Dear Families
It is hard to believe we are at the end of the year. It has been a big year and a special one being our school's 40th Anniversary Year. I would like to thank you all for your support and look forward to another successful year in 2024. Our class structures and teachers for 2024 are listed below.
Classes 2024
Reception
Room 1: Ashlee McCarthy
Room 2: Victoria Szilassy
Room 3: Malissa Jones
Room 4: Stephanie Maiello
Room 5: Christine Ferguson/ Stephanie Breumelhof
Year 1
Room 6: Jody Miskov/ Sarah Wildy
Room 7: Julia De Nitto/ Gail Macnamara
Room 8: Vanessa Marusic/ Elaine Amos
Year 2
Room 9: Anita Gagliardi/ Deb Pickering
Room 10: Daniel Argiro
Room 11: Karen Luhrs/ Malia Kanongata'a
Year 3
Room 12: Anita Doecke./ Olivia Sloan
Room 13: Maria Lupone
Year 4
Room 15: Damien Stagg
Room 16: Michelle Williams/ Emily McGlone
Room 17: Meaghan McCarthy/ Jane Hamdorf
Year 5
Room 18: Emily Pearson
Room 19: Anita Avolio
Room 20: Lauren Johnson
Year 6
Room 21: Jay O'Leary
Room 22: Caitlin Costello
Room 23: Nathan Bruce-Gordon
Communication
As a school, we pride ourselves on communication. You can receive SFX information regularly via Facebook (weekly updates), SEQTA and Seesaw. We also distribute a Term calendar to keep you up to date with current events. Below, I have listed the Pupil Free Days for 2024, Key Term 1 Dates and Key Yearly Dates. Not many schools will provide you with this information in December, so please add the important dates to your calendars. Of course, all of this is subject to change.
Pupil Free Days 2024
Monday, 29th January
Monday, 29th April
Friday, 7th June
Monday, 22nd July
Friday, 6th September
Wednesday, 11th December: last day of 2024 school year
Key Dates Term 1
Tuesday, 23rd January- Parent/ Teacher Conversations (Pre start of school year)
Tuesday, 30th January: School Commences
Tuesday, 6th February: 5:00pm Parent Information Night followed by BBQ
Thursday, 8th February: Beginning of Year School Mass
Tuesday, 13th February: Shrove Tuesday
Wednesday, 14th February: Ash Wednesday Liturgy
Monday, 11th March: Adelaide Cup Holiday
Tuesday, 12th March: School AGM
Wednesday, 13th March: NAPLAN commences
Friday, 15th March: Sports Day
Thursday, 28th March: Holy Thursday
Friday, 29th March: Good Friday
Monday, 1st April: Easter Monday
Tuesday, 2nd April: Parent interviews commence
Thursday, 4th April: Easter Mass
Friday, 12th April: Last day of term
Key Dates for the Year - Term 2- Term 4 (all dates subject to change)
Friday, 10th May: Mothers Day / significant person Liturgy and Breakfast
Friday, 28th June: Pyjackie/ Vinnies Day
Tuesday, 25th July: Young Performers
Tuesday, 2nd, Wednesday 3rd July: Year 6 Production
Thursday, 8th August: Mary MacKillop Feast Day
Friday, 23rd August: Book Week Parade
Friday, 30th August: Father’s Day/ significant person Liturgy and Breakfast
Thursday, 5th September: School Disco
Friday, 13th September: Grandparents Day
Tuesday, 17th September: Music Cabaret
Friday, 29th November: St Francis Feast Day and Colour Run
Wednesday, 4th December: End of Year Mass
Tuesday, 10th December: Year 6 Graduation and Dinner
Wednesday, 11th December: Last day of school year
Wright Volunteer Award 2023
Matthew and Joanne Burns
Matthew and Joanne joined the St Francis Xavier’s School community in 2011 with Sienna commencing at SFX and then Kiara in 2014, From the very beginning, both parents became invested in the school community through volunteering, in many different ways.
As the girls progressed through the years Matthew and Joanne’s involvement increased at SFX with volunteering at numerous SAPSASA and Catholic Schools sporting events that the girls were selected for including – Netball, Softball, Athletics, Girls Football, Soccer and Cheer Competitions. Their involvement ranged from assisting on the event day, coaching teams and covering marshalling roles. Over the years, Joanne has assisted with photography for many of the school and community events – music concerts, Sports Days, Mad March Fair’s, School Masses, Colour Fun Run and the list goes on.
Both Matthew and Joanne have coached the schools After School Sports teams.
Their involvement has extended to local SAPSASA Tea Tree Gully District events with coaching, assistant coaching, marshalling and photography for the TTG Representative teams.
As Sienna was leaving SFX, Levi commenced at the school in 2017, which allowed SFX to continue to appreciate and benefit from the unwavering commitment, involvement and love that Matthew and Joanne have shown for SFX.
Joanne and Matthew, you will be greatly missed now that Levi’s primary school years are coming to an end.
Thank you for all the support that you have both extended to St Francis Xavier’s School over the past 12 years, you are both most worthy recipients of the Wright Volunteer Service Award for 2023.
Farewell Staff and Students
At our End of Year Mass, we farewelled staff and students.
We have several staff retiring and I would like to thank them for their service to SFX:
Melinda Whitford
Ian Denham
Sue Sumsion
Colin Amos
Rita Buonsanto
We also have staff not returning after their leave:
Michelle Thomas
Celine Barr
Maria Panagiotopoulos
Staff not returning;
Rosemarie Villano
Jane Glasson
Jade Norris
I would also like to farewell students leaving our school and all our Year 6 students who move to their secondary schooling in 2024. We wish you all well.
