Term 2 Newsletter 26th April 2024

Principal's Message

UPHOLDING THE ANZAC IDEAL-CLIFTON CELEBRATES THE ANZAC LEGACY

Thursday just gone, we as a nation, celebrated one of the most significant days for our country. This was a special occasion to acknowledge the sacrifice and to pay our respect to those who have defended our country and to those who are continuing to do so. I was extremely proud to see that every student that was able, made the effort to commemorate the ANZAC spirit, in marching with our community and attending the dawn service. This is a true measure of what this day means to our community. Lest we forget.

As I prepare to write the Principal's column, I have found the below article always interesting and thought provoking reading. I hope you enjoy..

Enjoying great peace and prosperity, Australians are keen to contemplate the ANZAC legacy. So there has been a vast resurgence of interest in dawn services and the number of Australians spending Anzac Day at Gallipoli grew from 200 (in 1988) to 20,000 (in 2005). Further, in 1995 a tradition commenced as Essendon and Collingwood clashed at the first AFL ANZAC Day game. At those matches, a brief period of silence is kept by the crowd of over 90,000 supporters-as preceded by the Last Post and followed by the Rouse. A flag ceremony is held, war veterans are recognised. Similar to the AFL, the rugby league community also embraced the tradition (in 2002) with the Sydney Roosters and the St George Illawarra Dragons, along with the Melbourne Storm and the New Zealand Warriors, participating in a sporting match. The ANZAC day medal is awarded after the match to the player who best exemplifies the ANZAC spirit: skill, courage, self-sacrifice, teamwork and fair play. Though it has led to negative responses in the media, these games are consistent with the view of the original ANZACs who in 1916 held a sports event on the first ANZAC day.

Finally, we may describe how heroes such as John Simpson Kirkpatrick (1892-1915) reflect Jesus Christ. Simpson and his donkey saved perhaps hundreds of ANZACs at Gallipoli. Giving no thought to his own safety, Simpson lasted for only 24 days. His life and action illustrate the ideal described by Jesus: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" ( John 15:13 KJV), and "I am among you as one who serves." ( Luke 22:27). Killed at the age of 22, he was regarded by colleagues as "like Christ' (an extract from http://fava.org.au/conent/fol-pdf-doc/691)

SUPPORTERS OF THE SCHOOL

A massive shout out to our families that support our school. If it is helping with maintaining the school grounds, installing and building electrical works, building words, volunteering your time with fundraising events or just general maintenance around the school, I would like to say a massive thank you to these families. If you would like to advertise your business, we might be able to assist and help out through our communication mediums. Please get in contact with the school.

CHANGES TO CALENDAR EVENTS:

The list of school events are located on the school’s webpage – https://sfdssclifton.schoolzineplus.com/calendar

This is a great way of keeping up to date with upcoming events. Emails, notifications and Facebook posts will also occur throughout the year to inform and remind you of upcoming events etc. Please see the next couple of events happening very soon:-

Term 2 – Week 3

Thurs 2 May – Cross Country – Southern Downs

Week 4

Mon 6 May – Labour Day – Public Holiday

Fri 10 May – Mother’s Day Stall and Liturgy – please send your photos to Allison Busiko, send in your $10 per gift  

Week 5

Mon 13 May – Pie Drive Order forms due back

Tues 14 May – Cross Country – Darling Downs

Fri 17 May – Walk to School Safely Day

Week 6

Wed 22 May – Assumption College Visit for Year 5/6

Wed 22 May- National Simultaneous Storytime

Thurs 23 May – Be a preppie for a morning (Prep 2025 interested students)

Fri 24 May – Gala Sports Day in Allora

Sun 26 May – Family Sunday Mass – 9:30am – Pentecost

Week 7

Fri 31 May – Reconciliation Week Liturgy

Week 8

Fri 7 June – Gala Sports Day in Allora – Under 8s Day at Clifton State School

Week 9

Mon 10 June – High Jump Trials at St Francis – 9-12 years Boys and Girls

Wed 12 June - 800/200m events at St Francis – just our school

Thurs 13 June – Be a preppie for a morning (Prep 2025 interested students)

Fri 14 June – Athletics Carnival combined with St Francis and St Patrick’s at St Patrick’s Allora

