Learning & Teaching 

L & T AND LITERACY - Vira Pirrotta

National Sorry Day: Thursday 26 May 2022

National Sorry Day acknowledges and raises awareness of the history and continued effect of the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from their families, communities and culture. 

National Reconciliation Week: Friday 27 May 2022 to Friday 3 June 2022

National Reconciliation Week celebrates and builds on the respectful relationships shared by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians. The theme this year is Be Brave Make Change. The theme is a challenge to us all to Be Brave and tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation so we can Make Change for all.   

Further information about National Reconciliation Week this year is available on the Reconciliation Australia website.

As a school, we will acknowledge this as part of the whole school prayer on Friday and teachers will use the materials made available in their learning spaces. 

National Simultaneous Storytime 2022

As stated in the previous newsletter the students at St. Fidelis will be participating in National Simultaneous Storytime. This event is on Wednesday the 25th of May. The teachers have planned a session around the book Family Tree, written by Josh Pyke and illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh.

Writing 4 Fun Competition 

I know there are many students anxiously awaiting the results of the writing competition. I recently received an email informing me that the winners of The National Treasures’ writing competition will be announced Wednesday, June 8th.  As the results are released, I will inform those students directly. 

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT - Leanne Wenckowski

NUMERACY - Colleen Monaghan

Reminder Maths parent workshops: 

• Wednesday 25th May 8:50 am  
• Thursday   26th May 2:25 pm 

Come and hear how we teach addition and subtraction in F-2. Learn about the strategies, games, and materials we use to develop student understandings. Your child will come out of class to work with you on solving problems and playing the maths games.

Here are samples of students' work on adding in the junior and middle areas.

SPORT & PE - Michael Jennings

SSV COBURG DISTRICT CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS

On Wednesday 18 May 2022, the SSV Coburg District Primary Schools’ Cross Country Championships were held at Harold Stevens Reserve, Coburg. St Fidelis was amongst 13 schools from the Coburg and Pascoe Vale area competing at the Cross Country Championships. Approximately 37 St Fidelis students competed in the 10, 11 and 12 year age groups. Up to 91 competitors competed in each age group. The 10 year age group ran a 2km course and the 11 and 12 year age groups ran a 3km course. Each event commenced on the Coburg Athletics Track and continued into nearby parkland.

The following St Fidelis representatives are to be highly commended on their efforts and wonderful achievements during practice and over a very challenging course on the day:

Thanks to Ms Sargent, Mr Williams and the parents, who were able to support our competitors by organising, supervising and marshalling our students. Also, thanks to the parents who helped the students prepare for this event and those who were able to come along to support the team. I’m sure the extra cheers spurred our students on to complete the challenging course.

Special congratulations to the following students who have qualified (top ten finish) for the Inner North/Moreland Division Cross Country Championships to be held on Wednesday 1 June 2022:

12 Year Boys

Raf Santilli (5th)

12 Year Girls 

Chloe Portelli (8th)

10 Year Girls

Scarlett Falsetta Spina (10th) 

SSV Coburg District Winter Interschool Sport

St Fidelis Primary School’s Year 5/6 students competed in their first round of winter sports. For many of our students, they were playing either football, soccer or netball for the first time. An exciting time for all involved! All teams should feel very proud of their efforts. We hope they all enjoyed the experience.

Our girls and boys/mixed soccer teams had very impressive wins. Our boys/mixed football team led for the first three-quarters of the game. Unfortunately, we were overrun in the final 5 minutes of the game.

Finally, our girls’ netball team were outclassed by a more experienced team, however, our girls kept trying throughout the match and never gave up. The boys/mixed netball team played a close game, however, they were narrowly defeated.

Congratulations to all our players. 

We look forward to our next game against Pascoe Vale South Primary School on Friday 27 May.

ITALIAN NEWS - Rosa Fokianos

Salve! (Hello). I hope everyone was able to enjoy some of the bel tempo (good weather) that we had over il weekend. 🌞

During this term, the Foundation bambini have been learning about the names of I Colori (colours), in Italiano. They started this topic by reading a big book called Orso Bruno (Brown Bear, Brown Bear), which introduced various animals in different colori. The bambini then went on to learn the names of various colori through songs and games. In the photo below you can see the bambini doing a colour match task where they had to colour in different boxes according to the word beside it. There were various visual prompts around the room, as well as myself, to help them complete this task. The  bambini did this very well with this. Bravissimi! 

Next, the bambini were asked to identify what colours they could see around them in the classroom. They were prompted with the question: Che colore vedi? (What colour do you see?) They then chose something in the room and had to reply with “io vedo… + the Italian colour name. The bambini liked the special glasses they used to identify the various colours, see the photos below. 

Since we have colori all around us, this activity could quite easily be done at home, which encourages your child/ren to practise the various language structures learnt in class also at home. Prova…Try! 

Soon, I will be also asking the children to tell me their favourite colour using the Italian name.  They will be introduced to the language structure of “Il mio colore preferito è…” (My favourite colour is…). We will then formulate a graph to see the most popular colour in Foundation this year, which also revises i numeri. Revising concepts and language structures learnt in class improves confidence and comprehension which in turn assists the child/ren to become successful language learners. 

Next time, I will include an update on what the grade 1/2's have been learning during this term in Italiano. Stay tuned. Until then, buona settimana.

Signora Rosa 🌹