Term 2 Newsletter 7th June, 2024.
Principal's Message
Reading the Report Card
As we begin to enter the final few weeks of Semester 1 and the ever anticipated wait for the distribution of the mid-year reports cards, it is good to stop and reflect on what the meaning of the judgements provided mean for us and our children.
I know that when I was attending school and even when I first began my teaching career, the ultimate goal was to achieve that ever-inspiring A. This would often mean that we had completed a task to an exceptional standard with no criteria to tell us how or why we received such a good mark. The Australian Curriculum provides a detailed explanation of what content understanding and application of skills are required to be successful in each Key Learning Area (KLA) or subject in each year level. This expected standard of success is what we will see on the report cards as a C.
If a C is obtained, then this should be a cause for celebration as this means that your child has shown evidence to achieve the conceptual understanding and the ability to use the necessary skills for a particular area of learning. There would also be evidence that they can transfer this learned understanding and skills to other familiar or similar situations.
Students at St Francis de Sales are given opportunities to demonstrate their conceptual understanding and applied skills in tasks which extends their thinking, creativity and problem solving in new or unfamiliar situations. This transfer of learning could be using their understanding of parts of speech such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to create a piece of quality writing or using their understanding of mixed fractions in a real-world scenario or using their learned knowledge and skills in a science experiment to hypothesise and evaluate on an outcome which has not yet been proven.
Students who are beginning to show evidence that their thinking, creativity and problem solving is being transferred to new situations demonstrate the ability for a B and those who have can demonstrate this transfer in all new situations that they are provided will be provided an A.
As report cards are carefully (or not so carefully!) opened it is always wise to remember that sometimes judgements on a page does not always reflect the hard work students have demonstrated within the classroom. Our goal is always for self-improvement of the individual.
Celebrating our School Officers
On Thursday June 20, we will be celebrating School Officer Day, a time to recognise and express our gratitude for the hard work and dedication of our amazing support staff. Our School Officers deserve to have their contributions acknowledged, including our library aide, teacher aides, grounds staff and administrative staff. As dedicated professionals, they all provide amazing support to our school. With them being the best in their roles, allows us, the teaching staff, to the best in ours. On behalf of the parents, teachers and the students, our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to every one of our School Officers.
Nirvana Community Health Visits
Starting next term, the students of St Francis de Sales will resume their visits at the local aged care facility called Nirvana Community Health Centre. This allows students to develop and form relationships with the older members of Clifton. In the past, this experience has been one of real value for all involved. Service learning is a vital part of showing compassion and kindness to others, something we hold dear to our hearts at St Francis. I am sure that this will again be of great joy for the students and residents the in the age care facility.
School Fees
Thank you to all the families who maintain a regular financial commitment to the school. Your ongoing support by paying school fees goes a long way to assist the school to meet its financial responsibilities and continuously provide contemporary resources for the students. Families who have fallen behind in payments will be contacted by the school over the next fortnight. To avoid any unnecessary embarrassment, please take the necessary steps to bring yourself up to date with school fees before the amount owed accumulates to an unacceptable level.
APRE News
On Sunday 26 May, we celebrated Pentecost. Pentecost Sunday is like the Church’s birthday. Pentecost is a Greek word which means 50th. Pentecost is the 50th day after Easter Sunday where we celebrate the Holy Spirit coming to the Apostles and their followers. Just like a birthday where we receive gifts from our loved ones, the Apostles received gifts from God who loved them. He sent these gifts through the Holy Spirit to help them begin Jesus’ ministry here on earth. There are seven gifts - wisdom, understanding, knowledge, right judgement, reverence, courage and spirit of wonder. Each gift with a unique purpose.
Understanding to help us show caring and compassion to others.
Knowledge to help us use what we learn about to help others.
Wisdom to help us help others with advice and suggestions when things aren’t going so well for them.
Courage to help us be brave when things do not go quite right and to stand up for people who are not being treated with equality.
Right judgement to help us make sure we include everyone and speak to everyone nicely even if they are not our best friends.
Reverence to help us spend time praying to God and asking him for help and thanking him for what he has given us.
Spirit of Wonder to help us show respect to God and to others.
The people who received these gifts were the very first members of the Christian Church.
One of the apostles present when the Holy Spirit came was Peter who became our very first Pope. As we celebrate the Church’s birthday, we ask that those same gifts fill our hearts so that through our words and deeds we may be shining examples of Jesus’ love, bringing hope to the world.
