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Dear Parents/Carers
A prestigious event in the calendar of Catholic schools in the Diocese of Wollongong, the Bishop's Student Excellence Awards provide an opportunity to acknowledge the religious, academic, and community-based accomplishments of a Year 12 student from each of the Catholic systemic secondary schools in the Diocese, as nominated by their Principal and their leadership teams.
Congratulations to our inaugural winner, Sarah from Year 12. Sarah is a foundation student at St Francis Catholic College who has a strong commitment to learning through her achievement and determination to succeed in her academic pursuits. She has consistently demonstrated an exceptional work ethic in relation to her schooling from Year 7 to 12. These achievements of success through learning and dedication to her studies have been recognised through the College award system and include Open Minds for Academic Excellence, Outstanding Effort for Commitment to Learning and Positive Behaviours for Learning.
Starting in a developing school with only 34 other students Sarah has been widely acknowledged within the College community as a student who exhibits honesty, integrity and humility in all her encounters and interactions. She has been instrumental in the betterment of the local College community, which is evidenced in and supported by her outstanding College spirit. Sarah has been actively involved in the liturgical life of the College from Year 7. This includes reading at liturgies and masses as well as participating in the Procession of Gifts. She has been the Clare House Leader embodying the values of faith and discipline and assisted in numerous open days promoting the College to visitors and prospective families. Sarah has engaged positively in the LIVE festivals and in raising awareness for important social justice initiatives.
Sarah displays Christian leadership qualities through her actions and is therefore a significant role model for younger students in the College. She truly epitomises the values and character of a St Francis graduate. Sarah was even lucky enough to cut the cake as per the Bishop’s request. Well done Sarah and all the worthy recipients.
MISA Golf Tournament
On Wednesday 10th August, Christian P of Yr 9 represented St Francis at the MISA Golf Tournament hosted at Camden Lakeside Golf Club. Although a tough field on the day, Christian took out the Junior Boys Plate Championship. Congratulations on your success and look forward to maintaining this achievement in years to come!
Tuesday Sport
Halfway through our term sees our sports rotations commencing this week with students. It is important to please ensure you are checking compass for updates and consent required for sport.
A reminder that if your child is suffering from an injury and is unable to participate in sport, it is essential to supply a note or medical documents to support. This can be provided via email or hardcopy to Miss Meadley and/or relevant sport coaches.
MISA
With our MISA competition well underway, we have seen our Boys Soccer teams with some crucial wins to assist in securing a podium finish with a strong end to our competition. Our netball teams have endured some tough competition and making great improvements in our teamwork and scoreboard. We look forward to sharing in their success in our final games of MISA in the coming weeks and wish them all the best.
Sports Coordinator
Amber Meadley
On Friday 29th July Year 11 English Studies and Year 10 Drama visited Riverside Theatres to watch the multiple-award winning playwright, Samah Sabawi’s play ‘THEM’.
It is a compelling tale of survival, friendship, and the things we are willing to do to protect the ones we love. The story follows one young family as they face the decision of whether to flee their war-torn city. The students enjoyed viewing this powerful performance.
Some reviews from the students:
“I really loved it and would recommend other students to come watch this play because it spreads awareness of war.” Carlos N.
“I enjoyed the play, the actors were excellent in their performance.” Will T.
“I believe that this performance is crucial to see because it demonstrates how complex the world is.” Ben C.
During Weeks 5 and 6, we participated in the Have Sum Fun Online Mathematics Competition run by The Mathematical Association of Western Australia. The competition consisted of 3 rounds with 10 questions each. We were required to correctly answer as many questions as possible in the least amount of time. We found the first round to be the most challenging and the last round to be the easiest. Our score over the 3 rounds was 29 out of 30. Differences between the NSW and WA Maths Curriculum tripped us up in the first round where we believed the cylinder pictured had 0 “faces” and the answer required 2 “faces”. It was an important learning experience for us because it sparked much conversation between us and the teachers and we realised that there are areas of Mathematics that can be debated.
During the first round, we realised that we had to improve our ability to work as a team. We made this a focus for the next 2 rounds and our improved teamwork led to us being more efficient when solving the problems.
We thoroughly enjoyed the experience and we are looking forward to the next Mathematical challenge.
Myrah J, Juan J, Jaden T and Liam G - SFCC Year 4 Mathematicians
Can you believe that turtles had a say in the development of the Japanese writing system?
Kanji (漢字) is one of the three scripts used in the Japanese language. They are Chinese characters that were first introduced to Japan in the 5th century. Kanji are ideograms, meaning that each character has its own meaning and corresponds to a word, such as water (水), fire (火), and home (家).
It is believed that in China, around 2000BC, people needed to ask questions about life to the heavens. How did they ask these questions? Not by praying or looking up to the sky. Instead, they would take turtle shells or animal bones and burn them. When a turtle shell or animal bone is burned, cracks form in the shell/bone. These cracks were then analysed and written down as symbols, and by comparing them to real-life objects meanings were attributed to each of them. These turtle shell symbols eventually developed into the Kanji writing system we see in modern Chinese and Japanese culture.
The Japanese Club has been learning the meanings of popular Kanji characters such as Person, Rain, Love, Spirit, Thunder, and Peace. Students then created some “Kanji Art”. Kanji Art takes a Kanji character and either decorates it or completely redesigns it so that it looks like the meaning it represents. Please enjoy viewing some of the creations from members of the Japanese Club - can you tell the meaning of each Kanji based purely on its design?
Learning kanji can be a long and difficult process, but each character has a story behind it. This is the beauty of written Japanese.
Kind regards,
Ms Tooby
Classroom Teacher
