Term 1 Week 9 2023
From the Principal
Dear Parents and Carers,
Friday night saw our rescheduled Carnevale Disco finally happen. I know that the students were very excited and eagerly waiting for the evening to arrive. They all certainly looked amazing in their masks and costumes. Thank you to Mrs Lazzarini for helping the students create their masks and working with some of our Year 6 students to put on the skit at the beginning of the disco. Events such as discos don’t just happen as they take many hours of planning, preparation and people working together in the lead-up to the event. I would like to give a huge shout-out and thanks to Ashton, Steph, Bhree-Ana, Eliza and Gen for all of their assistance in organising the night and to the parents that jumped in and assisted Friday night thank you!
Parent/Family volunteers play a valuable role in supporting our school and enhancing the educational experience for our students. Some of the benefits of volunteers include:
- Increased resources - volunteers can provide additional support for schools such as additional supervision with events such as walking to the Eisteddfod, swimming, and on excursions. Extra instructional support by helping with reading, high-frequency words, and rotational activities. Fundraising/Event assistance such as helping in the tuckshop, at sports days, and being part of a committee to organise a function.
- Improved student outcomes - research has shown that parent involvement in education is associated with improved student outcomes, including higher grades, better attendance and increased motivation.
- Stronger school community - parent/family volunteers can help to build a sense of community among families, teachers and students which leads to a more supportive and positive school culture.
- Enhanced communication - when families are involved in school activities, they are better informed about our school which can help improve communication and understanding between parents and teachers.
At St Francis, we are very appreciative of our family volunteers and the time that they give to support our school. We value our partnerships with our families and believe that our students achieve their best when school and home work closely together.
If you have any concerns or questions throughout the year, please talk to your child’s teacher in the first instance. Please remember that during the day, teachers don’t always have the opportunity to check their email so if you have an urgent message, please contact the Office. Teachers will endeavour to reply to emails within 48 hours. Our teachers are very approachable and are always more than happy to answer any questions that you may have. They are the people that can give you accurate information about the routines and procedures in your child’s classroom so please don’t hesitate to reach out to them if you have questions.
Parent-Teacher Interviews
Next week our teachers will be holding parent-teacher interviews. These interviews provide an opportunity for parents and teachers to share information about a student's academic performance, behaviour, social skills and any other concerns they may have. The purpose of parent-teacher interviews is to establish a partnership between parents and teachers, working together to ensure the success of the student. This partnership involves communication, collaboration, and support for the student's learning and development. During the interviews, parents can ask questions about their child's progress and behaviour, while teachers can provide feedback on the student's strengths and areas for improvement. Parent-teacher interviews are an important part of the education process, as they provide an opportunity for parents and teachers to work together in the best interests of the student. I encourage all families to take up this opportunity. Meeting times can be made via the Compass App. Please see the instructions in the Newsletter on how to do this if you haven’t already. Bookings for interviews will close on Thursday at 3pm.
Change to Newsletter Day
In discussions with families, I have had many comments that they don’t get the opportunity to read the newsletter until the weekend so sometimes they are missing important information for that week. To ensure that our families are receiving the most up-to-date information for the following week, during Term 2 we will be trialling sending the newsletter home on a Friday. Our first newsletter for Term 2 will be sent out on Friday 21st of April.
Photoshoot
This Thursday we have our TCE Professional Photoshoot where we will take all of our marketing and promotional photos. I ask that all students be in their formal uniform for this day with the exception of those classes that have PE (3A, 2A and 5A).
Staffing Announcement
At the end of this term, we will be saying goodbye to Mrs Lee-Anne Knight our 3A teacher. Lee-Anne has been a valued member of the St Francis community for just over the past 12 months and I am very grateful for her commitment to the students she has taught and the contributions she has made to our staff and school community. I would like to take this chance to sincerely thank Lee-Anne for sharing her time and talents with our school. We wish Lee-Anne well in her future endeavours and look forward to welcoming her back to our school as a relief teacher in the future.
We have already begun the recruitment process to find a suitable teacher for the remainder of the school year and I look forward to sharing this news with you once the process has been completed and an appointment made.
Have a wonderful week
Take care and God Bless
Amanda
Religious Life of the School
Welcome to Week 9. Thank you to all the students and families who attended our last Youth Mass for the term on Sunday and an extra thank you to those who read, carried the gifts or collected the money. We look forward to you joining us again next term.
Yesterday we celebrated the Solemnity of St Joseph as a school community by participating in a whole school Christian Meditation. It was such a calm way to begin our week. As discussed previously, Christian Meditation has many benefits, it is a life skill that enhances learning, wellbeing & community. Through Christian Meditation, we come to know ourselves better and have a greater awareness that God is within us.
We also have our Lenten liturgy on Friday morning of Week 10 at 9 am in the hall. This is open for all families to attend and we would love for you to join us.
Students from our Mini Vinnies Committee are still selling our Easter Raffle tickets, 50c each, every morning and at play. All money raised will be donated to Project Compassion to help communities around the world and in our own country become more self-sufficient.
