It has been an incredibly busy fortnight!

Year 12 Formal

Our Year 12 Formal, held last week at Novella on the Park, was a wonderful occasion. I commend all of our students who attended for how they presented themselves (they looked fantastic) and how they joyously entered into the occasion.

There was a great atmosphere throughout the evening, and parents/carers, staff and students had much fun on and off the dance floor. I would particularly like to thank Mr Zakris for organising the event.

Kindy (2024) Playgroup Commences

It was great to have parents/carers, and the majority of our 2024 Kindy students join us this week for their first playgroup. There were a few nerves (from parents/carers and future Kindy students alike), but our staff expertly worked with the students reading, playing and having fun.  

New Parent/Carer Information Evening

A big thank you to all our future parents and/or carers who joined us on Wednesday night for this event. The assembled audience heard vital information about the College, and many of our student leaders were involved in a “fashion parade” to show the various summer and winter boys' and girls' uniform types. We look forward to our many new students joining the College in 2024.

Year 4 into 5 Transition Information Evening

Six of our current Year 5 students did a fantastic job presenting to the gathered audience last night. The students discussed critical information, tips, and observations regarding their transition into Year 5. It can be a daunting time for our upper Junior Year students to enter into middle years; however, as a number of the students indicated, students and families have nothing to be scared about! I thank all staff in attendance, and we look forward to seeing our current Year 4s make the successful move into Middle Year Learning.

Parent/Carer Advisory Group Meeting

Last night, a meeting was held to discuss future parent/carer advisory groups/bodies. In the face-to-face and Zoom meetings, I spoke about parent/carer feedback across 2023, the results of various surveys and the dominant parent/carer commendations and recommendations from last semester‘s parent/carer forum.

I shared during the evening the critical point that, while we do not wish to have a ‘traditional’ Parents and Friends’ Association, there is a need for parent and carer voices to be heard for various needs to be met and groups to be represented.

As such, I put forward the proposal to have a group called the ‘Friends of Francis’, essentially an amalgamation of the previous Social and Care Committees. This group will meet each term to look at ways to support those in the community, provide social opportunities and fundraise for various needs (whether student initiatives and/or family members in need).

Additionally, it’s clear that parents/carers wish to have input into various processes and policies across the college, and therefore, an advisory group is to be established. This group will meet less regularly, be more fluid in its membership, look at draft documents (policies and processes) and put forward ideas around the day-to-day functional aspects of the college.

Both groups will be launched in 2024, and opportunities for parents and carers to join one or both groups will be communicated in the new year. 

2024 Pastoral Care Team

Yesterday, students were informed about the respective year and/or stage leaders for 2024.
I’m therefore pleased to announce the following team for next year:

Having such a talented group of caring and committed professional educators to work with your children is excellent. While we have a number of weeks to complete 2023, I look forward to the new year.

K-6 Classes 2024

It is that time of the year as a College when we are starting to look at classes for 2024. It is also the time of the year when parents start to wonder what classes their child will be in for next year. 

We do not allow ‘teacher shopping’ or 'friend shopping' at St Francis. We have dedicated teachers who do their absolute best to ensure that each student in their class is catered for academically, pastorally and spiritually.

No requests for your child next year are to be taken to the classroom teachers. If you have a specific request that is essential for your child’s learning, please contact me via email on melissa.vella@dow.catholic.edu.au to discuss your concerns. This must be done by Friday 1st December 2023.

When we are deciding on classes for next year we keep in mind:

• Friendships that are a positive for the learning of the child
• Friendships that may possibly disadvantage the learning of the child in the class or any clashes of personalities that we can avoid
• A good academic mix between the classes
• Specific needs of the child that would suit one class over the other.

On Tuesday 12th December we will have a 'promotions morning' for students moving into Years 1-6.  This will give students an opportunity to potentially meet their class teacher from Years 1-4 and pastoral teacher in Years 5-6 and get to meet the students in their 2024 class.

Mrs Melissa Vella
Deputy Principal

With term 4 of school well underway, Council takes this opportunity to remind drivers entering school zones to take extra caution.  Drivers should obey all NSW road rules at all times in order to eliminate any road safety concerns in your school community.

Please remember the attached key road safety educational messages can be reinforced by inclusion in your school assembly announcements, Skoolbag app, newsletter, website, Facebook, electronic noticeboards and any other communication channels at your school.

Thank you to those schools who often email examples of how these messages have been disseminated via their school communication channels. 

Please email your example to roadsafety@liverpool.nsw.gov.au as Council’s Road Safety Officers are interested to see your support as road safety ambassadors.