Week 10

Fri 21 June – NAIDOC Celebrations and Semester One Report Cards emailed out to families

LEARNER QUALITIES

I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce our new  four Learning Qualities (dispositions) at St Francis de Sales as:- I am Resilient; I am Confident;  I am Persistent and I can Cooperate. Under these learner qualities, we have developed success criteria, which will assist with a greater understanding of each of the qualities. Our intention is for these qualities to be used in and outside of the classroom/school/learning environment/teachable moment/life experience, to be life-long learning skills that will enable each student to be successful in life. Our job is to teach, foster and to enrich these qualities into the students. Please look for these posters in the school, website, newsletters-everywhere around our school.

Thanks for reading..

Regards,

Mr Red

APRE

Service Learning- Mrs Malbon's Trip

The greatest gift we can give is a helping hand to those in need.

Inspired by the Parable of the Good Samaritan and guided by the Benedictine values, staff and students at St Francis de Sales are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus by placing Christ’s teachings at the heart of all that we do.

With this mind, in the recent school holidays, I took the opportunity to put faith, kindness, empathy and compassion into action through service-learning. Over a period of six months I investigated, planned, and organised a visit to a rural, remote and under resourced school within Indonesia.

Through discussions with the students and staff of St Francis de Sales and developing the awareness of the limited school resources in some overseas schools, the students of SFDS were inspired to put faith and compassion into action. Through the donation of a gold coin on Shrove Tuesday and Harmony Day, students and staff raised money to buy school stationary supplies and resources to benefit the life of school students less fortunate than themselves.

On my visit to Tianyar Barat School, I was able to present these supplies to representatives of the staff and student body. Both students and staff were amazed at the generosity and kindness of the St Francis de Sales community and were truly grateful.

On returning to St Francis de Sales a book was donated to the St Francis de Sales Library in appreciation of the kindness and generosity shown by the St Francis Community.  I look forward to staying in contact with this school and organising another visit in the not-too-distant future.

Each of you has been blessed with one of God’s many wonderful gifts to be used in the service of others. So, use your gift well.  1 Peter 4: 10

Mrs Malbon

Middle Leader

I once heard a very wise person describe Mother’s Day as a celebration of the care, guidance and nurture that females provide their families and loved ones. Thank you to our wonderful females in our St Francis Community. You are such a blessing.  To celebrate you, the mothers and important women in the lives of the St Francis students, we will be having a Mother's Day Liturgy and an afternoon tea on Friday 10 May. Please comment on the Facebook page if you are attending. Our lovely staff would like to create a feast for you - so we need to know who is coming! Also, please keep sending through the photos of mothers and children. If you can send through this ASAP, that would be appreciated.

The stall for Mother's Day is currently being prepared. To make coordination of the stall much easier, we will need know exactly how many gifts are required, please send along $10 cash per gift in a labelled envelope to the office, before Friday 3 May.  

Thank you to all of the parents who attended the Term 1 Parent - Teacher Interviews. If you were unable to attend, please arrange a time to meet with your teacher via email. We would love to have a chat with you.

Prep/Yr 1/Yr 2/Yr 3 News

This term we have been learning about numbers, how to write, model, represent and recognise numbers. 

We had our whole school excursion to the Cobb and Co Museum on Tuesday, which was a great success. Lots of questions and learning from the day.

Year 1 have been busy in their reading groups, and Year 2/3 with writing their  letters to ANZAC Ted. 

We have been busy learning about ANZAC day and why this day is so important to us, this also included the very importantj job of baking ANZAC biscuits. We are also very excited to have lead our ANZAC Liturgy this Friday.

Mrs Skillington

Yr 4/ Yr 5/Yr 6 News

Cobb and Co Museum Visit 

Here are some of the facts the Year 4/5/6s learnt at Cobb and Co yesterday:  –  

Shaneil - The Indigenous men and women were not allowed to do the same activities sometimes. The men would use the Bellora to tell the women that they can’t go to the men's group. The Bunya nut is from a weird looking green spikey thing 

Hope & Matilda - A little girl how found rocks that she called fairy stones. She told her dad that she was going to play at the fairy stones. Her dad was confused, so he got some people to have a look at them and they said that they were aboriginal meeting places.  

