Kia ora koutou

On this beautiful autumn day, it is wonderful to continue our learning together in the bay!

In the weekend I had the great pleasure of celebrating the marriage of our youngest daughter, Emily to her partner Latham. I can highly recommend being the ‘mother of the bride’ - what a lovely life moment. I was also grateful that our family were all covid-free for the event!

Yesterday we farewelled Aziza from SFDS. Aziza is one of our wonderful teacher aides. Here is a lovely movie of a number of the children singing our school song for Aziza. We wish you well, Aziza - as you return home overseas.

Transitions

SFDS belongs to a Kāhui Ako, or Community of Learning, along with the other 12 catholic primary and secondary schools across Wellington. One of the key focuses for working collaboratively is to support smooth transition between sectors for our learners. Two events happened this week to ensure this happens at two key transition points - into college, and beyond college:

• Our Kāhui Ako the Principals and a group of students from our local catholic colleges visited our Year 8 students to let them know about transitioning to college.
• Throughout the year the Kāhui Ako is holding a series of webinars covering a range of topics to help students prepare for life after college. These are aimed at Year 13 students and their whānau. Any parents of school leavers from SFDS are welcome to take part. This site has a recording of the first session and a link to registrations for the second session.

Reporting

A reminder that we are reviewing reporting at SFDS. Only a small number of responses have been submitted so far (7). The following is important to these 7 parents / caregivers in their child’s report:

• social and emotional wellbeing
• attitude to learning and willingness to participate
• progress made in learning
• visual representation of progress against the NZ Curriculum
• regular updates about the child's goals, progress, successes and challenges

So far, parents have not strongly indicated that it is important to them:

• that their child to ‘have a voice’ in reporting
• to meet and discuss written reports with their child’s teacher

Please share your perspective by completing this short survey:

https://forms.gle/U13uvxjDMdfFDnEM9

Library updates

The programme ‘Accessit’ has been installed as the library database and is working well. We are currently setting up the school online home page. Students will be able to login from their devices to check on the books that they have issued, browse books that are in the library, reserve a book and read and write reviews of books that they have read. Parents / caregivers will be able to browse the library database via the guest login.

A library needs to keep up to date with reader interests. We are about to survey senior and middle students to find out if there are books, authors and series that we should be considering adding to the library collection.

Reflection

To finish - in John’s Gospel today, Jesus describes himself as ‘the vine’ - with his followers being ‘the branches’. The branches would not thrive, or indeed survive - without the vine. This is a way of saying that a faith community draws its sustenance and strength from Jesus’ teaching through prayer.

I hope that you take time out for yourself today - I love to stop at the sea on my way to school to take a moment to be grateful. I know this is good for my soul!

Take care and God bless

Ngā mihi nui

Mary-Angela Tombs

Principal

Kāore he mutunga o te Aroha. The measure of love is love without measure.

SACRAMENTAL PROGRAMME 2022

The Sacramental programme has been postponed until next year due to issues with Covid.

Enrolments will be called for in Term 4. This year is only catching up with Confirmations

PINK SHIRT DAY

This Friday 20 May is Pink Shirt Day. Come dressed in a pink shirt to bring awareness to bullying and to support anti-bully. Your tamariki can win house points if wearing a pink shirt and best dressed will win an extra 5 points. If you do not have a pink shirt, a pink accessory or even a red shirt will be fine, but preferably pink to show your support of this cause.

There is no gold coin donation.

(If needed you can buy the official shirt from Cotton On with 100% of proceeds going to the Mental Health Foundation).

SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY

This whole school event is happening this coming Monday 23 May at Wakefield Park between 9.30 and 12.30pm. We are still looking for helpers. If you are able to help for all or part of the morning, please email Sarah on sarah.fountain@sfds.school.nz

We are leaving school soon after 9am to walk to the park so please support your child/ren to be at school before 9am on Monday.

Students are required to wear their school PE gear with sneakers suitable for running and their school hoody/fleece/cardigan for warmth. They should bring a change of clothing (can be mufti) in their school bag just in case they get wet or muddy. They should bring a raincoat, water bottle and enough food to get them through the morning.

We will be walking back to school at the conclusion of the event.

Just a friendly reminder that full payment of the Attendance Dues for 2022 is due by 31 May 2022. If you are paying by regular instalments, payments should be set up to close the balance by 30th November 2022 or by arrangement with the Dues team.

The Term 2 invoice will be emailed to all families shortly. Please check that the invoice has not gone to your Spam/Junk Inbox and that all your children are listed on the statement.

Financial assistance is available to families experiencing financial hardship (loss of income/redundancy, family reasons, etc.).

It is a condition of the assistance application that the family has an affordable regular payment in place.

If you have any questions, please contact us:

Phone: 0800 462 725 Email: dues@wn.catholic.org.nzText: 021 08907902

WELCOME

To the following students who have started school in the last few weeks.

Ciro P, Lexie H-B, Zhryx A, Fia L, Merie Angel J, (Rm 2) Charlotte M (Rm 13)

And to two new Staff members

Michael R and Lauren C

We hope that you have a successful and happy time at St Francis de Sales.

TEACHER ONLY DAY

We will be having a Teacher only day at the end of term 2 on Friday 8 July. School will be closed so you will need to make other arrangements for this day.

SCHOLASTIC LUCKY BOOK CLUB- Out Now

The latest Scholastic Book club flyer is out and has another great selection of books for readers from 5-13 years.

SFDS receives a bonus of 10% from each online order. Last year we were able to purchase $500 books for the school library from Book Club bonus dollars.

Note: 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/

Last day for orders is 20th May. If you have any questions please see Chris in Room 7.

SPORTS HOODIES

If you have ordered a Sport hoodie this has been added to your school account today.

Once payment has been received your order will be processed.

Paytment can be made via Kindo.

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.

In term two, the focus is on the Healthcare and Behaviour Management sections.

Healthcare

• Medicines

• Managing Minor/Moderate Injury

• Managing Serious Injury and Illness

• Infectious Diseases

• Reporting and Recording Accidents and Incidents Board review

Behaviour Management Board review

• Bullying and Online Bullying

• Surrender and Retention of Property and Searches

Please feel free to have a look at this on the Schooldocs site and give us your feedback.

BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL CARE

Island Bay After School Care has spaces available for both before and after school care. For enquries please call 0274-575-359 or just drop by and see what we do.

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KELLY SPORTS TERM 2

We have cancelled the Kelly Sports sessions at St Francis De Sales for term 2.

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PRIDE LANDS FUN HOLIDAY ADVENTURES

SUMMER HOLIDAYS AT WESTERN SUBURBS RUGBY CLUB (WILTON) AND
SOUTHERN SUBURBS SWIS (BERHAMPORE)

11th – 22nd JULY 2022 from 7.00am-6pm daily from 7.00am-6pm daily . Interactive Activities and NO TV or Video Games, Cooking, Fitness, and Life Skills Programme creating healthy Breakfast, Morning Tea, Lunch and Afternoon Teas. One-on-one care and shuttle services available. Daily $81.04/cub per session or $137.77 for two siblings per session; Weekly: $324.16 per cub/week or $551.07 for two siblings/week . MSD Approved & WINZ subsidies are available for eligible families.

Please contact us: 0800 PRIDE 4 U Or Register online: www.PRIDELANDS.co.nz or Visit our Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/PrideLandsChildcare