and now in 2021.

In Australia, PIRLS is managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Education and Training and the State and Territory Departments of Education.

4CD has been selected to participate in the assessment Wednesday 27 October.  An ‘Information for Parents’ flier was sent home with the students from 4CD last week.

Lunch sorting

Each Thursday and Friday, a team of enthusiastic parents/grandparents come to school to sort lunch orders.  If you are on our volunteer roster and find you are free at 1pm on a Thursday or Friday and would like to lend a hand, we’d love to have your help. Sorting usually takes 20-30mins.

God bless, Nives Kresevic

SOCIAL JUSTICE WEEK

Social Justice is at the heart of our faith.

St Francis School is about promoting the values of care and compassion, respect for the dignity and worth of each individual. Through our social justice initiatives, we strive to achieve that part of our mission as a Catholic school.

During Week 10, students were involved in a variety of class initiatives to be of service to others in giving ‘a hand up’ to those in need.

Donated funds to Catholic Charities, assists Catholic welfare agencies in their work with the disadvantaged, homeless, respite care, disabled and those with mental health issues.

These include the Hutt Street Centre, St Patrick’s Special School, Our Lady of La Vang School, Centacare Catholic Family Services, Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, and the SA Catholic Deaf Community.

We have raised $1994 for Catholic Charities. A fantastic effort.

Congratulations everyone!

STAFF REFLECTION DAY- MULTI FAITH EXPERIENCE

“A journey becomes a pilgrimage as we discover day by day, that the distance travelled is less important than the experiences gained.”   Ernest Kurtz

On Monday October 11 staff enthusiastically engaged in a multi-faith staff reflection day.  We visited the Beit Shalom synagogue, the Gurdwara Sarbi Khalsa Sikh temple, the Phap Hoa Buddhist temple, completing our pilgrimage with a visit to Islamic Arabic Centre & Masjid Al Kahlil Mosque.

The staff were in awe of the welcome, generosity and conversation at each place of worship. Through the unique experience of being immersed in dialogue with the religious faith of others the staff were able to engage with and reflect on their own faith and other religious beliefs and practices.

Religious education is more than the acquisition of knowledge. It should not only provide cognitive facts on how religious people act according to their moral and religious convictions, but also on how learners can gain as much profit as possible from these facts in order to build their own identity as religious ‘tourists’.

Religious education challenges us also to become ‘pilgrims’ and to allow the ‘slow questions’ of religion to enter into our own lives, in all their vulnerability and wonder.

“Every Christian is called to go out to encounter others, to dialogue with those who do not think the way we do, with those who have another faith, or who don’t have faith.

To encounter all because we all have in common our having been created in the image and likeness of God.”

Pope Francis (Speech to Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation. October 14 2013)

Bring your bread tags to school.

They will be recycled to fund wheelchairs in South Africa.

OZ Bread Tags for Wheelchairs

Mary Mackillop Today-Stamps!

We encourage people to drop off used postage stamps to a container in the front office. The sale of donated used postage stamps raises funds to assist in the educational programs initiated by the Mary MacKillop Today organization.

Mary Mackillop

Class Liturgies

The sharing of our faith as a Catholic school is animated in liturgical celebrations.

Please watch for information from your child’s teacher and the newsletter, which will inform you of the date for your respective Class Liturgy.

Peace and blessings,

Helen Wilsdon-Smith

Assistant Principal Identity and Mission/School Chaplain

St Francis OSHC highlights

What an amazing year we have had so far!
Term 4 is always a time to look back and celebrate our achievements and success for the year.  I would like to share some with you.
Our most popular event at St Francis OSHC was a Harry Potter themed pupil free day, where staff and students all dressed up as their favourite characters from the universe of wizardry!
Thank you to students Charlotte Formato and Millie Harker-Smith who played a big part in preparing the event.
The OSHC children participated in two rounds of the 'Bebras Australia Computational Thinking' competition, which is run by CSIRO, and we had some great results again; Lewis Horgan received a high distinction, Frankie O'Rielly, Alexandra Ross, Ruby Barclay, Angus Bullen, Zoe Cross and  Ashima received a merit.
Last term we planted some new plants in the school garden and we expect to harvest some strawberries and garden peas any day now. The children enjoy watering the plants and observing their growth each day.
Our educators Riley and Tom have been looking after the sports program at OSHC, where the children have been fine-tuning their basketball skills and enjoying the 'Mini-Olympics' that Riley and Tom organised.

Important information and dates to remember 
-  Thursday 2nd of December- year 6 OSHC Reminiscence Session
Week starting from Monday 6th  of December we invite all OSHC parents and carers to have  "a cookie on the run",  our usual the end of year event  to say a BIG THANK You to parents for supporting us during the year.
- Friday,10th of December, our last day of school year we will have a Christmas workshop Pupil Free Day.

Important - From 22nd of October all bookings need to be done through OSHC Bookings or

Ph: (08) 8356 6404 or using Spike app.

OSHC enrolments for 2022 is open now. Please download the OSHC enrolment forms from school website or collect hard copy from OSHC or School Office, fill them in and submit to  OSHC Bookings.

Elena Redkin

St Francis OSHC Director

Recount by Nicholos T 2MA

On Friday the Year 2 classes, 3 teachers and 11 volunteers went on an excursion to the Bassett Boys School in Willunga. We arrived on a bus. We left school at 9am and arrived at 10am. When we got there, there were 6 volunteers and then we had our brainfood. After brainfood we went into different groups.

First I went to the school house and then we met Mrs Bassett. We went inside and got changed into old clothes and then marched inside to the beat of a drum. Then we wrote on slate and did some addition and subtraction and cursive writing. We walked back and had our first lunch.

Then my group went on a walk to know about the history and we went in the museum. After my group went to the courtroom to do a play about a crime. I was the judge and then we solved the crime. Then it was second lunch. In second lunch I found some slate and after second lunch we went back on the bus and went back to school.

After the Basset Boys I felt very happy