Welcome back to school for Term 3. I'm sure you all had a good break and that it provided an opportunity for a change of pace. It has been wonderful to catch up with students and families this week; hearing about adventures, learnings and social connections.

Our school community will come together tomorrow to celebrate Grandparents Day. Grandparents hold a special place in the lives of their grandchildren. This unique connection allows grandparents the opportunity to impact the lives of their grandchildren in a positive and long-lasting way. Have you ever stopped to think about how important grandparents are? Our children's grandparents can be the most wonderful resource, both to us as parents, and to our children. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, we can forget this fact. Grandparents’ Day is a great time to remind ourselves of what grandparents mean to us and an opportunity for students to show their grandparents their creativity and talents in their classrooms as well as celebrating Mass and morning tea with them.

We also take the opportunity to remember and keep in our prayers those grandparents who are no longer with us. May you all enjoy this time with our school community.

Bless all Grandparents and keep them in Your care.
Bless them with peace, health and healing.
Reward them for their Faith and fidelity, for their work and goodness,
for their love and thoughtfulness, and for their gifts and prayers.
Provide them with a long and happy life together.
We give thanks for the example of their faith, for the witness of their lives,
and for their consistent love,
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen

Get well wishes
Please keep Sienna Farrugia (1 Gold) and her family in your thoughts and prayers at this time. Sienna is currently in hospital receiving treatment for a recently diagnosed illness. Our school community sends all its love and best wishes to you Sienna. 

Introduction of new student information management system
This term St Francis of Assisi has introduced a new student information system called Compass that will provide further communication with the school. It is most important that all parents have a very good understanding of this system. This management system has been rolled out across all Wollongong Diocesan Catholic primary schools. 

Below is some further information about Compass.

What is Compass? Compass is a Student Information System that has new updated capabilities including a "Parent Portal" for online access to your child's school records and school information.

The Parent Portal allows parents/carers to:

• monitor your child(ren)’s attendance, and enter explanations for late arrivals or absences
• update your family details - mobile and email address
• download and view your child(ren)’s semester reports
• view ‘My News’- a news feed of school announcements, alerts and updates
• view the school calendar
• book parent-teacher meetings
• provide consent for events and excursions.

Further information will be provided in the coming weeks. We will be providing the option of attending some workshops to assist with downloading and using the Compass app. The first information session on Compass will be held on Monday 5 August at 9 am. Michael Norris from the Catholic Education Office Wollongong will be talking to our school community about Compass at the P&F Meeting. More information sessions will be communicated to the community over the coming weeks. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Uniform expectations  
Reminders about uniform expectations are a frequent inclusion in the newsletter. Thank you to the parents/carers who consistently strive to ensure that their children are presented in the correct uniform each day. I acknowledge that it can be a challenge and sometimes it is the children themselves who make the choice to wear the incorrect uniform. On rare occasions, when a student cannot wear the correct uniform, a written explanation should be provided to their classroom teacher. Please find the uniform policy attached to this newsletter. 

Attendance and Illnesses
In addition to uniform reminders, we also remind parents about the importance of school attendance. Regular attendance at school for every student is essential for their improvement in learning, development and social-emotional wellbeing. While parents are legally responsible for the regular attendance of their children at school, school staff, as a part of their duty of care, have a responsibility to record and monitor school attendance.
While school attendance is extremely important it is also important to keep your child at home if they are experiencing signs of fever, vomiting or diarrhea, coughs and colds, etc... It is important they receive the appropriate treatment to help them get better faster. Those students who have been off for an extended period of illness should provide the school with a doctor's certificate. A few of our families have children who have or who are recovering from illnesses. Being mindful of this is the best way to protect others from infection.

St Francis Parish Church - Sacrament of Penance - Reconciliation

The meeting for parents and children making their First Reconciliation this year will be on Wednesday 7 August at 7.00pm in the hall. All those who will be participating this year must attend the meeting as all particulars will be discussed and lessons will be chosen. A note will be sent home next week with details of this sacrament and First Holy Communion.  Please contact the Parish Church if you have any enquiries regarding Sacramental programs - 4276 3565.  Thank you.

