Welcome to Week 7. It’s great for me to be back on board at St Francis as we move through the last few weeks of 2021. I feel very rested and blessed to have had such an extended break and I can plan for 2022 with clarity and enthusiasm as we move forward.

In terms of staffing, you would all have heard the news by now that Belinda Burford has been appointed to the position of Principal at St Thomas School in Goodwood. Belinda richly deserves this opportunity and is looking forward to the challenge. I’m sure you will agree that St Francis was in great hands during my absence and I’m sure Belinda will bring many skills, a great knowledge and strong passion to her new role. In Week 9 we will have a formal chance to say farewell to Belinda at the End of Year Mass. If you can join us to celebrate 2021 that would be wonderful. We will also be saying farewell to Kieren Gulpers who has won a teaching position at Emmaus School in Woodcroft for the 2022 school year. Anne Mercorella and Josie Cochrane, both of whom have been on leave in 2021 are resigning their positions and will commence roles in other schools for 2022. Both Anne and Josie will also join us for Mass and an official farewell.

The calendar of events is extremely full during these last 3 weeks of school, and I ask you to take the time to book all events in your calendar so that you can ensure you don’t miss anything. Tonight, we have an Instrumental Concert for our students who learn music at school. On Friday we have the Blessing of the Cribs liturgy in the Church at 9:30am followed by our School Picnic at Morialta Conservation Park. Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions (State Management Plan requirements) there has had to be some attendance restrictions. These will be explained in detail in another section of the newsletter. Please ensure that you have read this information. We are also waiting on approximately 30 consent forms for children to be able to attend. It is extremely important that we receive these for your child/ren to be able to participate.

Congratulations to all our children who played team sport for St Francis in 2021. Two Netball teams, a basketball team and a chess club were all presented with medallions for their commitment to their chosen sport. I wanted to thank our volunteer coaches, Amanda Peluso, Lucas Donnarumma, Tim Elsom and Bettina Coscia for giving so willingly of their time in enabling our children to have an experience of competitive team sport during the year. We love the support of our volunteers, and we encourage you all to consider how you can support St Francis in 2022 to provide wonderful opportunities like these.

Have a great week.

James Meiksans

ReLAT

In Term 3 all Year 4 students in South Australia Catholic Schools participate in the Religious Literacy Assessment Tool. Religious Education (RE) is a core Learning Area in all Catholic schools. This is the first year of the implementation of the new Crossways RE curriculum, therefore in 2021 ReLAT was based on general religious knowledge gained from participation in RE lessons and the religious dimension of the Catholic school.

The assessment is not a measure of a child’s faith nor their participation in the broader life of the Catholic community. The data from the ReLAT assessment will be collated and used by the school to inform whole-school professional learning needs and the continuous improvement of teaching in Religious Education. Individual results will be sent home to parents with the end of year report.

This year our school achieved excellent results in ReLAT. Our average results was 30.3 out of 35 questions correct or 86.6% achievement. The average for SA is 28.4 out of 35 questions correct or 81.1% achievement. As you can see our school achieved 5.5% higher than the state average. We are very happy with these results and are confident our RE program is providing rich learning experiences for our students.

Whole School Events

We will gather on Friday for a Blessing of the Cribs Liturgy in the Church. You are warmly invited to bring along your nativity set form home to be blessed. Each class is preparing a nativity to bring to the Liturgy.

The End of Year/Graduation Mass will be on Wednesday of Week 9 however we will require limited numbers for the event. More information will come out soon regarding this and how many families members allowed.

Vinnies

The Mini Vinnies and social justice leaders are preparing for our Vinnies Christmas Appeal. This year each class will be given a box and a list of items needed to fill Christmas Hampers for Vinnies. Our St Francis community is always generous when supporting those in need. Each class has different items that they will be donating and you will receive a SeeSaw post with this information this week from our Mini Vinnies team.

Melissa Canil

Berry Street Education Model

Have you heard your child mention being “ready to learn”?

Has your child taught you a “brain break”?

Have you heard of a “circle greeting”?

These are all part of the Berry Street Education Model that St Francis is beginning to use to engage all student in learning. Our staff spent a full day training in this model last term and will continue this training into next year to ensure we can achieve high quality learning and relationships at St Francis. Berry Street Education Model is based on proven positive education, trauma-informed and wellbeing practices that encourage students to achieve personal and academic growth. We have already seen a change in our classroom environments as children learn strategies to engage in their learning and build positive relationships. There are 5 domains to the Berry Street Educational Model and we work through these with strategies embedded in our classroom practice.

Ready to Learn Scale

A ‘Ready to Learn’ Scale is something that each student uses to gauge their own readiness to engage in learning. This can be in picture or word form and students are able to articulate on the scale how ready they are. After self-assessment if they are feeling that they are not quite ready to learn then they have personal strategies to help them move into the space of learning.

Brain Break

Brain breaks are small activities that students participate in throughout the day, whether it is at the beginning of the lesson to get ready to learn or during a lesson to re-energise the brain. Brain breaks are proven to improve students engagement in learning. There are escalating and de-escalating brain breaks depending where students are on their ‘ready to learn’ scale.

Circle Greeting

Every morning every class does a circle greeting as a way of connecting with each other and improving relationships within the class. The greeting starts with one person and they greet the person next to them, then the greeting works it’s way around the circle so that every person is greeted by someone. The children love this activity!

Melissa Canil

For our whole school Picnic this Friday 26th November, we have unfortunately needed to change our plans in line with COVID-safe practices.

Our request for a Management Plan has not yet been granted and so we have needed to rearrange our plans to accommodate this. As such we will divide into two picnic sessions, with R-2 attending the first picnic (11am - 1pm) and then Years 3-6 (1 - 3pm) attending the second picnic.

Unfortunately this also means that we cannot extend the invitation to family members to join us. We will only be able to bring the selected Registered Volunteers from each class. These volunteers will also need to travel on the bus with us to assist with supervision ratios. Please ensure your child has the following for Friday's picnic: Sports Uniform including warm jumper/jacket, packed lunch and drink bottle, school hat and sunscreen.

Thankyou

Belinda Burford

Please follow the link to the latest news in the Southern Cross Newsletter, 23/11/2021