St Francis Catholic School - Hughenden eNewsletter

From the Principal

It's Book Fair week here at St. Francis, and what an incredible week it's been! Our students have shown wonderful enthusiasm, with creative costumes, engaging activities, and lots of book purchases to encourage a love of reading. A special thank you to Miss Margy, who has transformed our library with fabulous decorations that capture the magic of books! Our staff also embraced the spirit of the week with a fiercely competitive door-decorating competition. Congratulations to Miss Rowe, who was crowned as the winner—though everyone’s doors were truly impressive!

We’re also counting down to our Awards Evening next week! A note with all the details was sent home, and we're looking forward to a beautiful night under the stars with our families to celebrate the achievements and efforts of our students. It promises to be a memorable evening, and we’re excited to see you all there.

Next Thursday, we have a special visitor, Bishop Tim, joining us at St. Francis. He’ll spend time with the children, answer their thoughtful questions, and experience a day in our school community. Bishop Tim will also celebrate Mass with our parish at 6 p.m. on Sunday. We are very much looking forward to his visit and hope many of you will join us at Mass to welcome him.

Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to seeing you throughout these wonderful events!

Sharn Greenaway

Principal

School TV Topic of the Week-Managing Screen Time

Managing Screen Time

As a result of the global pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the amount of time people spend on screen-based devices. Families are transitioning back to pre-COVID routines but many are still struggling to re-establish the boundaries and rules around screen use. Some continue to deal with digital conflict and tech-tantrums on a daily basis. The latest research found that 77% of teenagers spend more than five hours on screens per day, but it is important to note that not all screen time is considered equal.

Parents play a crucial role in modelling a positive and healthy approach to using screens and assisting children to navigate the content they watch. It is better to model and mentor screen use, rather than monitor it. Children tend to do more of what they see us do, and less of what we tell them to do. However, it is still important to outline the risks and highlight the benefits of screen use to ensure you keep a balanced attitude. Encourage discussions around the issues that people experience in monitoring their screen time and be honest about your own difficulties.

Parents need to remain firm in their approach to managing screen time. Excessive screen time can be detrimental to a child’s overall wellbeing. Ensuring the correct privacy settings are in place is vital to prevent children from being inadvertently exposed to inappropriate content or online predators. Parents need to also be mindful of the potential impact screen time can have on a child’s social, emotional, educational, behavioural, and even physical domains.

In this edition of SchoolTV, care-givers will be provided with a range of guidelines and strategies to help manage screen time at home.

Here is the link to your Edition https://sfsh.catholic.schooltv.me/newsletter/managing-screen-time

Assembly

Join us from 8:30am in the P/1 classroom for assembly

Student Of The Week

P/1: Hamish Westcott

2/3/4: Hayley McClymont

5/6: Miranda Page

No Birthdays this week

Prep/1 Happenings

This week, Prep/1 students took a hands-on approach to learning about equal groups—a foundational concept in early mathematics that paves the way for understanding multiplication and division. Using simple materials like counters and a dice, students rolled up their sleeves and jumped into the world of grouping! Here’s how the activity worked: each student would roll the dice to get a number, which represented the number of groups they needed to make. Next, they chose another number to determine how many counters to put in each group. The goal was to arrange their counters so that each group was equal in size.

Miss Brown,

P/1 Teacher

2/3/4 have been loving the Book Fair that has visited the school this week! At the start of this week, students got to look at all the fantastic books available, and wrote a wish list of their favourites. On Tuesday, 2/3/4 students joined the rest of the school in dressing up as either a pirate or their favourite book character! It was amazing to see all their fantastic costumes. In this lesson, students created Pirate Parrots to celebrate the book fair theme for this year - Bookaneers!

Miss Allison,

Year 2/3/4 Teacher

Our Year 5/6 class has been hard at work preparing for the highly anticipated Rite of Passage and Awards Night next week. Reflecting on their journey at St Francis, students have been writing about the highlights, challenges, and growth they’ve experienced over their time at St Francis. This special evening will be an opportunity for our students to celebrate their achievements and to step forward with pride into the next phase of their lives, as they transition to high school.

Meanwhile, the Year 5 students are getting ready for their captaincy speeches, set to take place on Thursday afternoon. They’ve been practicing with enthusiasm, developing their public speaking skills, and refining their ideas about leadership. We’re excited to support and cheer them on as they take this next step toward leading our school community!

Miss Rowe,

Year 5/6 Teacher

Specialist Lessons- Miss Eriksen

In 5/6 Health this term the students have been learning about how people and places influence our identities. Over the past two weeks, we have read Our Flag, Our Story by Bernard Namok Jnr, Thomas Mayo and Tori-Jay Mordey as well as The Heartbeat of the Land by Cathy Freeman. Using these books, we have been looking at how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people describe their connection to place. The students came up with a place that is important to their identity, drawing these to share with others. Check out our drawings!

Miss Eriksen,

Specialist Teacher/Inclusive Practices Teacher

Library News

This week is book week! This year's theme was Bookaneer so our library was decorated all things pirate! The kids have had a wonderful week engaging in a variety of events and activities to celebrate. Enjoy the photos below!

Thank you to all of our families for supporting this years book fair. All of your purchases assist in receiving new books for our library!

We will no longer be serving Homebake treats in Tuckshop.
Tuckshop requires more helpers. If you can volunteer your time on a Friday from 9am-11:30am that would be greatly appreciated. The staff serve second break so parents are only required to cook & serve first break and then cook and package second break meals.