Year 6 Mass with the Bishop

On Tuesday 30 July, Year 6, Mrs Davidson and Mrs Briscoe attended the annual Mass celebrated by Bishop Brian. This year our students gathered with Year 6 students from our neighbouring Catholic schools at Ss Peter and Paul Kiama. This was a great opportunity for our students as they prepare to leave primary school and head to high school. During the Mass the students give thanks for the spiritual and educational experiences they have been gifted with for the past seven years in Catholic Education.

Mass for St Mary of the Cross

On Thursday 8 August the whole school will celebrate the Feast of St Mary of the Cross. Mary MacKillop is Australia’s first Saint and a very important part of our Catholic faith and our Catholic schools. Please join us for Mass at 9.00am prepared by Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2.

Term 3 Religious Education & Parish Important Dates 

Netball Gala Day
Last term, four teams represented our school at the Diocesan Netball Gala Day. Every team that competed, displayed improved netball skills, played as a team and definitely had lots of fun. The students displayed wonderful sportsmanship and consistently supported each other to do their very best.

Winning was not the goal on the day, but when they did, they shared their excitement and responded with loud cheers. Thank you to all our coaches for instructing the teams on how to play and thank you to all our parents who supported the teams.

A glorious day enhanced a wonderful experience and hopefully, more of our junior students will be encouraged to play netball in 2020.

Soccer Gala Day
A large number of our students have nominated to compete in the Soccer Gala Days on Friday 2 August. Permission notes have been distributed, we ask that these notes are returned by Friday 26 July.

The Junior teams (Year 3 and 4) will be playing in Nowra. The Senior Boys will be competing at Albion Park and the Senior Girls will be playing at Warrawong.

We hope they have an enjoyable day, perform well as a team and display some fabulous soccer skills.

South Coast Regional Athletics
The South Coast Regional Athletics Day will be held on Tuesday 13 August at Beaton Park, Gwynneville. Thirty three (33) students will represent our school on the day. Permission notes will be handed out during this week.

Congratulations to our Athletics Age Champions 2019

Well done Kindergarten and Mrs Beckhaus in sharing your wonderful learning with WIN News Illawarra.  

Welcome to our Farm!
In Kindergarten this term we will be learning about living things as part of our integrated play/inquiry based learning. This unit is based on the fairytale 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. Our learning space has transformed from a hospital into an Aussie Billabong, Kinder Farm, Farm Produce Stall and Market Kitchen. We also have some living things to learn about and observe too - like our pet fish 'Nemo', our hermit crabs, ants, stick insects, snails and lots of plants too!

During this unit we will not only be learning about what living things need to survive, but we will also be learning about seasons and how weather impacts living things - especially drought. We will be doing lots of hands on experiments, investigations and asking lots of questions!

This unit will be beautifully supported by our excursion to Symbio Zoo in Week 3. 

Stay tuned for updates on our living things learning throughout the term.

Kindergarten and Mrs Beckhaus

Welcome back to Term 3, 2019.

Can you believe it? We are already beginning the second semester of our school year. We hope that a relaxing and safe holiday was had by all. Our focus at the beginning of this term will be to revisit and reinforce the classroom correction sequence to maximise learning in the classroom.

The classroom correction sequence is a method used across the school to maintain a consistent approach to behaviour management within the classrooms. The correction sequence clearly outlines what occurs when students are redirected by the teacher during class time. The emphasis is on returning children to focus on their learning when they may be distracted or causing distraction within the classroom. The sequence is displayed in each classroom. The visuals used may be slightly different depending on the grade.

The Correction Sequence is a visual reminder for the children to return to their work displaying the expected classroom behaviours for the task at hand. We are continuing to enhance the use of this tool to support our students to remain active learners.

The  SPB4L newsletter items are aimed to keep you up to date with behaviour management at St Francis of Assisi and what you can do to support the school and, in turn, your child. We have been most appreciative of the parental support we have received over the first two terms.

Working together makes the greatest impact on student learning.

