Term 1: Week 2
Welcome Back to SFA for 2025!
It's wonderful to see so many smiling faces back at school. I hope you all enjoyed a safe and joyful holiday break with your families. This week has been particularly lovely as our student leaders have been warmly welcoming families and acknowledging way they safely cross Fairview Parade at the school crossing.
We've been busy refining some of our school processes to ensure an even smoother and more productive year for our students. One of the key areas we've focused on is our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) matrix. Building on the strong foundations we've established in previous years, we've streamlined our expectations for student behaviour from 34 down to just 18, making them clearer and easier for students to understand and follow. You can learn more about the new PBL matrix later in this newsletter, and we'll be sharing more details about PBL, including clarified student exit procedures, in future editions.
We've also made some adjustments to our end-of-day routine. To maximize learning time and minimize transition time, we've shortened the end-of-day pack-up and line-up process to a swift 5 minutes, signaled by a chime at 3:15 pm. Students meeting families at the crossing or the oval gate will now be dismissed directly from their classrooms by their teachers. It's crucial that families are ready to meet their children at 3:20 pm to ensure a smooth and safe dismissal.
A big part of what makes SFA such a special place is our dedicated and talented staff. We are thrilled to welcome several new members to our school community this year. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to our new teachers: Angie Um, Daniel Bean, Sandra Malavisi, Isabella Loverso, and Marco Arrighi. We also welcome Alice Pham and Ella Thomas to our Learning Support team, Emily Wrigley as a Learning Diversity Leader, and Abigail Navarro, our new Speech Therapist. We are incredibly fortunate to have them all join us.
We also want to celebrate the growth and development of our existing staff. Congratulations to Lani Burston, Chloe Wegener, and Georgia Bailey on completing their studies and moving into teaching roles! We are delighted to have them continue their journey with us. Well done to Sarah Devine and Angela Scott on their new role as Learning and Assessment Leaders, and congratulations to Gill Butcher on stepping into the Deputy Principal position. Their dedication and commitment to SFA are invaluable.
We are looking forward to a fantastic year ahead and working in partnership with you to provide the best possible learning experience for our students.
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10 FEB - No Students - Meet & Greet Interviews
11 FEB - 2 Evening Sessions - Catholic Care: Open Doors - Yr 5&6 families
19 FEB 7 - 9 pm - Inform & Empower Parent Night
24 to 26 FEB - Year 6 Camp
28 FEB - Preps Attend their first Friday at SFA
4 MAR - Shrove Tuesday
4 MAR - 2 Evening Sessions - Catholic Care: Open Doors - Yr 3&4 families
10 MAR - Labour Day Holiday - No Students
12 MAR - NAPLAN Testing Period Begins
12 MAR - 5:30 - 7:30 pm - Reconciliation Family Workshop
Our Prep, Year 1 and 2 students will be using the Explicit Mathematics Program (EMP) in their Mathematics lessons this year.
The EMP provides teachers with all the necessary resources for a high-quality, rigorous, and evidence-informed mathematics program. This includes everything from lessons and assessments to daily reviews and student workbooks.
The EMP team consists of experienced mathematics teachers and educators, including Dr. Wendy Taylor, David Morkunas, Toni Hatten-Roberts, and Ollie Lovell. They have a combined experience of over half a century in teaching and researching mathematics and mathematics education.
The EMP is the only highly structured F-2 Mathematics program in Australia. It has been developed by experts in the field and has been rigorously trialled. We believe this program will build on the excellent maths results our students achieved last year and will see our SFA students achieve even greater success in the coming years.
It was wonderful to gather together in the spirit of faith, hope and community, to celebrate our Opening School Mass with Fr Jude, Fr. John and so many Families from our School Community on Friday 5th February. The Year 2025 is a special Jubilee Year for the Church, where all of God's people are invited as 'Pilgrims of Hope on the path of peace,' to strengthen their faith, experience God's grace and share hope throughout the world. Here at St Francis, we embrace the spirit of pilgrimage and we are excited to participate in this special year of celebration. We were delighted to introduce our new staff, School Captains and Year 6 Leaders during the Mass and we look forward to journeying together in 2025, as we live out our school Motto of ‘singing out our joy to all the earth’.