To report any illegal driver behaviour please contact crime stoppers on 1800 333 000 or https://crimestoppers.com.au

Please contact Council’s Road safety team if you require any further road safety educational material for your school.

Year 3 are currently learning about living things and how they grow and change. We are learning specifically about the life cycles of animals and how to communicate our knowledge through an informative text. We had the opportunity to observe the life cycle of a chicken through the Hatching Chicks program and were able to watch our chicken and duck eggs hatch in an incubator, see them develop in a brooder box before they eventually will return to the farm. Below are some of our classmates' experiences with the chickens. 

We already have a few chicks that hatched! Their names are Nugget who is the eldest, Oreo is the second oldest and then the third and fourth are Cinnamon and Honey. We got to touch the chickens and they were so cute. - Jessica

We have two very cute ducks, the teachers named them Donald and Daisy. The chickens and ducks were soft and fluffy. Watching the chickens and ducks each day helped us understand their life cycles, as we got to see them hatch and grow, it was very interesting! - Alysha 

We had lots of chickens and ducks hatch during the last two weeks. Each year three class was able to name two chickens. 3 Green chose Apple and Crackers. We got to touch and play with the soft and furry chickens and ducks! - Noah 

Our Year 5 excursion to the Botanical Gardens was an absolutely fantastic time! When we first arrived at the Botanical Gardens we were led to an area that we were able to eat in. Then each class were greeted by their ranger. 5 Red had Lyndll,  5 Green had Rachael and later on they had Eloise join in ( she joined in at the bushwalk) and 5 Blue had Sheena. Every class had the same activities but at different times. 5 Red first went to the rainforest flora hunt while 5 Green were at the arid flora hunt. 5 Blue’s first activity was the connection garden. We enjoyed all the activities. The main place we didn’t really like was the bush walk through the Cumberland Plain Woodlands as we kept being annoyed by the flies. There were so many flies!

( 5 Blue: )

5 Blue liked looking and exploring the cool aspects of the rainforest as it was filled with an enormous biodiversity of plants, cool bird calls and even frogs! We went to the Connection Gardens and Sheena, our ranger, played a game similar to ‘What's the time Mr Wolf ’ but instead she changed some of the rules. Sheena told 5 Blue that if we saw a snake we would spread our arms out so it made us look bigger and it would frighten the snake and it would slither away. We liked using the kestrel as it allowed us to see the humidity levels, wind speed and the rainfall. Someone in 5 Blue discovered a small spider nest. Sheena didn't know when it was going to hatch or what species it was. Everyone in 5 Blue was amazed at the amount of frogs that were in the rainforest. That was when Sheena told us about this app to identify frogs by their ribbits.

( 5 Red: )

5 Red’s experience at the Botanic Gardens was super awesome.  We were greeted by our ranger Lyndl who led us to an area we were able to eat in. Lyndl then warned us about snakes and told us if we saw one we should make ourselves look big by spreading our arms out like an aeroplane. First we went walking up the Botanic Gardens to reach the rainforest region. On the way we had a look at many trees, ponds, birds and insects. Once we reached the rainforest region, Lyndl gave us a book filled with different plants we had to find. Once we found the plants we had to tick them off. Next we went to the arid area that was filled with colourful plants. The most interesting part of the arid area was the point where we saw a plant with two legs ( logs ) and the body was just spiky leaves like a pineapple. That plant just looked like a pineapple person, short one of course. Another word for that is dwarf! Next we went to an area where we got to draw leaves and had a look at many different types of plants. One of the student’s leaves was very lengthy. There was a tree and we all took a fascinating photo together. There were ENORMOUS gum nuts on the tree.On our last activity we went bush walking with FLIES and saw many ginormous ant hills!

( 5 Green: )

 On our bushwalk we kept being annoyed by the flies so we began to walk back to our bags when we luckily saw an echidna crouched up in a little ball inside a tiny bit of a tree trunk. Once the echidna began to move, our class started to scream which was really funny. We also saw a rabbit jumping through the tall grass. It was really fascinating. 

Most of Year 5 liked the humid rainforest because of the huge biodiversity of plants. We also used a kestrel to measure the temperature, humidity and wind speed for both the arid and rainforest areas. We all had enjoyed our time at the Botanic Gardens and next time it would be great to do a Q and A with the researchers in the lab.

Witten by: Natasha.K, Lewis.M, Siera, Izabela P, Emma.E and Zoe D

Congratulations to Joshy R in Year 5 who recently competed for the JC Cup Asian Championship 2023 Nagoya soccer tournament in Japan, where his team came third, qualifying them for the semi-finals.