Mrs Matos

On Monday 1 July, Stage 2 students travelled to Science Space in Wollongong for a day of fun and learning. What a fantastic day we all had! The students enjoyed the hands-on interactive exhibits that demonstrate STEM in action. A visit to the Planetarium was very interesting with the laser projection system taking us on an entirely immersive tour of the Universe as we watched “We Are Stars”.

We were also involved in interactive science demonstrations where we were taught about energy and Liquid Nitrogen. Thank you to Mrs Mansbridge, Mrs Zaffonato, Mr Green, Mrs Adams and Ms Martins for organising the excursion and giving up their time to accompany the students on this wonderful learning opportunity. The students are to be commended on their exemplary behaviour on the day.

Here is what some students had to say…...

On Monday July 1st, Year 3 and year 4 went on an excursion to the Science Space Centre in Wollongong. Firstly we went to a 360 degree movie theatre. With our heads back, we watched a documentary on “We are Stars,” which was about the creation of earth. Scientists believe this was the Big Bang. We saw star formations, the Milky Way and listened to interesting scientific facts about our universe. We moved onto the Science Centre. This had lots of examples of how science works in our lives and why it happens. Here, we tried different activities on the ways that energy is used by us. It was a lot of fun and amazed us so much that we wanted to learn more. Fortunately, we were invited to the science lab to witness at first hand experiments with Matt, our science tutor. He demonstrated how energy can be built up and its effect. Liquid nitrogen, friction and complete circuits were all used. It was a great day. Joseph 4G

My favourite part of the excursion was when we went into the Planetarium and we watched “We Are Stars”. We were inside a huge dome where we had to look up to the roof. I learnt a lot of new things at Science Space. Lauren 3B

The excursion was awesome and we learnt a great deal about lots of different science facts. I enjoyed the hands-on activities where we could investigate different things. My favourite was the strength tester. Ali 3B

NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) is an important annual event where everyone’s invited to join in the celebrations and learn about the oldest living culture in the world. Significant events take place all across Australia. This year NAIDOC Week was held from the 7-14 July.

This year's theme was: 

The students listened to Dreamtime Stories, learned about the boomerang, painted using significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander symbols and participated in song and music activities. Students also had the opportunity to complete the NAIDOC Colouring-in competition. As the students had the holidays to complete these, we are allowing entries until Friday. As such, winners will be announced in classrooms in Week 2. These will also be published in the next newsletter.

Mrs Mansbridge

This term the school will focus on improving our efforts around reducing, reusing and recycling our waste in order to significantly decrease the amount of waste that ends up as landfill and to protect our environment.

As a school, we have an important role in re-thinking what we do with our waste by encouraging students to become instruments of change at school, at home and when they are out and about.

Guided by Mrs Welch, Mrs Briscoe, Mrs Mansbridge, SRC and Mini Vinnies, an education program will be implemented in all classrooms and new bins will be placed around the school playground.

More details will be communicated in our upcoming newsletters.

Mrs Briscoe.

The Woolworths Earn and Learn program ended at the end of last term.

A sincere thank you to all our school families and parishioners who assisted in collecting Woolworths Earn & Learn stickers. Together we collected 13,600 stickers!

Your support has allowed us to purchase some new resources for our classrooms.

Thank you!

We are seeking volunteers to help in the Canteen on
Monday, Wednesday or Friday from 10.00am - 2.00pm.

Our Canteen is run on a volunteer basis and we are very fortunate to have the assistance of Mrs Gerarda to manage the Canteen. Please contact the school office if you can assist in any way.

      The children always love to see their relatives in the canteen.

Casual or permanent after school care bookings are available. This service is available in the school hall. 

Our educators collaborate with children to provide play and leisure opportunities that are meaningful to them and that support their wellbeing, learning and personal development. Children in school-age care settings are challenged to be curious about what is of interest to them while at the same time developing self-identity and social competencies (taken from MY TIME, OUR PLACE Framework for School Age Care in Australia).

The day to day operations of St Francis of Assisi OSHC is managed by a Coordinator and supported by CatholicCare OSHC Leadership Team.