New staff
We have a number of new staff commencing in 2024.
Teachers
Stephanie Maiello
Daniel Argiro
Malia Kanongata’a (returning)
Deb Pickering (returning)
Emily McGlone
Emily Pearson
Lauren Johnson
Jay O’Leary
Educators
Richard Irmler (will be replacing Colin Amos in Maintenance)
Mel Moss
Jasmine Magnus
Londyn Foreman
James Norton
Michael O’Connor
Administration
Vickie Ivancic will be in the Front Office replacing Sue Sumsion.
New position
In 2024 we will be teaching Performing Arts, which will involve dance, drama and music. Elissa Chillingworth will be our new Performing Arts teacher.
Meet the Teacher 2024- Tuesday, 23rd January 2024
Information will be emailed to families on Tuesday, 16th January 2024 with a link and password from School Interviews for bookings with your child's teacher. Bookings will open on Tuesday, 16th January and close Monday, 22nd January.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Aria who was awarded an honorable mention in The National Pharmacies Christmas Pageant Mini Float Competition. Aria was in the top 40 out of 700 entries. Well done Aria.
Merry Christmas
I would like to wish everybody a safe and Happy Christmas with families and friends. We will see you all back on Tuesday, 30th January 2024.
Recent News
Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs
Thank you to our school community for working together to collect an impressive 30kg of bread tags for Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs in 2023. Thank you also to our school RE leaders who have worked tirelessly to collect the bread tags. An amazing community effort.
Fred’s Van Volunteers
Thank you to our staff who have generously given up their time to support Fred’s Van this year. The staff at SFX volunteer every third Wednesday of the month and support the Fred’s Van team by helping to prepare and serve food. The staff will continue to support Fred’s Van through the Christmas holidays and into 2024.
St Francis Xavier’s Feast Day
On Friday, 1st December we celebrated St Francis Xavier’s Feast Day with a Whole School Liturgy. We gathered to celebrate St Francis Xavier who preached the Gospel in many lands and to give thanks for the blessings of our school year. Thank you to our SRC leaders who led the Mass. Thank you to the Liturgical Choir for singing to the song, These Hands with Mr Mittiga playing the guitar and to Father Josh for portraying the role of St Francis Xavier.
As part of our celebration, R-3 students participated in an obstacle course inflatable and Year 3-6 students and staff participated in rock climbing and games on the oval. Like St Francis Xavier, students demonstrated the value of persistence and never giving up! Students feeling apprehensive to commence the activity, left the rock-climbing wall feeling very proud of themselves with a great sense achievement.
Vinnies Christmas Appeal
St Francis Xavier was a great missionary, showing service to those in need. Inspired by St Francis Xavier, we have demonstrated the value of service by giving non-perishable items to Vinnies.
A big thank you to everyone who has sent in donations for the Vinnies Christmas Appeal. We have had an abundance of wonderful items that will be gratefully accepted next week by Michael Bone, Vinnies President at Modbury. They will be used to make up hampers for people in our local community.
Thank you for your generosity in helping us to help others.
Christmas Blessing
Merry Christmas to everyone in our wonderful community! We are so happy to rejoice in the miracle of Christmas – this advent journey that we are all on together.
We thank you for your kind support of all those in need in our community through your generous donations for Vinnie’s Christmas Appeal.
We know that we have made many families so very grateful. Christmas is a season of joy, of love, a time for forgiveness and a chance to reconnect. May you experience many blessings this Christmas season.
Congratulations to Scarlett on completing 40 pieces on the piano this year!
Congratulations to Christina on completing 40 pieces on the piano this year!
Congratulations to Darcy on completing 40 pieces on the piano this year!
Congratulations to Alejandra on completing 40 pieces on the piano this year!
Thank you to Mary, our Piano Tutor, for supporting and encouraging your students to succeed in their learning.
The Golden Child Challenge
By Catherine
This year, the Room 18 Year 5 class has competed against a team of parents and carers in the Golden Child Challenge.
Early in the morning, on the first Friday of each term, a group of parents joined their children to fight for the championship! We all wanted to have our names put on the trophy that Mrs Glasson had made with baby sneakers painted gold. The names of the winners each term were added to the bottom of the trophy.
In the game, each team takes turns to either shoot or to run around the court. To decide who does what, we did a coin toss before each game. The team shooting take in turns to have a shot at goal. If they get it in the hoop, the person running around the court has to freeze and the next person starts running. The last runner, the ‘Golden Child’, can collect all the frozen people who stopped along the way unless the shooters get them out by scoring a basket. The winner is the team with the most people home at the end of the game.
The games were fun and exciting, but also nerve wracking as we waited to see who won each game. Our Room 18 team were very competitive with some people from our class grabbing their parents shirts when they were running to try and slow them down!
The parents won the first challenge in Term 1, but the students took out Term 2’s challenge. Term 3 ended in a draw, so it was a showdown in the final round in Term 4 to decide the overall winner – we all wanted to win! The students won!
At the end of the last game, Mrs Glasson bought all of us Quelch ice blocks and we had a game of Fantasy Island with parents and carers to celebrate our win. It was lots of fun playing against our parents and working together as a class team.
Please find the Campbelltown Uniform Shop trading hours over the festive season below.
Please note all visits require an appointment.
Social