Week 6 Term 1 SFDS Newsletter
St Francis de Sales - Wednesday 16 March 2022
MARY-ANGELA'S MESSAGE
Ka ora koutou, Dia daoibh!
Many of us can trace our whakapapa back to Irish ancestors who settled in New Zealand. SFDS is also fortunate to have two wonderful Irish teachers on our staff - Ronan and Megan. This week we have two Irish saints’ feast days to commemorate - one well known to all of us and one not so much.
Today we remember St. Finian Munnu, an Irish abbot who recognised the importance for people to recognise their own culture in their religious practices. This is something that is also important to us at SFDS.
Tomorrow we remember one of the most well known saints both here in Aotearoa and in Ireland. Thursday 17 March is St Patrick’s Day. It’s a long-held tradition to celebrate St Paddy’s Day in New Zealand Catholic Schools. The children are welcome to wear something green to school with their normal uniform tomorrow if they wish.
If any children also learn Irish dancing, we would love them to share a dance with us all. Please get in touch with your child’s teacher if your child would be happy to do this at school tomorrow.
Covid update
We have been fortunate, with your help, to maintain manageable numbers of children and staff who have been exposed to or contracted Covid-19. Remember that you can take a quick look at the yellow cells in our plan, which is updated whenever there are marked changes in our numbers.
However, this week we made the difficult decision to postpone our planned Year 7&8 camp that was due to take place next week. We made this decision based on a number of factors, but the key issue was the risk of creating an environment where unidentified cases of Covid could be easily transmitted. The senior students have been really resilient with this disappointment. A huge thank you to Tom, Vanessa and Julia who are busy investigating a range of options to ensure that akonga can benefit from Education Outside the Classroom.
Thank you
Many of you arrived with your children on Monday morning to the sound of the fire alarms blaring before school. Thank you for guiding your children down to the rest of the school gathered on the bottom courts. The alarm was set off by accident, and there was no fire, thankfully. It was quite a test for our systems to have an alarm at that time!
Slán libh - may health/safety be with you
Mary-Angela Tombs
Principal
Kāore he mutunga o te Aroha. The measure of love is love without measure.
Newsletter proudly sponsored by
WORLD DOWN SYNDROME DAY
World Down Syndrome Day is coming up on the Monday 21 March (the date signifies the 3 copies of the 21st chromosome that are present in DS)
The Wellington Down Syndrome Association are raising funds by having a 'rock your socks' day where you wear colourful or crazy socks to school on Monday and by donation a gold coin via KINDO!
So please go to KINDO and DONATE to this amazing cause and wear the craziest funkiest sock on Monday 21 March!!!!
UNIFORM COMMUNITY CONSULTATION
REMINDER that we will be holding our Zoom meeting tomorrow at 5.30pm.
Unfortunately we cannot meet in person at this time but are happy to meet via Zoom on
Thursday 17 March at 5.30pm.
Please email the school office at office@sfds.school.nz if you are interested in participating in the zoom meeting. The link to the zoom meeting will be sent out tomorrow.
A Survey link will also be sent home via the Friday Updates so please make sure to take a look and complete this.
SARAH'S MESSAGE
CONGRATULATIONS
to the following students who received a certificate at Papatuanuku assembly on Friday:
Sofia M, Cora DL, Jackson B, Olivia M, Dallas Th, Harvey L, Tanisha P, Pippa R, Jasmine M, Willow SE, Andrew K, Ashlyn W and Giuliana D.
Special congratulations to the following students who received a school values certificate:
Liam N, Isla S, Thalia C, Mali J and Dallas T.
SPORT UPDATE
Registrations for term 2 miniball (year 3 - 6) and basketball (year 7 - 8), and term 2 and 3 netball (year 5 - 8) are now open on Kindo. All the information regarding those sports has been emailed out and is also on Kindo.
ROAD PATROL
We have had some lovely parents offer to help with supervising our road patrollers. Having parents/caregivers will help to ease the load on teachers. If there are any other parents/caregivers who would be keen and available to help with this (either before school between 8.30 and 9am, or after school between 2.45 and 3.20pm) then please email Sarah on sarah.fountain@sfds.school.nz
We will provide training for anyone who is keen.
