Special Character at St Francis

As we enter our first Special character review it is salubrious to take some time to reflect on the journey so far. The special character of our school is reflected in the unique way that we have come together to create a new school. We have celebrated many exciting new beginnings and been faced with challenges. We have managed to put aside previous grievances associated with connections to each of the two previous existing schools and are well on our way to creating a positive and special place. The one church one school focus has helped this as has the support of the parish priest, Father Simon, and the parish community as well as the dedicated and hard working staff. The weekly staff prayer sessions allow us to gather and focus on what is important to us. The way we have come together as a school to share in prayer for example: The Living Rosary, lead by senior students have been some of the highlights. The ongoing professional development we complete as a staff as well as the progressive forward thinking outlook: providing our students with important up to date skills and knowledge that will set them up well for future education, is both exciting and demanding.
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Working in a Catholic school means installing gospel values in the students we work with. Living the gospel in our actions, not just our words. It means we need to support our colleagues , students and their families in the best ways we possibly can: ensuring basic needs in the parish community are supported and that we a s a school cater for individual family needs and avoid putting too many pressures on families especially those we can identify as struggling. Also being part of a catholic school community means showing support for grieving families within our community in special ways that are focused on what it means for us to be catholic.

At St Francis we ensure students have a genuine and ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ in various ways: Through daily prayer, Religious Education instruction, attending Mass and especially through the way that we relate to each other and show value and respect towards each other in our school/ parish community. Regular visits from priest, people in our parish also ensure encounters with Christ through the priest is maintained. Working together with the parish to support what is important to the whole community( parish), not just the school and through teachers modelling and encouraging gospel values and virtues.

We integrate our special character in teaching and learning.in the way we relate to our students daily. In our lessons we include many aspects of our special character, significantly in our Project based learning approach: through encouraging students to think deeply about, for example, prayer and what this means for us. Our special character is significantly evident in the way students care for and look out for each other throughout the school, in the ways older students support younger ones.

I feel that we prioritise the students a great deal at school and I am proud to say that I believe they get a wonderful learning experience in an exciting and unique environment with a forward thinking focus. This is important, children are central to why we teach, however teaching is a demanding career and a teacher's own well being is also significant. As our school is so progressive, which encompasses an exciting journey and extra demands, it is important that we take time to ensure we nurture ourselves and each other due to the amount of energy and time taken to provide the best opportunities for our students.

On many levels we have good relationships between school, community and parish. The priest is very supportive and students enjoy when the priest visits.The parish enjoy when we come to mass, however, I believe that when we have a hall and new church ( more space) we may be better able to have more shared activities with wider parish.

We are already doing many wonderful things . Moving forward we need to continue to work together to establish ways to best teach with a differentiated approach. Looking out for each other as colleagues and focusing on ways to work smarter and efficiently ensuring we have enough balance in our lives, so that we can give the students in our care the best. I think that any professional development we do we should continue to complete as a whole staff to ensure we are collaboratively focused on what Religious Education looks like in our unique school and within our changing world.