Term 1 Week 3 2023
From the Principal
Dear Parents and Carers,
On Friday evening Nicole and I had the privilege of attending the Official Opening of the Burdekin Water Park with some of our Student Leaders. It was a wonderful event and the students were very patient throughout the official proceedings as they waited for the highly anticipated moment of being the first to use the water park. Congratulations to Popi, Nathan and Nate for representing St Francis on such an exciting occasion. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out the water park yet, I recommend that you do. It is going to provide countless hours of fun for families in our community.
Information Evening
Our Information Evening will be held tonight Tuesday 7th February. This is a wonderful family engagement opportunity and a way of building a strong and productive partnership with your child’s teacher. The program will be:
- 5:45 - 6:00pm - Gather in the Samaritan Centre for Prayer and staff introductions
- 6:00 - 6:25pm - 1st classroom session
- 6:30 - 6:55pm - 2nd classroom session (a repeat of the 1st session)
During these sessions you’ll hear about what your child will be learning, their teacher’s expectations, how you can help your child with their learning at home, how you can become involved and much, much more. The evening is not a time for parent-teacher interviews, these will be held later in the term. If you do wish to speak to your child’s teacher about any concerns you have regarding your child, please organise to meet with the teacher at a time suitable to both of you. I look forward to seeing you all at this event.
FACE
Our first FACE Meeting will be held this Thursday evening at 6pm in the Staffroom. I encourage all families to attend. For those who are new to our school community FACE stands for Family and Community Engagement. We hold 2 FACE meetings each term (you will find these scheduled on the Term Calendar) at 6pm in the Staffroom. These meetings are a great opportunity for you to become involved with the school and have your voice heard about how we can move our school forward. People often shy away from coming to meetings as they are worried that they will be given a job! At our FACE meetings, we believe that everyone needs to work together and that many hands make light work. We ask that all families consider what is the 1 thing that they could help with during 2023 to help share the love and lighten the load. These meetings are also a wonderful way to meet other families and make new friends.
2023 Handbook
Our Handbook has been updated for 2023 and can be accessed online here. It’s a great resource for all families.
Days of Celebration or Awareness
There are many days on the calendar each year that celebrate or raise awareness about various foundations, charities, disabilities or illnesses. As a Catholic School, we support Caritas Project Compassion (during Lent), Catholic Mission (October) and St Vincent de Paul (through our Christmas Hampers).
We know that raising awareness of issues that are relevant to members of our school community is also important, so we invite you to email us (ayr@tsv.catholic.edu.au) about a day/event that you might like our school to raise awareness about. Once we have a list of suggested days, we will try to choose one per term to highlight within our school community.
We look forward to finding out what's important to you and raising awareness within us all.
Have a wonderful week.
Take care and God Bless
Amanda
Class Community Contact Role
Here at St Francis, we believe that the Class Community Contact Role enhances the quality of relationships within our school community. Together we strive to develop mutually trusting and vibrant relationships between all members of the school community. In accepting this role, the CCC is taking on a responsibility, which requires mutual trust, confidentiality and a desire to assist in building a harmonious school environment for us all.
What is a Class Community Contact?
The Class Community Contact is a volunteer role held for the school year. This role can be held by up to 2 parents or carers for each class. This role has two main purposes:
- Be a support person for the classroom
- Work in conjunction with school leadership and the FACE Group to support school activities and events
This role requires volunteers to respect with confidentiality the events of the classroom whilst providing staff, students and families with absolute privacy. This role requires the commitment of volunteers to:
Classroom | School |
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How can a Class Community Contact help you?
- Bring ideas or school-level issues to school leadership and the FACE Group
- Help arrange support for your family during difficult times
All concerns and/or enquiries from parents/carers regarding the education, health and safety of their children must be directed to the class teacher.
Class Community Contacts must complete the online volunteer induction and attend the site induction (completed every 3 years).
Thank you for your time, energy and commitment to this important role.
If you are interested in taking on this role for your class in 2023, please see your child’s class teacher.
Religious Life of the School
It is difficult to believe it is Week 3 already. Everyone is settling in well and working hard. Over the past week, I have had many students come to show me their classwork efforts and I have been impressed with the quality of what they have shared. I look forward to seeing more in the near future.
