TERM 4

• Fri, 10th Nov -Year 4 Parish Mass
• Mon, 13th Nov 5.15pm Children's University Graduation
• Fri, 17th Nov - Year 3 Parish Mass
• Thurs, 30th Nov - P & F Dinner
• Fri, 1st Dec, Year 2 Parish Mass
  
• Wed, 6th Dec, Volunteer Morning Tea 
• Wed, 6th Dec, School Board Meeting 
• Thurs, 17th December - Reception Advent Liturgy
• Fri, 8th Dec Year 2 End of Year Excursion
• Fri, 8th Dec, Year 1 Parish Mass
• Mon 9th Dec - Reports to go home
• Tues, 12th Dec -Thanksgiving Mass
• Tues, 12th Dec - Year 6 Graduation
• Thurs, 14th Dec - Last Day of School 3:05pm dismissal
• Thurs, 14th Dec- Leadership Assembly
• Thurs, 14th Dec- Year 6 Graduation Party
• Fri, 15th Dec - Pupil Free Day

Dear Parents and Community Members,  

STEM Expo 

Thank you to the many parents and family members who attended the STEM Expo/Full Moon Festival with close to 80% of our families attending. I hope you enjoyed the experience of amalgamating the two events this year as our STEM Expo focused on Asian Perspectives. Thank you for your valuable feedback surrounding the STEM Expo. The feedback regarding the STEM Expo itself was positive and parents really enjoyed seeing all the learning occurring in STEM. However, the feedback surrounding food provision was mixed with positive feedback of what the Parents and Friends provided but negative feedback on the length of wait time of the food truck. We have taken your feedback on board, and we will look to use this feedback to improve next time.   

Masterplan 

Stage 1B 

Thank you also for your ongoing patience as we enter the last few weeks of this building project of Stage 1B.  Your understanding has been very much appreciated.  

Stage 2 (Plans and Community Ideas) 

Stage 2 of the Masterplan is all about creating more and new play spaces for the children and this will occur throughout 2024. Planning is currently underway and is continuing to take shape with current thinking included in this order:  

To help with planning, I am wanting to gather ideas from children and families about what you would like to see in the Early Years Playground, Years 3 to 6 playground and nature play. The children will begin to share their thoughts in classes through SRC whilst I ask parents or family members to email me photos of playgrounds or nature play ideas to fcongedi@whitefriars.catholic.edu.au. These will help guide our planning.  

2024 Change – 3pm finish 

Whitefriars Catholic School has a 26 hours and 40 minutes teaching time each week as we offer 4 specialist areas: Science, Performing Arts, Physical Education and Italian. This is not always the case as, some schools, offer 26 hours per week with 3 specialist areas. To help reduce teaching face-to-face length of time, the School Board has approved to end the school day at 3pm each day beginning in 2024 reducing teaching time by 5 minutes a day (25 minutes a week). We will continue to close the gate at the same time of 3:25pm to enable enough time for parents to use the two Pick-Up Zones.  

Limited places in 2024 

I wanted to let you know that we were recently informed of some students moving interstate or to other areas of the city. Consequently, we have some limited enrolment opportunities in:  

• Reception (3 places) 

• Year 5 (1 place) 

• Year 6 (3 places)  

If you know of any families that may be interested in joining our school community in these 3 year levels, please let them know to complete an enrolment form.  

Thank you for your ongoing support of our school community, in the canteen, on excursions and through sporting opportunities for the children. 

Kind Regards 

Frank Congedi  

Upcoming Social Justice Fundraisiers: Sockvember /  St Vincent de Paul – Christmas Appeal – Christmas Hampers and Giving Tree

We will be having three social justice fundraisers this term – the first being Sockvember which is raising money for Catholic Mission, and is being led by the Year 6 students as part of their Journey to Emmaus Leadership program. As part of this fundraiser students will participate in a themed casual day and will play soccer based skills games using “sockballs” made of old socks, t-shirts and plastic bags which have been made by the Year 6 students. We are finalising the date, but this will likely occur sometime in Week 6 and this will be shared via Audiri and Seesaw soon.

