From the Principal

Congratulations to Mackillop winners of the 2020 SFS Cross Country.

Congratulations to all our First place winners across the school

Congratulations to all children who participated on a glorious winter day.

Thank you to all our staff who made it special. BIG thanks to Lulli and Giuliana.

A Historic Term at SFS

How things have changed so dramatically and quickly this Term. We have certainly had to be agile ready to respond as well as creative and critical thinkers as we have had to navigate and solve the many new challenges.

Looking back now after three weeks return to face to face learning for the entire school, it seems as if our students have never been away, and the school has been a hive of activity. Remote learning seems a distant past. As we look back to the start we certainly embraced the challenge despite the difficulties and ensured our children did continue learning, with the support of the incredible home/ school partnership.

I am sure when you talk to friends from other schools you can be proud of our staff who provided consistent and quality learning. Parents gained a new appreciation for teachers and worked together to support their children. You can be proud of yourself and the way you built links with teachers, answered your child's questions and gently guided them to persevere with their learning. We did it together. It reminds me of one of my favorite poems about home school partnership called Partners and sometimes also called Unity.

Overall the students have adapted very well back into the school routine since returning. There has been a need for some adjustments as they have transitioned back into the routine of the day, the social dynamics of school life and even the challenge of waiting till breaks to have their food. For some children this has been more challenging than for others. Each child is different, has different needs but with the right support they are adapting, learning and succeeding.

That is what we celebrate at St Francis de Sales. We support children from where they are at. We challenge our high fliers to extend and we adjust and provide extra scaffolds for those that need it across the curriculum academically, socially, emotionally, spiritually or physically. It is vital to manage the just right amount of challenge at the right time and right way. This is a complex task, but we know our students, the curriculum and are agile, working in partnership as a team to respond to individual needs and personal learning goals. We are passionate about teaching and embrace the belief that all children can succeed.

We need to manage the pressure and the expectations - from society, from ourselves as parents and from the child themselves. Too little and we our on a permanent holiday, too much and it can freeze us from trying for fear of getting it wrong. So as you read your child's report remember to celebrate what they can do and support them in the learning goals that will be there next stretch. Take time to notice their growth. As a teacher this is the reward to see a child excel just like the joy of seeing a child walk for the first time!! It is a time for the students to also celebrate their work over the term. Our children can each be proud of the way they each have developed and grown as learners.

We can all enjoy this two week break, relax and recharge. The current outbreaks in some areas reminds us all that a high priority is the need to remain vigilant over the break. We hope that the numbers of new transmissions of COVID-19 remain low, and that SFS does not have to return to remote learning at any time during the rest of this year. We each need to do our part and as a school community we need to continue to abide by the rules. We can increase the likelihood of success by ensuring that no-one attends school with any cold or flu-like symptoms.

At this stage the staggered finish times and parents remaining outside the school will still be in place for Term 3 until further notice. Given the current outbreak a reminder for all parents to observe social distancing of 1.5m from each other at pick up time.

Thanks to our entire community on a great Term 2 and the partnership we have developed. I look forward to looking at ways we can learn from our remote experience and continue to develop and grow as a place of learning excellence. Happy holidays!

Additional Cross Country photos will be added to a gallery on our website in coming days.

Download the SFS School app

Flexibuzz will STOP from today!

We ask parents to please download this app this week if you have not done so already. Both parents need to have the app so that you both can receive any emergency notifications from the school. Our new app will provide easy access to all the various ways we are communicating with families. The feedback has been very positive.

To login add the following:

password: sfscomm

See the links below.

The app is also available on Google Play for Android devices. See link on the home page of our website.