St Francis of Assisi School Newsletter Term 2 Week 10 2.07.2024

From the Principal

Dear Families,

We reach the end of what has been a wonderful first semester of learning here at St Francis of Assisi.

I feel very privileged to have led such a committed staff and the welcome I have received across this time from our community here at Newton has been wonderful. We have recently been completing some literacy end of term testing and the results have been so affirming. The growth we are seeing is validating, as we aim for the minimum of one year’s learning growth for each student.

KinderGym

Next Term we welcome Athlestone Kindergym on to our site. They will be running their programs in the room adjacent to the library each morning from 9 to 10:45am. As they settle into our site as mentioned in the announcement, we will be employing members of their staff to work with our younger students in a gross motor room. This is an incredibly exciting partnership.

The programs that ran in those rooms including some intervention work and programs for our students with English as an Additional Language will now occur in a classroom in the Mackillop Wing of the school.

Student Free Day

A reminder that Monday the 22^nd of July will be a student Free Day. Our staff will be involved in two separate professional development opportunities on this day. Our teaching staff are involved in the inaugural Eastern Conference where all Catholic School teachers form the East of Adelaide will gather for a convention focussing on Student Agency.

Our ESO’s will receive some targeted professional development in working with students that require additional support for a variety of learning disabilities.

New Students

We are experiencing a period of growth at SFOA at the moment which is a reflection of the strong teaching and learning culture we are continuing to develop.

We will have 18 new students joining us at the start of next semester. 15 of these students will be joining us in Mid-Year Reception with 3 other students joining us across various classrooms in the school.

We welcomed our Mid-Year families with a special liturgy last week and a short film documenting their journey.

We will reach the middle of the year with approximately 265 students which when I talk to new families at our school I refer to as being in the ‘Goldilocks’ Zone of school numbers. Not too big that we lose sight of the little pictures but not too small that we can’t offer wonderful opportunities to our children.

Holidays

Personally, I’m looking forward to a week off ahead as we move into the holidays. My family like many others have had a tough introduction to winter with a variety of colds and flu impacting our homelife. I’m looking forward to at least a couple of ‘ugg boot’ days where I can put the feet up and spend time with Harrison and Thomas in a world of magnetic tiles and Lego.

I wish all of you who may be travelling across this break my prayers, and I can’t wait to get stuck in next term.

God Bless,

Scott March