St Francis
Hard work and tenacity were qualities that St Francis Xavier our namesake possessed. St Francis is one of our school charisms on which our school’s Catholic identity model love of God, love of neighbour and love in action is based.
St Francis Xavier was one of the greatest Roman Catholic missionaries of modern times and was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India, the Malay Archipelago, and Japan.
He was born on April 7, 1506 at Xavier Castle near Sangüesa, Navarre into a noble Basque family. When he was older he attended the University of Paris, where he met Ignatius of Loyola and became one of the first seven members of the Jesuits.
St Francis Xavier had a genuine love for those among whom he moved, seeing Christ as truly present in them in a time in which racism and disdain were commonplace and often formed the basis for genocide. He insisted on missionaries learning the languages, ways and cultures of the people among whom they lived. Above all, St Francis represents for us the love and joy of Jesus and the Gospel, he had a tireless zeal to do good.
Credited for his idea that the missionary must adapt to the customs and language of the people it evangelizes, and for his advocation of an educated native clergy. St Francis was a man who truly demonstrated a love of God and love of neighbour and knew how to put that love into action.
Reflecting on St Francis Xavier’s life and how we can present our best selves to God, we pray.
Lord,
each day you give me new life,
new graces,
new opportunities to feel your presence.
Give me the gift of attentiveness
to notice you in the people
and your creation
which surround my life;
that I may grow in faith,
and hope,
and love.
Amen.
Dates to Note | |
Beginning of the Year Mass and Student Leader Induction | Friday, February 17 |
Youth Mass | Sunday, February 19 |
Shrove Tuesday | Tuesday, February 21 |
Ash Wednesday Liturgy | Wednesday, February 22 |
God bless
Nicole
Learning Corner
Writing Project:
This year we joined the TCE Writing Project. This is a two year project aimed at improving writing skills through the study of up to date research on how children learn to write, the skills they require to write effectively and the best way to teach these skills so that all children will make progress with their learning.
Last week Amanda and I attended a day that explained the purpose, expectations and timeline of the project. This week we attended two days of training with Melinda (1/2B) and Lee-Anne (3A). We were presented with strategies to implement the project without adding an extra load to the classwork by following expectations in a focused way. We learnt about the traits of writing and the different ways we can teach these traits using a range of literature. We are looking forward to teachers and students engaging in this project.
NAPLAN
Training in the skills required to access the test has commenced in Year 3 classes. We have noticed that many children find it easier to navigate the screen if they have a mouse. If your child does not have a mouse for their class Chromebook we please ask that you purchase one for your child. When purchasing could you please ensure it is one that can be turned on and off.
The NAPLN timetable will be shared next week.
Early Years Testing
Students in Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 will complete the TCE ( Townsville Catholic Education) Literacy and Numeracy Tests commencing this Thursday.
If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s learning, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.
Rita Cranitch
Learning and Teaching Adviser
Inclusive Practices Teacher
School Safe People
Every school in the Townsville Diocese has at least two dedicated School Safe People. At St Francis, our two Safe People are Mrs Jones and Mrs Cranitch. Our role covers a diverse range of responsibilities but the main one is to be a person that students, staff and parents can talk to if they feel unsafe or are concerned by the behaviour of others.
In our role we also:
- Educate students and staff on the role of the School Safe Person. Mrs Jones visited each classroom in Week 1 to remind students of who our School Safe People are and what their role is.
- Promote and organise Child Protection initiatives such as Child Protection Week, Day for Daniel, National Day of Action Against Violence and Bullying, and R U Okay Day.
- Advise and support colleagues on student protection processes.
- Receive and act on information from students, staff or parents.
- Make and/or support others in writing/making a Student Protection Report.
- Attend annual training with the Student Protection Team from Townsville Catholic Education and other Safe People to share ideas, activities and events that happen in our school.
If you have any concerns or questions about our role, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
Yours in safety
Amanda and Rita
Amanda Jones
Rita Cranitch
3A Class in the Spotlight
What a great start to the new school year. We are already working like busy bees!
📚 In English this week, we have been exploring Narrative Texts. The students brainstormed describing words that they used for characterisation. They also had a go at writing a “Sizzling Start” after viewing a picture of an alien heading to Earth. To end the week off, we completed an interactive activity about Narrative Texts on our Chromebooks! During Spelling, we made a list of words ending in -ge and -dge and thought of reasons why some words were spelt with -ge and others with -dge.
