St Francis de Sales Catholic Primary School Lynbrook Newsletter

From the Principal

School Photos - Tuesday 18 May

All children need to be wearing their winter uniform for our school photos on Tuesday 18 May. All boys in the juniors must wear a white shirt. Please ensure hair longer than shoulder length is tied back neatly and hair ties or ribbons are in our school colours. All children need to be wearing clean/polished black school shoes for their photos. ( Children in LS1 can bring their runners for specialists classes in their bag). 

 

BIG thank-you to Sandro and Beko.

Thanks to Sandro Senise for donating, delivering and installing a new fridge on behalf of his company Beko. Thanks also to Elena Senise on our P&F for organising this very generous donation and to Davide who helped to get the new fridge into place in the community room.

 

Our old drinks fridge which was a donation from the Norris family has finally stopped working effectively and needed replacement. So our new fridge is going to be a great help till we can organise for a new drinks fridge for our new hall. The Beko fridge will be perfect for our community room. We will all be able to enjoy a cappuccino or tea with fresh cold milk once again. Thanks Sandro and Elena. Thanks to Beko for supporting St Francis de Sales.

NAPLAN tests for 2021

OurYear 3 and 5 students completed NAPLAN test this week. On Tuesday they completed Language Conventions and Grammar as well as Writing, on Wednesday it was Reading and finally on Thursday it was Mathematics. The children all did their very best to complete the test in the required time. There was a level on anxiety for some and for others they enjoyed the experience. We are proud of their efforts and look forward to seeing how this particular cohort of children went after all the challenges experienced as a result of COVID-19 in 2020. The test are just a snapshot of learning on a particular day. They will inform school planning and student learning along with a number of other school measures. Catch -up tests are being completed and the tests will be collected on Friday. Thanks to staff who helped administer this year's tests and to student's for their efforts.

 

This is the last year the children will be completing paper based tests. From next year all students will need to use an electronic device to complete NAPLAN tests.

 

Resilience Project

This week we had Peter from The Resilience Project (TPR) share the results of our 2021 student survey with our staff. Peter reported many positives about our school data. In particular he spoke about the gains and improvements the data shows from our previous data in 2020. Given that mental health was a general concern for everyone in 2020, our data shows positive growth which is a great plus for our students and school.

 

The data shows an improvement in our children willingness to talk about things when they are upset. Seeking help is an important skill to improve our wellbeing. It is important that they have a safety net of trusted adults that they can talk to. 

 

“For parents to listen to you more often and for kids being comfortable with taking to their  parents with something”   – Year 6 Student 

“Fitting in is about assessing a situation and  becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn't require  us to change who we are.” 
– Brene Brown

Our data shows growth in ...

  • Children feeling good about themselves.
  • forgiving themselves when they messed up.
  • Getting along with people who are different.
  • Ability to disagree with things and still be friends. This was over 82% and gets stronger the older the child gets.

Sleep and anxiety was another focus area. While there is an improvement in children getting more than 7 hours sleep there is still as much as 30% of our students that this is not their norm. The data shows a slight positive shift in the use of devices e.g. texting between 10pm and 6am. However our Go Guardian data shows that there are some children on devices way past 10pm. This is an area for us to work on as getting enough sleep is vital for children and in fact for all of our health and wellbeing. I encourage that devices are never permitted in unsupervised areas such as a child's bedroom at any time but especially after 8pm.

 

Our student data shows a positive shift and improvement in the level of anxiety experienced. The data shows a positive shift in the percentage of children not feeling nervous, anxious or on the edge and able to control worrying. This is a real positive and Peter reports this result is not what he is seeing in the general school population data across the country. So a great positive for our school community. Let's keep improving and building resilience.

 

Other positives for St Francis de Sales reflected by very positive data (Over 90%) are:

  • That they are not bullied online.
  • That they think it is important to help other people.
  • They have fun at school.
  • Teachers at the school care.

We are very pleased with the improvements we are seeing as a result of the strategies we are implementing and our participation in the Resilience Project. We need to work in partnership to further strengthen our children's resilience by practicing GEM

 

 

For ideas, resources, activities and inspiration to develop GEM at home please see TRP@HOME and click the picture below.

 

G 

Who is someone you feel really grateful for today?

E

Who is someone you know who may be experiencing some difficulty currently? What could we do for them as a family?

M

What is your favourite mindfulness activity?

 

 

We ask you to pray that our favorite plan for the hall, Plan 2C, comes within budget. We are praying that we do not need to make any changes.