Week 3 - Term 2

Dear families,

The first 3 weeks of term two have really flown by and a significant number of things have been achieved already. During week 1, our reception teachers and Sarah Battistella ran an informative and successful reading workshop. During week 2, we hosted parent-teacher learning conversations. I acknowledge and sincerely thank all of the staff who spent considerable time preparing for and hosting these valuable conversations. I also thank parents, who committed to these conversations.

Last Friday, we hosted a very successful Mother’s Day celebration. Well over 120 mums and ‘grandmums’ packed into the parish hall to be treated to a delicious spread, as well as having multiple opportunities to win some excellent raffle prizes! My sincere thanks to Sarah McCabe and Terri Sparrow for coordinating the event and everyone else who pitched in to make it a success. While speaking of our P&F, families would have seen my letter earlier this week regarding the way our P&F will operate, moving forward. I encourage all families to support and engage with the various initiatives of the P&F executive and its various sub-committees.

This week, we have been celebrating Catholic Education Week. It has been a great opportunity to highlight the many positive benefits of a catholic education in SA. At St Francis, we have hosted two school tours, as well as ensuring our social media presence has been strong. We are also currently working through enrolments for 2024-both beginning and mid-year, and for 2025 and beyond. St Francis is actively promoting enrolment and as such I ask all families to encourage others in their networks to strongly consider and education at St Francis! If there are any families who have a sibling enrolment commencing 2024 or 2025 that haven’t yet let us know of their child’s enrolment, please contact Andrea Brown as soon as possible.

Our building project is slowly but surely emerging from the ground and we are expecting a concrete pour over the coming weeks! While it has taken somewhat longer than expected to get to this stage, the project is broadly still on track for a January 2024 completion. We remain positive and hopeful that this is indeed the case! When the concrete pour commences, there will be many trucks entering and leaving the site, over a couple of days. We will provide advance notice of this, but please be prepared for some disruption to morning drop off, on those days.

As I do my morning duties on Arcoona Ave, I notice a significant number of children whose parents are carrying their school bags for them. While I understand families wanting to support very young (Reception) children with this task, managing one’s school bag should be an opportunity for a child to develop independence and as such I want to strongly encourage all families to expect their child to carry their own school bags to and from school. Additionally, I see many school bags that aren’t properly adjusted for ease of carry, and I constantly observe children with bags that are full of unnecessary items, thus making them heavier than they need to be!

Our school uniform is comfortable, flexible and practical for a primary aged child to actively participate in all aspects of school life. Almost all students wear the uniform correctly and with pride. On occasion, I notice children wearing dark coloured sneakers. Our uniform protocol is very clearly that students should be wearing predominantly white sneakers and socks. I ask all families to support this uniform protocol.

With the cooler months of the year upon us, SA typically sees an uptick in colds and viruses such as Rhinovirus (common cold) the flu and-in recent years-covid-19. Families are reminded that students who exhibit cold/flu/covid symptoms such as sore throat, runny nose, cough, fever etc should stay home from school until acute symptoms have subsided. This is to both allow for the child to recover and to limit the spread of these illnesses. Where a child tests positive to covid 19, we would still appreciate families notifying the school-either through the recording of absence or via the class teacher. This helps us track case numbers and supports us in keeping all children and staff well.

Catholic Education Week 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

Raising Hearts and Minds with God for social justice Raising Hearts

May we be aware of listening to the stirring of our hearts to prompt action.

• How do we Raise our Hearts and Minds to the needs of others?

• How can we Raise our Hearts and Minds to the needs in our community?

• How can we Raise our Hearts and Minds to the needs in the world?

“Never see a need without doing something about it.” Mary Mackillop.

Month of May

In the Catholic Church the month of May is Mary’s month. It’s the month we honour Blessed Mary as the Mother of Jesus and our Heavenly Mother. This devotion dates back to the 18^th century. There are many special events which honour Mary during the month of May.

Try this link Let’s pray the Hail Mary, 2 minutes guided prayer, suitable for children and adults https://youtu.be/FVgCSt7ReAo. It contains the traditional version of the Hail Mary, however you may like to adapt it to the contemporary version. May is also a very good month to pray the rosary.

Winter Appeal

This week you will have received a notice via SeeSaw about our Winter Appeal.  The Adelaide Day Centre for Homeless Persons have asked for our support in donating clothing items or cans of soup for the homeless.  As many of the homeless are predominately adults we ask that you please adhere to the following list in adult sizes:

• Raincoats
• Jackets
• Gloves
• Scarves
• Hats
• Track pants
• Socks
• Small umbrellas

The greatest need is for Blankets and Sleeping Bags

The Winter Appeal will commence Thursday 11^th May and continue until Friday 3^rd June 2023.

 As Pope Francis said, “To rebuild our wounded world in the face of so much pain, our only course is to imitate the Good Shepherd who showed us how to restore community by lifting up the fallen for the sake of the common good.”.

Social Justice Leaders

I’d like to introduce our Year 6 Social Justice Leaders Chelsie, Remi, Charlize, Harper, Flynn, Seamus, Mason and Ibrahim. We welcome their enthusiasm and compassion as they organise initiatives to support and promote Social Justice causes throughout the year.

The Ascension of The Lord, May 21^st

Mark 16:15-20 (paraphrased)

“Jesus showed himself to the Eleven, and said to them, ‘Go out to the whole world, proclaim the Good news to all creation.’

And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it.”

Ascension has always been a part of the joyful celebration of the fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost but was singled out for commemoration on the fortieth day (see Acts 1:3) toward the end of the 4th century.  The feast develops the glory of the resurrection by acclaiming the exaltation of Christ as Lord of heaven and earth.  It serves to prepare the Church, toward the end of the season of Easter, for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

How do we transfer information into the long term memory?

Have you ever caught yourself thinking “I’ve already told you how to do this…why don’t you remember?” The answer is that the information hasn’t yet been transferred into the long term memory.

A German psychologist called Herman Ebbinghaus created a memory model called “The forgetting curve.” The model shows us how we lose information over time if we don’t try to retain it.

The curve illustrates that when you first learn something, the information disappears at an exponential rate.  50% of all new information will be forgotten within a day and 90% of all new information will be forgotten within a week!

So how do we overcome the forgetting curve?

Cognitive Psychology has helped us to understand the importance of spaced, interleaved , retrieval practice to transfer information into long term memory and build automaticity.

At St Francis we use a multi-sensory literacy resource called Playberry Laser Literacy Program that is informed by Ebbinghaus’ research.  The Playberry Laser Literacy Program ensures repeated exposures to new learning that is helpful to all students, critical to many and harmful to none.

This second graph shows the spacing of repeated exposure to new learning within the Playberry Laser Phonology lessons.

Embedded in the lessons are multiple opportunities for students to provide responses and apply their knowledge. This repeated exposure builds automaticity and allows information to be transferred to the long term memory.

How do we monitor student learning to ensure information has been retained?

At times, despite repeated exposures, teacher expertise and highly structured lessons, information may not transfer to the long term memory. There are many factors that can contribute to this.  For example, Ebbinghaus suggested that physiological factors, like sleep and stress can influence how well we retain information as it impacts on our focus and attention. As a result, we struggle to learn efficiently.

At St Francis School, many diagnostic assessments are used to keep track of what students have retained.  Teachers use this information to plan for whole class instruction and to inform their planning for small group (Tier 2) intervention.

I hope you now have a better understanding of how Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve is the cornerstone to our Phonology instruction? If not, some more repeated exposures of this article may be required, spaced out over time of course!

Sarah Battistella