Term 3 Week 6 2024

From the Principal

Dear Families,

Today is The National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence. This day aims to raise awareness about the issue of bullying and violence in schools and communities and provides an opportunity for schools, students, teachers, parents and the broader community to come together and take a stand against bullying and violence. The focus of the National Day of Action is on promoting positive behaviors, respectful relationships, and effective strategies to prevent and address bullying and violence. There are some great resources and fact sheets for families on the Bullying. No Way! Website

The national definition of bullying for Australian schools says:

Bullying is an ongoing and deliberate misuse of power in relationships through repeated verbal, physical and/or social behaviour that intends to cause physical, social and/or psychological harm. It can involve an individual or a group misusing their power, or perceived power, over one or more persons who feel unable to stop it from happening.

Bullying can happen in person or online, via various digital platforms and devices and it can be obvious (overt) or hidden (covert). Bullying behaviour is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time (for example, through sharing of digital records).

Bullying of any form or for any reason can have immediate, medium and long-term effects on those involved, including bystanders. Single incidents and conflict or fights between equals, whether in person or online, are not defined as bullying.

Behaviours that do not constitute bullying include: 

• mutual arguments and disagreements (where there is no power imbalance)
• not liking someone or a single act of social rejection
• one-off acts of meanness or spite
• isolated incidents of aggression, intimidation or violence.

However, these conflicts still need to be addressed and resolved.

Likewise not all online issues are bullying. (Online bullying is sometimes referred to as cyberbullying and refers to bullying that is carried out through information and communication technologies.)

Taken from the Bullying No Way Website

At St Francis, we take conflicts between students very seriously and always follow up on incidents in the playground and work as a team to put support systems into place for our students. Pastoral Care weeks where our students engage in Circle Time are another way that we work towards developing an inclusive and flourishing learning environment.  Circle Time:

• Provides a whole school approach to wellbeing
• Promotes positive behaviour and relationships
• Builds resilience
• Provides a framework for developing social emotional competencies
• Emphasises strengths and solutions

At St Francis Catholic School we are a UR STRONG School. UR STRONG is a whole school skill based strategy that teaches friendship skills, interpersonal skills and conflict resolution. In line with UR STRONG, at St Francis Catholic School we don’t use the word “bullying” as it is a term that is misused and results in students, teachers and parents labeling a child a “bully”. We refer to the behaviour not the child. The UR STRONG methodology outlines that conflict is defined into two categories:

• Normal conflict referred to as a Friendship Fire.
• Actions that are intentionally unkind or cruel are referred to as Mean-on-Purpose behaviour.

If you ever have any concerns about your child, please contact your classroom teacher in the first instance. You can find our Response to Bullying (Mean on Purpose Behaviour) Policy on our school website.

We are very fortunate to have had a 2023 signed Cowboys Jersey donated to the school. We have had the jersey framed and will be raffling if off to raise money for our Senior Playground.

Tickets for the raffle are $5 per ticket and all money and tickets are to be returned to school by Friday 6th September. Each family will be allocated 5 tickets to sell. If you would like extra books of tickets, please contact the Office.

On Tuesday we have our Book Week Parade. Thank you to Michelle Felesina and Megan Tatnell for organising this wonderful event for our school community. We look forward to seeing everyone’s costumes on Tuesday.

We wish our Year 5 & 6 students, teachers, support staff and parent volunteers a wonderful time as they head off to camp at Virginia Park Station this Wednesday. I’m sure they will have an amazing time and we look forward to hearing about their adventures when they return to school.

I will be in Winton next Tuesday to Thursday participating in the St Patrick's School Renewal process. If you have any concerns during this time, please contact Nicole O’Connor.

Have a wonderful week

Take care and God Bless

Amanda

Religious Life of the School

Dear families,

Our school calendar is becoming quite busy with many events coming up. We hope you can join us for many of these. Thank you to the families and friends who came to our Youth Mass last weekend and the students who helped with the procession, readings and offertory.

Years 3 and 4 had their Class Mass last Wednesday. Thank you to Fr Truong who spoke about faith and had gifts for students with answers that reflected an understanding of what faith is about. It was a special mass for some Year 4 students who received communion for the first time with the school community. Thank you also to our families who joined us to celebrate, your presence is appreciated.