Our annual Christmas Hamper fundraisers will begin in Week 7 and conclude at the end of Week 8, and I am working with the Student Representation Council to prepare letters to go home to the school community.

The Christmas Hampers involve collecting Christmas “banquet” items for needy families to enable them to enjoy a special meal on Christmas Day. This year our Christmas hampers and food donations will be distributed to the St Vincent de Paul Society—Croydon Park Conference.  As part of the letter – your child will be directly by the classroom teacher about the item that we would like each family to bring in.

Our second fundraiser will be our annual Giving Tree – which will be setup in the Library. Families are also invited (if you are able) to donate a new toy or new book that can be placed under our Giving Tree from the beginning of Week 7 (Monday 27th November) There is no need to wrap gifts. We have been asked to avoid toys that include guns/weapons, candles, beauty/makeup and jewellery. All of these items will be distributed to needy children in Adelaide.

Once letters have been distributed – the collection period will begin on Monday 27th of November (at the earliest), and will finish on Thursday 7th December (Week 8) Food donations are to be taken to your child’s classroom, and toy donation to the library.

We thank our wonderful community in advance for your support of these fundraiser and your generous donation/s

End of Year Thanksgiving Mass

Our End of Year Thanksgiving Mass will be held on Tuesday the 13th of December (Week 9) The Mass is a Whole School Mass and will be held in the Mary Mackillop Hall – date and time is to be confirmed however we are expecting a morning Mass. All parents, caregivers and grandparents who are able to attend are welcome to join us to celebrate.

2024 Sacrament Program – enrolments have opened

Enrolment for the 2024 Sacramental Program have opened, and will close by the end of the 2023 school year. The program is open to any child who is baptised Catholic, and is 8 years or older (this generally includes students who will be in Year 3 and up from the 2023 school year). If you would like to enrol in the program – please fill in the attached PDF file (English version and return the form to the school office or Parish office (with a copy of your child’s Baptism certificate). Hard copies of the forms are also available from the front office. Attached is also a letter from the parish with further details of the program.

The program will begin in 2024 – and covers the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Holy Communion. Our first parent and student meeting will be held on Wednesday the 7th of February, 2024 at 7pm in the Mary Mackillop Hall. More details will be provided early next year, and we will have dates for the whole program at this meeting. However we are planning to have Presentation Masses and Reconciliation in Term 1, Confirmation meeting in Term 2, and the Confirmation and Holy Communions in Term 3.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the program: jpage@whitefriars.catholic.edu.au

Josh Page

APRIM

Friday 10th November 2023 

Dear Parents/Caregivers, 

Enrolments have opened for the 2024 Sacramental Program in the Croydon Park Parish. This enrolment is open to any child who will be in Year 3 or above in 2024 and has been baptised Catholic. 

The three sacraments that will be celebrated in 2024 are Reconciliation, Confirmation and First Communion. Please note: if your child has previously celebrated any of these Sacraments, they are able to enrol in the program to participate in just those that they have not yet celebrated. 

If you wish to enrol your child in the program, please complete an enrolment form, including either a scanned copy or photo of your child’s baptism certificate attached and email these back to the parish at sacramental.coordinator@croydonparkparish.com.au. Hard copies of the form can be returned to the school or parish offices. Enrolment forms need to be returned by the end of Week 8 – Friday the 8th December. 

The Introductory Parent Meeting will be held on Wednesday 7th February 2024 at 7pm, in the Mary Mackillop Hall at Whitefriars School. This meeting will be an opportunity to become familiar with the program and the roles of families, schools and parish in the preparation for and celebration of these sacraments. 

If you have any questions regarding this program, feel free to contact Kirsty Power the parish Sacramental Coordinator on 8346 0944 or your school APRIM for clarification. 

