Week 6 - Term 1

Dear families,

We have reached Week 6-the mid point of term one. It has been quite a roller coaster of a term for staff, students and families, and I have been moved by everyone’s capacity for resilience and for being agile. I have very much appreciated the level of goodwill amongst families as we attend to the myriad of changed rules and restrictions. Our staff has been amazing in their professionalism and care for the students and one another, and our beautiful children have stayed happy and positive throughout! I am keenly aware that many students have had a disrupted start to learning for 2022, and I want to reassure families that we are working very hard to maintain their learning entitlement. Here’s hoping for smoother sailing in the next 5 weeks!

Last week we marked the beginning of the Lenten season through the celebrations of Ash Wednesday and Shrove Tuesday. The children all very much enjoyed their pancakes on Shrive Tuesday, and I was grateful for the support or parents and parishioners in the preparation and cooking of the treats. Wednesday’s outdoor Ash Wednesday Liturgy was a sombre but also beautiful occasion, and Fr Michael led the students prayerfully through this significant moment in the Liturgical calendar. The students themselves were prayerful and reverent throughout. My sincere thanks to Angela DeNadai for her excellent organisation and leadership of both events. Through the generosity of our parent community we were able to raise over $800 for caritas Australia as well!

Last week we also hosted online parent information evenings. I am grateful for the efforts of our staff in preparing and presenting these information evenings and for those who were unable to attend, a recording has been shared via Seesaw. We pivot now to preparations for parent-teacher interviews, which will be held during week 10 of this term – April 4-8. At this stage, we are planning for these interviews to be conducted via telephone, however if restrictions ease, we will welcome families face-to-face. There will be further information about how to book an interview, very soon.

Given current restrictions, the School board AGM needs to be hosted online, through the sharing of reports, and through an online voting process – this was advised via SZapp yesterday and I would encourage you to strongly consider casting a vote! In all, we have 7 candidates for 5 board positions:

Tom Atyeo-dad of Frankie (yr 1), Archie (Yr 3) and Ollie (yr 5)

Slavka Rosewall-mum of Mila (REC)

Penny Fisher-Mum of Sidney (yr 4), Angus (yr 2) and Miriam (yr 6)

Jennifer Dullens-mum of Reece (REC)

Sarah McCabe-mum of James (yr 3) and Kathryn (yr 6)

Paul Gobell-dad of Josh (yr 4) and Sophia (yr 2)

Natalie McKellar-mum of Asher (yr 2)

My sincere thanks to all those families who have expressed their interest in being a part of the school board.

As we are now part way through term 1 of the 2022 school year, we are looking ahead to later this year, 2023 and 2024. Children commencing in term 3 this year will be invited to join our transition program from March 25, and continuing throughout term 2. We are looking forward to welcoming them to school!

Children who have enrolled to commence at the beginning of 2023 will join our transition program from the start of term 3. At this stage, we have a significant number of students enrolled to start in Reception in 2023, and so if you know of anyone who is still considering a place at St Francis, please ask them to get in contact with us ASAP.

Families whose children will be ready for school in term 3 2023/beginning of 2024 are now invited and encouraged to submit their application for enrolment. We already have significant interest in our school and we encourage families to enrol early to secure their places. Please contact our Enrolments Manager Andrea Brown for further information.

This Friday is a Pupil Free Day here at St Francis, and our teachers and ESOs will be hard at work, learning more about data analysis, as well as continuing the professional learning needed to embed our Science of Reading focus across the school. OSHC is available for the day for families who require it – please book through normal OSHC channels.

March 8 marked International Women’s day. I give thanks every day for the women in my life who have been strong role models and who have shaped the person I am today. I am thankful for the capable and passionate women who work at St Francis in support of the best learning and well-being outcomes for all students. I pray for all girls and young women in our St Francis community that they grow into strong, capable and compassionate women who are leaders for the world God desires. Finally, I sincerely thank all mothers, grandmothers and significant women in the lives of our children. If you want to know more about International Women’s day, please visit:

International Womens Day

Have a great week everyone,

God bless,

Phil

CRICKET CARNIVAL

Yesterday, some of our Yr 5 and 6 student took part in the Woolworths Cricket blast SACPSSA Cricket Carnival.

Congratulations to the following for their great team play and spirit. Surprisingly, both teams remained undefeated!

Our thanks to Mr Daley and Mr Giannotti for training and supporting our students before and on the day.

Our girls: Chloe Sullivan, Lexi Brown, Remi Brown, Aria De Pasquale, Natalie Rugari, Stella Spiniello, Isabelle Sellen and Shayla Tarca

Our Boys:  Wil Costolloe, Connor Robertson, Nathaniel Williams, Alexander Pedisic, Frankie O’Rielly, Joseph Rapuano, Aaron Gariboli and Vincent Busolin

This week, I take the opportunity to share an article written by Leonie Fitzgerald (RLF).  You will see from her report that play investigations are creative, purposeful and real time learning.
Well done Receptions.

‘The Great Unifix Track!’

Play Investigations is a time where children have the opportunity to have agency over their learning. This week, the children were involved in a mathematics task where they were representing numbers with unifix cubes. Once the children had completed the set activity, their extension task was to use the unifix cubes to make the biggest number they knew. This extension task lead to the children in the maths group connecting all their cubes together to see what number their group together knew collectively.