Harvey- When the Aboriginal people made a digeridoo, they didn't carve much wood out to make hollow objects like the digeridoo because there were termites that ate the inner part of the log to make it hollow. 

Charlotte- The cool fact I learnt about was that on the Royal Mail carriage you had to pay $1000 dollars in today's money to go on the carriage.  

 Natalie- Women weren’t allowed to drive most carriages because women's skin was not allowed to be shown.   

 Chaz B- In the olden days people would have to spin a wheel to get electricity. 

Bryce- In the Cobb and Co museum in Toowoomba, there is a carriage that was the first carriage to be a convertible.  

 Daniel- At the Cobb and Co museum I learnt the aboriginal people let termites make a circle shape inside wood to make an emu caller. 

 Rhys-   At the cobb and co museum we looked at Aboriginal artworks and their tools. I learnt there is two types of boomerangs, the playing kind and the hunting kind. 

Jackson-  In Toowoomba there where roads made especially for carts. I thought that it was interesting. The roads are still in Toowoomba.  

 James- I learnt that it costs one thousand dollars in today's money to rent a cart/bus. 

 Marly-The fact I found out is that sugar biscuits relatives are at the Cobb and Co museum. Sugar biscuit is Bryce's horse. Another fact that goes with that is that sugar biscuits meal was also there which is the goat.  

 Lexi – I learnt at the Cobb and Co museum that the indigenous women use Coolamon to gather resources for their tribe.  

 Emmett- The men were the hunters, the women were the gatherers. 

 Katherine- I learnt that people would use a bucket as a toilet then at during the late night or early morning, the sanitary cart would come around and take/empty the bucket.  

 Theo- Poor people used billy goats to pull their carts around instead of horses because they are a lot cheaper. This is where billy carts got their name from.  

 Joseph-My fact is that they had lights on the bus so it could drive at night. 

 Olive – I leant that Aboriginal people invented tick tack toe or knots or crosses. We still play this game today. The Aboriginal people played with rocks and dirt but now, we can play on a piece of paper.   

 Sophie- In the past a man came into a house at nighttime and collected your poop in a bucket and put it in a trailer. 

Mrs Busiko

Cobb and Co Museum Excursion

Sport

PE with Mrs Malbon, Mrs Langan, Mrs Auger and Mr Red

We have begun our unit on Athletics for this term. The students demonstrated skills in shot put, discus, high jump and long jump. In the coming weeks will be take on sprints and 800s.

Starting in Week 6, before school Athletics practise will begin at 8am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. All students are able to join in and practise. We will culminate these activities with our athletics carnivals (please see dates above).

Recent Representative Sporting Events – 10 to 12 years students

Last week, Rhys Gascoyne represented Central Downs at the Southern Downs Tennis trials. He was unsuccessful but put in a wonderful effort. Sophie Joppich, Natalie Patterson, Matilda Skillington, Joseph Ramsey and Henry Johnson represented St Francis at the Central Downs Cross Country Event at Pilton. All tried extremely hard and gave their best efforts. A special congratulations goes to Henry and Sophie for making the CD cross country team (and will compete at the SD trials in Warwick) and to Joseph who will compete at the DD Cross Country event in early May.

Training has begun for the Gala Day competitions for Soccer, Netball and Rugby League. Please encourage your child (if over the age of 8) to attend these important training sessions.

Yours in sport,

Mrs. Malbon and Mr. Red

PEN Uniform Shop

Uniform Shop Co-Ordinator: Kylie Hay

Contact Details: kurlz@live.com.au or 0487 582 107

Uniform Shop Days: MOST Thursdays & Fridays

If you would like uniforms, please utilise the QuickCliq webpage for any orders going forward.

Administration

Thank you to everyone for the warm welcome. It has been a very busy introduction to St Francis de Sales, and I am incredibly lucky to have been chosen to be a part of such a wonderful and friendly school community. I am looking forward to meeting more families as the year proceeds.

SCHOOL FEES 

School fees are being prepared and will be sent out next week, so keep an eye out for these. 

Account details are below for those of you who pay direct to the account.

BSB: 064786

Account: 100023789

Please feel free to contact the office anytime or pop in and say hi next time you are dropping off or picking up. 

Happy Term 2,

Mrs Petrie