🔢 In Maths, we worked on classifying numbers as either odd or even. We had some fun using classroom equipment and numbers when we sorted these into either odd or even numbers. In our books, we worked on rainbow facts, simple addition and subtraction, and doubling.
✝️ In Religion, we discussed and defined the word “Welcome”. We spoke about how it feels to be welcomed when you join a new class or team. We made a Y-chart to explore what it looks like, sounds like and feels like. We then used our ideas to draw pictures for our Welcome-mobiles. During Christian Meditation, we visited our Sacred Space to pray and walk the Labyrinth.
🎨 In our Visual Arts unit, we discussed the elements of art. We focused on “line” as an element of art. The students drew various line drawings of a cat. Then the class created a piece of art collaboratively. They were tasked to use marker pens to draw lines or patterns on a small piece of paper. All the smaller pieces of paper together created a piece of artwork featuring a cat.
🔥 Our unit in Science is called Heating Up. We did some role plays in class to show how our bodies respond to hot or cold weather. We also learnt how animals like penguins huddle together to keep warm and monkeys use hot springs to survive cold winters.
📗 We are learning about Celebrations and Commemorations in HASS. We discussed and compared the differences between Christmas and birthday celebrations.
3A
P.A.T.H.
What is P.A.T.H?
At the end of 2021, we started the process of redeveloping our behaviour management policy. Based on the Positive Behaviour for Learning (PB4L) framework which is a whole school concept that promotes positive behaviour in all areas of school life. Staff take a proactive and preventive approach in order to create a positive, safe and supportive school environment in which all students can learn and develop. It is through the PB4L framework and the Gospel story of The Good Samaritan, that The Good Samaritan’s P.A.T.H. was born.
Students are expected to follow our four school rules that come under The Good Samaritan's P.A.T.H.
The Good Samaritan’s P.A.T.H.
Persist with learning
Act safely
Treat others with respect
Help your neighbour
Students are explicitly taught what these rules look like both inside and outside of the classroom. The introduction of P.A.T.H. notes in 2022 has been a huge hit with the students and staff. Students receive P.A.T.H. notes when they have been spotted following these rules. The students then bring their notes to the Office to go in the weekly lucky draw. This year students' P.A.T.H. notes will also be recorded in Compass and parents will get a Compass notification that their child has received a P.A.T.H. note. These are recorded once per week after our weekly draw.
Our P.A.T.H. note winners for Week 3 are: Ella Benato, Evelyn Sullivan and David Holm.
Guidance Counsellor
In this edition of SchoolTV - ONLINE GAMING
Games are an integral part of human behaviour. It is normal and healthy for young people to engage in play as a part of their daily lives, including playing games online. And like most activities, online gaming can have both positive and negative outcomes. It can be intimidating and confusing for carers trying to understand a young person’s online experiences with many considering that staring at a screen is an unhealthy habit. However, the World Health Organisation does believe that as well as the risks, there are also many positive benefits associated with online gaming and these could be key in nurturing bonds with others.
During the pandemic, there was an explosive growth of gaming as people sought much needed connection during isolation. In the media, gaming often gets bad publicity because most coverage tends to concentrate on the minority of gamers who play to such an extent that it compromises all other areas of their life. However, online gaming can teach young people many skills including teamwork, concentration, communication and problem-solving. It requires a level of interaction and skill from the player; unlike watching television, which is more passive.
Online communities provide opportunities for young people to feel socially connected and have a sense of belonging. At healthy levels, gaming can increase their self-esteem and social acceptance. However, any behaviour, when taken to extreme, can also have a negative impact on a young person’s everyday life. Understanding what your young person experiences online and knowing the warning signs if they are at risk, will help nurture a more positive relationship with online gaming and help your family find the right balance.
If you are concerned about your young person’s online gaming habits, it’s important to consider a number of factors. This edition will provide strategies in how to deal with any issues you may be experiencing.
We hope you take time to reflect on the information offered in this edition of SchoolTV and we always welcome your feedback. If you have any concerns about your child, please contact the school guidance counsellor for further information or seek medical or professional help.
Here is the link to the Online Gaming edition of SchoolTV
https://sfatsv.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/online-gaming
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