That afternoon during investigation time, the children asked if they could continue with adding to their unifix strip they had made earlier in the day. The strip grew longer and longer and this was the start of the ‘Great Unifix Track!’ The track went around the room, through the cube shelf and under the table. This involved so much discussion, co-operation, negotiation and problem solving. In order for the track to go through our cube shelf the construction of a bridge occurred to lift the track so that it could continue through – some thoughtful engineering!

To capitalise on the learning that was occurring, that following day I gave the children the provocation, ‘How can we work out how long our track is?’ After a lot of discussion and ideas, it was decided that every child would sit along the track and count a section of it and then we would add all the numbers together. So we set off and counted the cubes with each child having their turn at counting to as high as they could.          

We were lucky enough to have a visit from one of the Year 3 students. We asked him if he could help us to find out exactly how many unifix cubes long our track was. Sam (our ESO) and our Year 3 expert decided that the most efficient way of counting the cubes was to measure how long the track was using a measuring tape, then working out how many unifix cubes per meter and multiplying this together. Our track was 21.25 meters long. We discovered that ‘The Great Unifix Track’ was 1884 unifix blocks long!

It was wonderful to see the children so excited and engaged in their learning!

They decided that the track was going to go all the way to the Front Office!

The image comes from Ingrid Henzler, poet, author and photographer.

I recently read a Lenten message and prayer by Stephen Bilss OFM, which is shared below.

In fraternity, we remember, pray for, and stand in solidarity with, communities in Ukraine, communities promoting peace in Russia, communities still suffering the effects of COVID as borders open globally, and those school communities that have been impacted by the floods, and severe weather event experienced on the East coast of Australia.

Let us contemplate the call to conversion, renewing our hearts and being attentive to our own lives and all of creation.

Franciscans stand for peace and love.

Together we pray…

God of compassion,
you hear the cries of all who are in trouble or distress.

Look upon every one of us as we enter these 40 days

bearing the mark of ashes.

Guide our steps; help us; nourish us and strengthen us

for the journey through our desert of Lent.

For where there is despair, may I sow hope.

May I be in solidarity with the struggle of those

whose lives are affected by war, storms and flooding.

Where there is darkness, let there be light.

Grant everyone perseverance and courage to face what the future holds

so that your light may show us the way to joy, and profound peace.

O Master, grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console.

Enable me through inspired prayer, consoling gestures,

and a warm heart to dissipate human darkness.

Be the firm foundation on which to rebuild lives and communities.

Enable us Lord to be love today and always,

through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

Lenten Challenge for the coming week

• Devices - Think you can go 40 days without Netflix? What about, Disney+, or Amazon Prime, Binge or even Stan?  Try logging out of your favourite streaming services on your go-to devices. You'll be surprised how much extra time you have at the end of the day.

Feast of St Patrick

March 17th is the feast day of St Patrick. St Patrick was born in Roman Britain around the end of the fourth century and he died in Ireland about the middle of the fifth century.  St Patrick faced hardship as a missionary bishop in Ireland, and opposition even from his friends and fellow Christians.  He worked to conciliate, to evangelise, and to educate local leaders and their families.  He is remembered for his simplicity and pastoral care, for his humble trust in God, and for his fearless preaching of the gospel to those who had enslaved him in his youth.

Specially honoured in Australia because of the many Irish people who came to settle here and brought with them the faith and zeal of St Patrick.  The Catholic Church in Australia was largely founded by the Irish missionaries and Irish migrants.

Feast of St Joseph

On March 19th, we celebrate the feast of St Joseph, husband of Mary.  A carpenter, though born of the royal house of David, Joseph was an upright man who, as husband of the Virgin Mary, cared for Mary and the child Jesus.  Venerated in the East after the fourth century, and his followers flowered in the West during the fifteenth century, following the development of nativity plays, the Christmas crib, and increased devotion to Mary.

God Bless

Angela

Assistant Principal: Religious Identity and Mission

Dear Families

School Sport Teams

After a long awaited time our students have finally been able to begin school based team sports this week, well nearly all of them. Unfortunately with Covid 19 affecting some of the games those teams who did not start this week will be looking forward to beginning next week. Good luck to all students across the- 9 teams involved in both Basketball and Netball.

School Swimming Trials

I am very happy to announce that our rescheduled swimming trials at Immanuel Pool will now be conducted on Wednesday 16th March from 8:30-10:00am, Those nominated students must arrive at Immanuel College Pool by 8:15am to begin the trials at 8:30am. We will return to school by charted bus by 10:30am. Once the trial results have been collated our final swimming team will be announced that will attend the SACPSSA Carnival on Tuesday 22nd March

School AFL (Football) / School Soccer

With the winter months not that far away we turn our attention to organising our school Footy and Soccer teams, in the coming week you will receive notification via the SZapp to nominate your child if they wish to play either school Footy or school Soccer, unfortunately these do both clash on a Saturday morning so you can only commit to one sport. School soccer is offered from Reception through to Year 6 and school Footy will be on offer for the age groups Year 2/3, Year 4/5 and Year 6. We will also have an Auskick program available for students in Reception to Year 1 and even some year 2’s. You may have noticed these signs up already around our school gates. This program is run through the SANFL and you must nominate online for this, please see the attachment in this newsletter.

James Daley

Sports Coordinator