2021 Term 4 Week 2 Newsletter

Prayer Focus

From the Principal

On behalf of the entire school community I would like to extend a very warm welcome to the Wilson family - Rebecca, Jeffry, Remy (Year 5) and Max (Year 2). I am sure everyone will make them feel right at home and a part of the St Francis Xavier school family. 

A HUGE thank you to those eleven families who have provided the school with invaluable feedback in relation to the way Blended Learning at home as well as at school was rolled out. This week will be the final opportunity to provide us with feedback. Therefore, it would be much appreciated if more families could take the time to complete the feedback google form. ALL feedback is greatly valued.

Yours in Faith,
Warren Niethe
Principal

All Things Learning & Teaching

Learning Continues

It is lovely to witness the joy of learning and our students are back in the full swing of learning this Term and not even the rain is able to dampen their enthusiasm.

St Francis Xavier a Growing Community

During the course of the year we have welcomed a number of new families to our school and this Term is no different. St Francis Xavier is a wonderful school and we are pleased and privileged to work alongside you in the task of educating your children. We look forward to a future when we can gather as a whole school community in person.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) Units Term 4

Blended Learning in Term 3 unfortunately interrupted the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) units. The learning experiences in this key learning area are foundational in providing our students with the opportunities to actively contribute to, and advocate for, the health, safety and wellbeing of themselves and others in the community and beyond school.

Over the next five weeks the unit which has a focus on knowing the body will be completed. As was stated in Term 3, our school values parents as the first and primary educators of their children, especially in matters relating to the body. To that end, a note detailing the specific content to be covered in each stage will be emailed to all families next week. Please take the time to read this note and talk to your child if you feel this is necessary.

Sharon de Dassel
Assistant Principal Learning & Teaching

Faith & Mission

On Wednesday this week, classes had the opportunity to spend some time praying the Rosary. Instead of traditional rosary beads, a ‘walking rosary’ was set up in the Hall. 

Katrina Ryan
Leader of Evangelisation

High Potential Learning (HPL)

During Term 3, Stage 2 and 3 HPL students had an opportunity to work with ‘Breakout EDU’ boxes.  Students were required to work as part of a small group to solve challenging puzzles and carefully follow directions in order to succeed and ‘break out’.

The students then worked together to create their own activities for a breakout box in the area of Geography. This included activities related to Australia’s states and territories, capital cities, famous landmarks and the population of Australia. 

On Wednesday, Stage 2 HPL students ran their first session with the Year 4 students. Lots of ‘crunchy eyebrows’ could be seen as the students worked their way through some pretty tough challenges with one group successfully solving the challenge within the hour. Several other groups were VERY close to solving the final clue!

The Stage 2 HPL students are looking forward to running another session with Year 4 in two weeks time. 

Suzie Coster
Leader of Literacy/HPL

Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

This wet week wasn’t enough to dampen the St Francis Xavier spirit! Students were still busy earning tokens by following this week’s focus, Respect Others: I play by the rules. Handball was definitely the wet weather game of choice for many of our senior students!

Laura Cooke
Leader of Positive Behaviour Support

Gold Token winner

Congratulations to all our token recipients for this week, especially our Gold Token winner!

Keep up the great work everyone.

Free Webinars in October

Parent Assembly will be hosting three webinars for parents throughout the remainder of October. Please find attached a flyer for these webinars. This is an updated version of the previous flyer with a new webinar to help parents support children and young people as they navigate these times of change and uncertainty.  Please use the pdf below to register for these webinars.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Parent Assembly.

Road Safety & Traffic Management Guidelines

The carpark at the front of the school is for staff and disabled parking only.

Please do not use the staff car park to drop off or pick up children. (Even when raining.)

As the staff car park is always full this becomes a safety issue for children as cars have to double park and there is no room to turn around. On Tuesday there was a reported “near miss” where a child could have been seriously injured. It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure the safety of all our children. Your full cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Drop off and pick up points in the morning and afternoon are Maldon Place and the Queen Street culdesac only.

Drop off and pick up at the Hall gate is strictly not allowed as it falls within Bus Zone times.

If your child is late (arriving after 9.00am) they must enter through the Queen Street culdesac walkway access only as at 9.00am the Bus Bay, Hall and Maldon Place gates are locked.

Please refer to the school’s "Road Safety & Traffic Management Guidelines" below which is also found on our website.

School Travel in 2022

Please read this important information from Transport for NSW regarding school travel for 2022.

New Flexischools App

For families who use the Flexischools App for Canteen ordering, the App will require updating this weekend. Please read the following information from Flexischools.

At Flexischools, we are deeply invested in the positive relationship that we have built with our school communities. This is why we have spent considerable time and effort in reviewing your feedback of the Flexischools App and incorporating this into an overhauled user experience.

It will be available this weekend and we will make sure to prompt you via an app notification at this time.

Upon its' release, you will be required to update your app before your next use. We encourage you to do this as soon as it is available so that you can familiarise yourself with the new layout and ensure that there is no delay when you next order.

For even further information, please see a collection of guides on core functionality here:

Keep an eye out for many more exciting products and features coming from Flexischools in the near future.

Regards,
Your Flexischools Team