Kind Regards, 

Kirsty Power 

Sacramental Coordinator 

Croydon Park Parish 

Anne-Marie Platten Matthew Harrison Joshua Page 

Assistant Principal Religious Assistant Principal Religious Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission Identity and Mission Identity and Mission 

St Patrick’s School St Margaret Mary’s School Whitefriar’s School 

It’s been a busy term and we are only in Week 4! Here is a snapshot of some of the wonderful learning experiences we have shared together. 

In Maths we have been learning about ‘Friends of 10’. We used flip tiles and 10 frames to help us work out who is friends with who.  

In HASS we have been sharing ‘old’ objects that we have brought from home. We have shared the stories about why these objects are special to us and our family.  

We had a visit from some AFLW players and played some games based on developing footy skills. They will be back next week, we can’t wait! 

With great enthusiasm, I would like to congratulate six students: Vittal  Eithen, Jerry, Lewis , Archie , Austin , and Nicholas . These students were selected to represent Whitefriars Catholic School at the Interschool Chess Tournament, which took place last Monday at Tyndale Christian School. 

The tournament was a showcase of skill and intellect, bringing together 76 students from 11 schools across South Australia. Whitefriars Catholic School did exceptionally well, achieving 6th place with an impressive 18.5 points. 

I would like to give special recognition to Vittal for securing the 11th position and Eithen in 13th position, each with 5.5 wins. Their achievements were standout moments in the tournament. 

Congratulations to all the students for their hard-earned success.  

From the Sports Desk

SACPSSA Athletics Day

This past Monday saw the super talented Whitefriars Athletics team parade their skills in the annual SACPSSA Athletics Carnival. Whitefriars are in the very competitive and tough Section 2 against 8 other schools from around Adelaide. In all, 40 athletes represented the school in a range of track and field events at the SA Athletics Stadium in Mile End.

We had students come home with a range of ribbons but each and every student tried their very best and represented Whitefriars proudly. As usual, our school was one of the loudest in supporting each other, which is always great to see. Our relay teams at the end of day performed particularly well with a few teams finishing within the top 4. Congratulations to all our students on such a wonderful display of athleticism and sportsmanship.

A massive thank you to our volunteers who gave up a day to come and assist in various roles at the carnival, these days cannot go ahead without their help - Jade Lehmann, Jo-anne Barton and Daniel Alves dos Santos.

Each year we have over 100 registered volunteers who help our school in so many different ways, contributing to our school and supporting children and staff.  Registered volunteers contribute to the school community in just some of the following ways:

• School Board 
• Parents & Friends events
• After School Sports (Coaches and Team Managers)
• Canteen
• Learning Assistance Program (LAP)
• Reading with children
• Assisting at excursions

All volunteers are required to obtain appropriate clearances, including a Department of Human Services (DHS) Clearance and Catholic Clearance.

Once submitted, clearances may take up to 6 weeks to process.

When you receive your clearance or card please bring this into the office for us to update to the Volunteer Register.

If you would like to volunteer, please see staff in the front office for a Volunteer Information Pack and support in registering as a volunteer.

Please see below for current volunteers wanted in our school.

Thankyou to the following volunteers assisting in Term 4, Week 5 & 6.

If you would like to contribute to this wonderful school community and spend some of your day making delicious food, chatting and laughing in good company, having fun and of course drinking coffee, whether you are able to assist for both recess and lunch, or just an hour, it makes a huge difference and we would love to have you join us.

• Monday - Friday
• Times: all day (9-1:30pm), recess (10:50-11:30am), lunch (12:50-1:30pm) or just an hour wherever you can!
• Tasks include: Making popcorns, jellies, sandwiches, assembling burgers, serving at the counter, packing lunches and stacking the chip rack.

Tasks are given in very easy, manageable steps so everyone can comfortably learn as you go.  No experience necessary!

If you would like to volunteer some time in the Canteen or would like to ask questions about what is involved, please contact Iris at the Canteen before school.

Iris Mori

Canteen Manager

We acknowledge and pay our respect to the Kaurna people as the traditional owners of the land of Mikawomma on which Whitefriars Catholic School is located.  We come with open hearts and minds to listen and learn from Elders - past, present and emerging.