Welcome
To the following students who have started at St Francis de Sales school this past week:
Meba M and Aron M (Rm 2)
We hope that you have a successful and happy time at St Francis de Sales.
SCHOOL NOTICES
SCHOLASTIC LUCKY BOOK CLUB- Out Now
The latest Scholastic Book club is out and it has a great selection of books for readers from 5-13 years.
Our school receives a bonus of 10% from each online order.
Last year we purchased $500 books for the school library from Book Club bonus dollars.
Note: At SFDS we only do online orders, please do not send orders to school.
Place your order anytime by visiting https://scholastic.co.nz/parents/lucky-book-club/ - you can still order from either issue 1 or 2.
Last day for orders is 1st April.
If you have any questions please see Chris in Room 7.
Year 7 and 8 students at Technology learning about making an acid base indicator using red cabbage. They were awesome at remembering how to use the Bunsen burners! What a great class!
List of our Class names and year groups.
The following products are available though your school KINDO account
For information on how to get to KINDO Click here to view. From there you are able to pay your school donations, (there is an option to make part payments) uniform and any other school charges or sign ups for sports and extra actvities.
Click here to download term 1's menu.
Ethical + eco + essentials Munch is about empowering families to change the world. Every day, every way you can make a difference with Munch.
Buy a Munch product and feel good about using it. We are making it easier for you to be more sustainable. All our products are eco friendly in some way from being reusable, organic to biodegradable. Everyday products making a difference. Useful, beautiful and green. All our ingredients and products are sourced from ethical communities.
Customised Quality Sticky Labels 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!
Durable and cost-effective sticky labels that make your life simple. Whether you need to label your kids clothes, school, daycare stuff or sports gear, Precious Labels has all of your needs covered. Our self-adhesive name labels are perfect for your everyday needs.
Peel it, stick it, forget it! It will all come back home!
Te Reo word/phrase of the week: MANAAKI
COMMUNITY NOTICES
The inaugural Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Charity Art Auction to raise funds for the restoration and seismic strengthening of the cathedral is coming together well as we gear up for the launch on Saturday 19 March 2022. The uncertainty around Covid-19 has created the opportunity to move our charity art auction online, so we can reach more people than the original event we had planned. We are new to this but so excited to bring this to you and look forward to your support.
Among the artists exhibiting their wonderful works are Del Te Rito, Charlotte Hird, Jim Gorman, Olympia Osborne, Sonia Treacy, Ellen Donnelly and many more. We are so blessed to have them come on board.
Registering for the auction is easy. All you need is your mobile phone or access to internet on your computer.
The auction will run 24 x 7 from 19 March to 27 March 2022.
If you have any questions, feel free to email mcsh.march22art@gmail.com
The website for the auction can be found: www.galabid.com/art4icon
South Wellington Art Show SWIS Art Team
Online from Friday, 11 to Saturday 26 March!
This year the South Wellington Art Show school fundraiser is hosted online for two weeks from 7pm Friday 11 March - 6pm Saturday 26 March. Funds raised will be put towards a mural on the side of the school hall.
There will be something for everyone, in every price bracket - from well-known Kiwi artists Sheyne Tuffery, Karl Fritsch, Matt Gauldie and Shivaun Hogan, to local favourites Andy Spain, Carrie Carrey, Hannah Farwig, Tara McGibbon and Nina Russell, to work done by our own SWIS students.
Scan the QR code below, copy this link and send it to all your friends, family and neighbours, or check out the South Wellington Art Show on Facebook and Instagram.
Have a look online at the amazing art we have on offer!
Ages: 7-10 Recommended for Block-based coders.
Students choose to block-based coding and learn beginning and advanced CS concepts.
Build multi-level platform games
Ages: 11+ Recommended for Advanced Block-based coders.
Students can choose to advanced block-based coding or start learning text based coding concepts. HTML/CSS, Python & Javascript
Contact Us
Email: office@sfds.school.nz
Website: http://www.sfds.school.nz
Location: St Francis De Sales School 11 Mersey Street, Island Bay, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: 04 939 7370