Up coming events:-
Week 9
Mon 10 June – High Jump Trials at St Francis – 9/10 yrs Boys and Girls – 1:30pm
Wed 12 June - 800/200m events at St Francis – just our school – 9:15am start
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
Term 3
Week 1
Mon 8 July – Pupil Free Day
Wed 10 July – Assumption College Visit to St Francis de Sales – 1pm
Week 2
Wed 17 July – Track and Field – Central Downs Day 1 – Allora
Fri 19 July – Track and Field – Central Downs – Day 2 – Allora
Week 3
Mon 22 July – Catholic Education Week Mass – 9:00am
Fri 26 July – Pupil Free Day – Bishop’s Inservice Day
Sun 28 July – Family Sunday Mass – 9:30am
Week 4
Tues 30 July – 1500m event – Scot’s Warwick
Week 5
Fri 9 Aug – Mary MacKillop Assembly – 2:00pm
Sat 10 Aug – Bush Dance Celebration – 5:00pm
Week 6
Tues 13 Aug – Bike Safety Yr4-6
Wed 14 Aug – Track and Field – Southern Downs – Allora; Bike Safety Yr 4-6
Thurs 15 Aug – Assumption of Mary
Week 7
Tues 20 Aug – Book Week Celebrations; Track and Field DD – Twmba
Week 8
Thurs 29 Aug – Father’s Day BBQ and Liturgy 8:00am; Empire Theatre Excursion 11:00am
Friday 30 Aug – Pupil Free Day – CTJ day
Sun 1 Sept – Father’s Day
Week 9
Mon 2 – Fri 6 Sept Family Life Week / Daniel Morcombe Curriculum
Fri 6 Sept – Clifton Ball Games Carnival
Week 10
Fri 13 Sept – Last day of school
Thank you for your ongoing support, and let's make the last few weeks of Term 2 even more successful and rewarding!
Thanks for reading…
Regards,
Mr Red
Middle Leader
End of semester reports will be sent through the Parent Portal at the end of Week 10. Our teachers have put an incredible amount of time and care into the preparation of these reports. We hope these will give you a clear summary of how each child has progressed over the semester.
An email will be sent to parents on Thursday in Week 9 if your child is receiving a mark of D or E for a subject. Please remember we mark your child against the end-of-year standard for that year.
A D mark means a student requires support to reach the content, while an E means your child requires extensive support in their learning.
It is not unusual for a child to receive a D for the Semester One report card as it is not expected that they will be at the end of year benchmark halfway through the year. If you are concerned or would like further clarification, please contact your child’s teacher to arrange an interview.
We are extremely proud of the learning that has occurred already this year. Your children have grown and developed so much already.
Mrs Busiko
Prep/1/2/3 News
We have been learning about non-living and living things in our Science unit. We have been looking at the features of living things and how we can classify living things. Children have enjoyed engaging in our vet clinic in caring for sick and injured animals.
During Religion lessons we have been learning about the Catholic Social Teaching of the Common Good. We have revisited our school charism story- The Good Samaritan and considered how we can be a good friend like Jesus taught us. We have created posters showing our ideas.
We are learning to segment, and blend sounds to read and spell familiar and unfamiliar words. We have noted a strong growth in independently using these skills when reading and writing. We are excited that our Preps have learnt their single sounds. We've set up a writing station to engage learners in creative writing tasks. We'll be excited to share this writing with our community.
Students are busily preparing for their "How to" speech presentation at the end of the term. This is always a fun day of learning and sharing gifts and talents.
Mrs Skillington
Yr 5/6 News
In HASS, we are coming to the end of our unit on Migration.
Help requested: We would love to open up our classroom to any parents and grandparents who have migrated to Australia. We would love to ask you some questions about moving from another country! If you have 20 minutes spare in your week, 4/5/6 would love to invite you into our classroom.
In art this week, we studied the works of Keith Haring. The students found his art interesting as he uses stylized, colourful images of people. It was quite fun to create work inspired by Mr Haring.
In English, we learnt about Greek and Latin root words. This week we learnt about vert, vers, hydr and tract. It was fun to try and use some of these new words in sentences. Some of the favourites were: avert, retract, hydrate and divert.
Please note, homework will be due on Monday for the 4/5/6 class.
Mrs Busiko
PE with Mr Red & Mrs Malbon
ATHLETICS CARNIVAL
Our annual athletics carnival will look slightly different this year with Day 1 (Wednesday 12 June) being held at St Francis de Sales and Day 2 (Friday 14 June) being held at St Patrick’s, Allora.
Day 1 (Prep to Year 6) is on Wednesday 12 June and Day 2 will be on Friday 14 June.
Day 1 will consist of 9yrs – 12yrs running a 200m and 800m event, while our 5yrs – 8yrs will be running a 200m event.
Day 2 will consist of sprint races for all students including relays, field events for 9yrs to 12yrs (including 11/12yrs high jump. There will also be ball games for all the students including 5-8 yrs mini athletic rotations. A more detailed information letter has been sent out this morning about the happenings of these two days.
Over the last two weeks, all students have been busy showing off their athletics skills in the disciplines of shot put, discus, long jump, high jump, sprints, long distance and balls games. Please join us for our athletics carnival in week 9.
All the best to our Year 3-6 students as they complete at the Gala Day competitions for Soccer, Netball and Rugby League. We hope all students can play and perform with their greatest effort.
Yours in sport,
Mr Red and Mrs Malbon