Project Compassion
This week we enter the fourth week of Lent. Caritas boxes may be returned to school anytime before the holidays so feel free to start sending them in.
Our tuckshop wall has a large tap with water drops, it is helping us keep count of how much we have raised so far. Each drop represents $5 raised. The students have had great fun counting. Let’s see how many more drops we can add.
Fourth Week of Lent
(Week beginning Monday 20th March)
This week through Project Compassion we learn about Thu, who lives in Vietnam. When Thu was 12 years old, he stepped on an unexploded land mine and lost his leg.
Living with a disability in rural Vietnam presented many challenges for Thu, who worked mainly as a rice farmer. Thu also took on the role of caring for his wife, Linh, after she suffered a stroke.
Determined to turn their lives around, Thu and Linh joined the Empowerment of People with Disabilities program, run by Caritas Australia’s local partner in Vietnam, the Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD).
For Thu, the greatest impact the program has had is enabling the change in Linh’s physical and mental wellbeing. With the support of a physiotherapist, Linh can now walk short distances with the aid of a walking stick.
God bless
Nicole
Learning Corner
PROMOTING LITERACY LEARNING (PLD)
Talk, Read, Write
This is the order in which children become writers.
Once children have strong phonological knowledge, they can decode (read). When children write they use this knowledge to encode so the reader can understand what is written.
To encode correctly is to spell correctly. Great spellers are able to choose the correct grapheme (letter or letters) to represent the phonemes (sounds) used in a word.
Children who are able to spell a list of words correctly for a week but do not use them correctly in everyday writing two weeks later cannot be described as skilled at spelling. A great speller is aware of the phonemes and graphemes that represent a word. They are word conscious and look for similarities and differences between words. If you venture into the Years One to Four classrooms, you will see their ‘word noticing’ charts.
Competent spellers make connections between known and unknown words. They do not rely on memory to spell a word. Rather, they use their knowledge of phonemes and graphemes to put their thoughts into words.
NAPLAN
For most students, after the Numeracy test on Wednesday, their participation in 2023 NAPLAN will be complete.
Students absent on the test days will complete the tests in ‘catch-up’ sessions. As the students were expected to complete the tests in a set order, they could not join the tests conducted when they returned to school one or two days after the testing commenced.
Congratulations to the students on the calm and relaxed way they approached the tests. All students were very much at ease using the tools provided through technology. Many thanks to the parents, who, through their conversations with their children, helped make the experience ‘stress free’ for them.
It is, after all, all about finding out how well they have learnt in the first three (P-2) or five (P- 4) years of school. Due to the earlier timing of NAPLAN, children’s opportunities for learning at their year level were limited.
NCCD Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD)
Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD). The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about supports provided to students with disability. These relate to legislative requirements under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005, in line with the NCCD guidelines (2019).
Information provided about students to the Australian Government for the NCCD includes:
- year of schooling
- category of disability: physical, cognitive, sensory or social/emotional
- level of adjustment provided: support provided within quality differentiated teaching practice, supplementary, substantial or extensive.
This information assists schools to:
- formally recognise the supports and adjustments provided to students with disability in schools
- consider how they can strengthen the support of students with disability in schools
- develop shared practices so that they can review their learning programs in order to improve educational outcomes for students with disability.
The NCCD provides state and federal governments with the information they need to plan more broadly for the support of students with disability.
The NCCD will have no direct impact on your child and your child will not be involved in any testing process. The school will provide data to the Australian Government in such a way that no individual student will be able to be identified – the privacy and confidentiality of all students is ensured. All information is protected by privacy laws that regulate the collection, storage and disclosure of personal information. To find out more about these matters, please refer to the Australian Government’s Privacy Policy (https://www.education.gov.au/privacy-policy).
Further information about the NCCD can be found on the NCCD Portal (https://www.nccd.edu.au).
If you have any questions about the NCCD, please get in touch with the school.
Have a great week
Rita Cranitch
Learning and Teaching Adviser
Inclusive Practices Teacher
Class in the Spotlight
Our Specialist Classes were our Class in the Spotlight last week.
The Arts - Music
- Students have been working hard composing and playing rhythms in class.
- Students have begun learning songs and movements for the annual Eisteddfod in May. Each class will prepare two pieces to perform as a class choir.
- At St Francis, we believe all students should experience what it feels like to be on stage and perform with friends.
- Students are using technology to compose songs on Chrome Music lab. They experiment with pitch, rhythm, and the use of various sounds and instruments.
PE
- In PE students have been busy preparing for our upcoming Cross Country. To prepare we have been practising running our track and playing running games to improve our fitness and stamina, including Running Connect 4 and Obstacle Courses.
- Congratulations to Jobe and Reesa who have achieved their 10km tag for Run Club.
- It has also been great to see so many Year 5 and 6 students participating in our Fitness Fun Club. They are enjoying pushing themselves and trialling a range of fitness equipment.
Italian
- Students have been busy preparing for the Carnevale Disco.
Specialist Classes
P.A.T.H.
Our P.A.T.H. note winners for Week 6 are: Kaleb Pucciarmati, William Chandler and Reeve Scuderi.
Parent Teacher Interviews
Cross Country
Community
