2026 Kindergarten Enrolment applications are open ONLINE. Please submit your application via our school website, www.sfawdow.catholic.edu.au, and click ENROL NOW.   Please do not hesitate to contact the School Office with any questions.  Limited vacancies are available in 2025.

Welcome Back - 2025
I would like to wish all of our students a big welcome back to the 2025 school year. Hopefully, you had a joyful and peaceful break with family and friends. It has been wonderful to see the smiling faces of the students and families as they return to school and reconnect with their friends and teachers. Thank you for all of the preparation that you, as parents and carers, put into ensuring your child was set up to have a successful start to the school year. 

Meet and Greet - Week 4 and Week 5

In Weeks 4 and 5 this term, you will have the opportunity to meet with your child's class teacher/s. This is an important first step in establishing positive relationships so that we can work in partnership for your child to experience growth in faith, well-being and learning. 
These sessions will be open next week (Monday 10 February) and a separate Compass news article will be sent on Monday with details on how to access and create bookings. Please contact your child's class teacher if you need assistance making a booking.

Grade Newsletters will also be shared each term. These will provide an overview of the learning taking place in each class each term, as well as other important information from class teachers.

Friday Assembly - Achievements

At St Francis of Assisi, we celebrate our student achievements in faith, learning and well-being each Friday with a whole school assembly. Sometimes we may have assemblies on other days due to other events on the calendar. 
As part of this, we would like to acknowledge any significant achievements that our students complete outside of school. To streamline this process, we have created a form to complete if you would like to share your child's achievements. This will allow you to add relevant details, and photos if you like, to support us in presenting this information accurately. 
Please complete this form (link below) if you would like us to recognise your child's achievement at our Friday assembly. This could be a sporting achievement, dancing/singing/performing achievement, martial arts, etc. Anything that your child has achieved outside of school. We would love to share the good news stories of our students. 
NOTE: All forms completed by the Monday of the week of the Friday assembly will be included. Any forms received after that will be included in the following assembly.

In addition to our weekly assemblies, we also hold Celebration of Learning Assemblies - 1 per class each year. These assemblies allow each class to present highlights of their learning to the whole school, and we also present Principal and Value awards. Please see below for the 2024 Celebration of Learning timetable. 

PLEASE NOTE: Celebration of Learning Assemblies begin at the earlier time of 2:10pm. 

2025 Celebration of Learning Timetable
Assembly starts 2:10 pm

IMPORTANT NOTICES AND REMINDERS:

Please note: School supervision does not begin until 8:15 am.
Students should not be at school before this time.

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE .....EVERY LEARNER, EVERY DAY!

• School attendance plays a critical role in enhancing the lives of students in school.
• Every day of attendance adds to a student's academic achievement and success.
• School attendance is compulsory for every school-age student.

Parents can help by promoting the importance of school by:

- ensuring your child attends school every day
- arriving at school punctually (school begins at 8:40 am)
- leading by example ... be organised and ready

We are keen to support parents in developing and consolidating good attendance habits in every student.

It was great to meet Miss Muvceska and Mr Smith this week for the promotions afternoon. We look forward to welcoming our new staff members in 2025 - Miss Celeste Muvceska (6 Blue) and Mr Shayne Smith (Middle Leader, Instructional Coach and 5 Gold). Please see below for a brief introduction from Miss Muvceska and Mr Smith.

Miss Muvceska I am very happy to be joining the St Francis of Assisi community in 2025. I have taught for three years with a Year 4 class at Our Lady Help of Christians in Rosemeadow. All students that I have had the pleasure of teaching have made a positive impact on my life and have definitely shaped my teaching practice today. I feel honoured to be in a career where I can make a difference in the lives of students I come across. A little bit about me is that I live in Wollongong with my family, I love going for walks with my dog along the beach, I have a real interest in pilates at the moment and I have a strong passion for the job that I do. Thank you for welcoming me into your school community and I look forward to meeting you all and for the great year ahead.

Mr Smith Hi St Francis of Assisi community, my name is Shayne Smith. I’m very excited to be coming to the school and community of Warrawong next year. I have such a passion for learning and encouraging students to reach their goals and aspirations in life. I have been currently an Assistant Principal and Leader of Pedagogy in a rural remote area of the Northern Tablelands in Inverell - Holy Trinity. I’m excited for the adventures that lay ahead and wish you all a great holiday - Bring on next year!

Hello, St Francis of Assisi Warrawong! Thank you for the warm welcome to your school community. My name is Soukaina, and my friends call me Souki - Either is fine with me. I am excited to be your new School Counsellor, and I look forward to meeting you all. A little bit about myself:

• I grew up & attended school in the Illawarra. I've been to many places and lived overseas for a short time but there is nothing like home.
• I completed my studies at the University of Wollongong & hold a Degree in Social work. I have been fortunate to work in different areas of the field, however, supporting Children & Adolescents through School counselling is my passion.
• Likes: The colour green, being outdoors, reading a good book or listening to a podcast, having a laugh & spending time with friends/ family.
• I will be here every Tuesday and the second Wednesday so please come & say Hi!