Assumption of Mary

Yesterday, August 15, was the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a central Catholic doctrine. It teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken up into heaven, both body and soul, at the end of her earthly life. This belief underscores Mary's unique role in the Christian narrative as the Mother of God and highlights her exceptional holiness. The Assumption reflects God's special favour towards Mary and is a hopeful reminder of the ultimate resurrection and glorification that awaits all believers.

God Bless and have a wonderful week

Nicole

Learning Corner

It is that time of the year again!

NAPLAN makes the headlines to highlight the nation's low Literacy and Numeracy standards.

However, for the first time, the media is subtly acknowledging the cause of the drop and that Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum has addressed the underlying causes of the drop in standards over the last decade.

A heavy emphasis is being placed on the importance of the Early Years—birth to 8—in establishing the foundation for Literacy and Numeracy skills. During this time, children engage in and build oral language and the range of vocabulary associated with speaking. At this stage, they learn the courtesies of listening and speaking.

A refocus on play based learning in Prep aims to build vocabulary and speaking and listening skills. The importance of oral language continues throughout their school years.

By the end of Year 2, it is expected that most children will be independent readers, with some needing support to reach independence by the end of Year 3.

Another significant change is the shift from a ‘Balanced’ language approach, which was based on a theory that could not be tested for effectiveness, to a ‘Structured’ language approach, which is based on the psychology of how children learn and neuroscience research.

PLD (Promoting Literacy Development), introduced in P-3 three years ago, uses the Structured Literacy approach. We see a significant percentage of skilled readers and writers in these classes. A structured approach to teaching writing was introduced to year 2  three years ago through our participation in the TCE Writing Project. The children involved are currently in Year 5, and our NAPLAN results for writing this year showed a marked improvement.

A structured approach requires explicit teaching, which is mentioned in media articles about education and the improvement of Literacy standards.

High Expectations are integral to the success of explicit teaching. Children are expected to listen, respond, and complete the practice of their skills to the best of their ability.

How do you show your child you have high expectations ( not just high results) of their learning?         

Congratulations to Oliver Calligaro, Bella Davison, Lara Di Lullo, and Harry Sutton for their selection for the school ‘Quest For Knowledge’ team.

 Enjoy your week!

Rita

Guidance Counsellor

In this edition of SchoolTV - RAISING GIRLS

Raising girls in today’s modern world can be a difficult path for parents and carers to navigate. These days, girls are transitioning to puberty a lot earlier than they used to and the physical, psychological and emotional changes they experience are challenging. As a result, by mid-adolescence, girls are twice as likely to develop mood disorders more so than boys.

Some parents and carers may feel uncertain about how best to support their daughter through the ups and downs of adolescence and how to keep the lines of communication open. With the rise of social media and technology, mental health difficulties in girls are increasing as often they are faced with online images that make it difficult to see themselves as acceptable. Ensuring a daughter’s opinions are heard and her views listened to, will go a long way towards making her feel loved and supported as she tries to establish her own identity.

In this edition of SchoolTV, adult carers will attain a clearer picture of what girls are wanting from their adult carers and how best to support them through adolescence.

Here is the link to the Raising Girls edition of SchoolTV
https://sfatsv.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/raising-girls

Class in the Spotlight - 5/6B

Wow Week 6 already. 

As part of  Science week, through a program called SolarBuddy we made solar lights for those who lived in extreme energy poverty.  This is when you have little or no access to electricity or unreliable access.  Nearly 800 million people world wide live in extreme energy poverty.  We put together a simple solar light that will be gifted to a child to illuminate their lives.  We also wrote a letter to the child who will receive the light. We loved doing this and it made us feel good to know we are positively helping children all over the world and bring light into their lives.

In Maths we have been learning how to measure and draw angles using our protractors. We have also started looking at area of rectangles and compound shapes. 

In English we are thoroughly enjoying reading the book Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief.  We are doing lots of activities on this book as well as learning what went on during the Second World War.

We have started our HASS unit which focusses on Asia. We have looked at mapping countries in Asia as well as the differents lifestyles and cultures and how they differ to us here in Australia.

We had our Carnival Day on Friday and enjoyed playing Cricket, Tennis and Netball with the other school in the Burdekin.

This week in PE we practised our Fencing skills. Watch out Brisbane Olympics 2032!

We had a ball experimenting with the Spheros. The Sphero is a programmable robot that can be used to teach coding.

Only a few more sleeps and we are off to camp. This year we are going on a new camp to Virginia Park Station.  Year 5 and Year 6 are all going together this year.  Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for some photos of our camp adventures. 

5/6B

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 69

Next

Upcoming Events

Community