Once again, every Friday during Term’s 1 and 4 students at SFA can purchase a refreshing Zooper Dooper after Lunch playtime for $1.00. Thank you to the PIP Team for organising this Fundraiser.
Many hands make light work, and here at SFA we are very grateful to the wonderful members of our PIP Team who work together with Andrea to plan fundraisers and special events for our community. If you would like to join our Team, please come along to our First Meeting this Friday at 2:15pm in the Staffroom at SFA. Dads, Mums and Carers are all welcome!
Every three weeks on Friday Afternoon at 2:40pm we will be holding our Whole School Assemblies in the Billabong at SFA. Families are invited to come along and join us as we share exciting News about what is or has been happening at SFA. We hope to see you there!
School Crossing Supervisor Safety Awareness Day
The School Crossings team want to make the community aware of this Friday 7th February 2025 – which marks “School Crossing Supervisor Safety Awareness Day”
Road Safety is everybody’s responsibility to protect our children, pedestrians, and school crossing supervisors. We will continue to advocate for drivers to slow down and travel at a speed they can stop safely.
Our school crossing supervisors will wear a ribbon to commemorate their day and highlight the wonderful job they do. This will also honour a supervisor who tragically lost their life in Wodonga in February 2024.
We are very pleased to be welcoming Marty and Carley from Inform & Empower back to SFA in 2025. They will kick off the year with a Parent Information Session on Wednesday 19th February. Marty will then be joining every homegroup each term to present a range of sessions to help out students to be safe and healthy online.
All parents are invited to attend the Information Evening.
St Francis is a “Positive Behaviours for Learning” school.
Positive Behaviour for Learning, known as PBL, is an evidence based whole school systems approach that:
- addresses the diverse academic and social needs of every student to support them to be successful and maximise growth
- creates and maintains a positive and safe learning environment that enhances school culture through explicitly taught values
- establishes a continuum of supports that are intensified to meet the needs of every student
- is team driven, using a problem solving approach (data, systems and practices) that engages students, parents and all school staff
- establishes positive social expectations for all in the school community
- provides a framework for the school and its community to collectively support the wellbeing of each student
It’s often thought a tough approach to behaviour is the way forward for schools. But research shows that punitive responses are actually ineffective in the long term and can exacerbate student disengagement and alienation.
Harsh actions might initially bring about some student compliance, but over time they build resentfulness, and relationships then breakdown.
Punishment only teaches what not to do. The unwanted behaviour is usually suppressed, associated with fear and aggression, and returns when the punishment is removed.
PBL teaches students what to do to meet the school wide expectations set out in our PBL Behaviour Matrix.
New Break Times
In order to maximise learning time, we have slightly shortened the last part of our day and have designated this time to Spelling Mastery or Oral Language. This has allowed us to give more time to Maths and English earlier in the day and to ensure that Wellbeing and Religion lessons are also given the time that they need.
Students now eat their second snack at 2:30pm.
PARISH CENSUS 2025—SAVE THE DATE
St James Parish is inviting all parishioners to participate in our Parish Census which is happening over the three weekends of 15/16 Feb, 22/23 Feb and
01/02 March. The Parish Census is an important opportunity to update Parish records, welcome new community members, and plan future programs effectively. Accurate and updated information also ensures that the Parish meets with governance and compliance standards with Parish policies. You will be able to participate using a Digital QR Code available at Mass on those weekends, or by completing a hard copy census form—whichever suits you best.
Murphy Returning to School!
Murphy, our school Therapy Dog will be returning in 2025. Her first day back will be Thursday 13/02/2025. She loved her time here last year and is very excited to be coming back!
Our New Garden is Growing Strong
At the end of 2024 students in Year 4 worked on planting some vegetables in the garden. One vegetable that loved the summer heat was this enormous pumpkin that was picked this week.
We are thrilled that Simone Myall will be taking the lead in the garden this year. Simone will work with the Year 3, 4 and 6 students at different times during the year to plant and maintain the urban farm section of our garden.