Kind regards
Soukaina 
School Counsellor
CatholicCare Wollongong

Visit school website for more information here

2025
Tuesday 4 February	Students Year 1-6 Return to School
Wednesday 5 February	Kindergarten 2025 First Day of School
Monday 14 April - Friday 25 April	Term 1 School Holidays

2025 SCHOOL TERMS

2025 PUPIL-FREE DAYS 

Dear Parents 
The following annual Insight consents are required to be completed on the Compass Parent portal:

1. 2025 Consent for the use of student's image and/or work
2. 2025 Acceptable Use of Technology

These forms are compulsory and are to be completed by Friday 14 February. 
Please submit these via your parent Compass portal by clicking on the top two green "Insight" boxes on the right hand side of the Compass portal, and follow the prompts to complete the forms online as per the image and instructions below. Please note these two consents are required for each student. Please do not hesitate to contact the School Office if you have any questions. 

Dear Parents & Carers

As we begin the new school year it is important that your contact details are up to date.  It would be appreciated if you could log onto the Compass Parent Portal and check that your mobile/telephone number and email address are correct.

If you find that they are incorrect, you may update them in the portal.

Please also check that your email address is reachable, we sometimes find that we receive ‘bounce backs’ due full inboxes.

Thank you for your assistance.
Catholic Education Office, Wollongong.

P&F AGM 2025

Come along to our AGM, and join the committee. Become a voice in the school community, volunteer at events, and lend a helping hand.  We are asking for all our parents to come together to work together and share the load of our small but exciting community.

All Parents & Friends positions will be made vacant and an election will be held for new committee members for the 2025 Parents & Friends Committee.  The AGM has been scheduled to be held on Thursday 27 February at 3.00 pm-3.45 pm. All parents are welcome and hope to see you there.   

Life Ed and Healthy Harold will be visiting St Francis this term in Week 6!

Healthy Harold merchandise is available to order online.  Please see brochure attached.

Life Ed has been trusted to deliver education to over 7 million children and young people since 1979. You yourself may be a Healthy Harold graduate. Life Ed offers schools a unique, curriculum-based program empowering children to make safer and healthier choices through education. 

Life Ed is a 60-90 minute interactive lesson delivered by specialist educators. The face to face lesson is also accompanied by a range of pre and post visit lessons to help extend and reinforce the learning. The face to face lessons may be delivered in a mobile learning centre; a pop-up classroom, in your child’s classroom and also virtually. We follow Covid safe practices and all Life Ed employees are required to have a Working With Children Check. 

The lessons cover a range of topics across the three core areas of physical health, safety and social and emotional wellbeing. We have developed the lessons specifically to be unique, memorable and interactive experiences.   

There are 3 preschool modules and 12 primary modules Life Ed delivers, covering popular topics such as: 

• How nutrition and physical activity contribute to a healthy lifestyle. 
• Online safety education including strategies for recognising, reacting and reporting predatory or unsafe situations. 
• Strategies to deal with bullying and cyberbullying. 
• Resilience, self-awareness, self-management and social awareness. 
• Respectful relationships and consent. 
• Decisions, peer pressure, responsibility and consequences. 
• Alcohol and other drug education (in age appropriate contexts). 
• Ways to keep safe at home, school and in the community. 

Visit our module overview page to find out more and our Family Resources page to search for more information on the topics covered in your child’s Life Ed visit. Our family resources are free and support families in helping their children and young people to thrive.  

Welcome back to school for 2025! Over the coming weeks, all students K-6 will be participating in digital citizenship learning experiences that underpin all that we do with technology. This is all about how to safely and effectively use the technology we have available to best enhance student learning. It also includes a comprehensive teaching and learning sequence around the technology and social media policies. This will be supported throughout the year in learning and teaching programs to ensure that our students are digitally aware and cyber-safe citizens.

iPads
In 2025, we continue to operate 1:1 in classes Years 3-6 on the School Managed Program. 

Compass
Thank you for your continued support of the use of Compass as our main tool of communication and various other features. If anyone is having difficulty accessing Compass or use of its functions, please feel free to contact Mr Murphy to assist.

Safer Internet Day
Tuesday 11 February is Safer Internet Day.

At St Francis of Assisi, classes will be exploring ways in which they can be safe online.

Connect safely and with purpose – by keeping apps and devices secure and using social media in positive ways. 

Reflect before we act – by taking a moment to consider how what we do and say online may affect others. 

Protect ourselves and others by taking action – by telling family, friends or colleagues about eSafety and how we can help.  

CEDoW Social Media Statement

CEDoW Social Media Statement 94.03 KB

Scholastic Book Club Issue 1 - ORDER ONLINE - by 21 February 

Book Club is available for parents to order books for their children.  This encourages their reading and supports the school. Orders are to be placed online by 21 February, please see the instructions below.  Issue 1 Book Club catalogue is below.

How to order using LOOP?

1. Sign in or register an account at: scholastic.com.au/loop
2. Click on ORDER and select school and child’s class.
3. Add your child’s first name and last initial (for book distribution).
4. Enter product item number from the Book Club catalogue.
5. Make payment via credit card
6. All orders are attached to the school account until ready to be submitted to Scholastic by the school. Sorry, no late orders can be processed.

As an Allergy Aware School, we request no peanuts, peanut paste, peanut butter (including "dippers"), nuts, "Nutella" spread, or nutty muesli bars within the school.  Education about food safety and the seriousness and potentially life-threatening nature of allergies takes place within the classroom environment.  All students are reminded not to share or swap food.  We believe an effective partnership between home and school will ensure the successful inclusion of students with life-threatening allergies.  

We are committed to supporting our students with anaphylaxis within the school environment and request your support to ensure a safe environment for these students.  Thank you.