Principal's Message

Good afternoon all,

It’s been a busy few weeks for all of us at Sacred Heart School! Our Big Blokes Breakfast was a wonderful way to kick off our athletics day. It was lovely to see so many of our families supporting their children on this day. We were blessed with good weather, and our students had a great day! I think all will agree that our concert Museum Mayhem The Mercy Quest was a huge success for our students. I am very grateful to all for their efforts to make this event happen.

This week our Advisory council will meet for the second time this term. We will discuss Naplan results and our plan to support continued improvement in this area. The rollout of Magnify will continue into next year with some additional changes designed to further improve growth in literacy levels for our students. At this meeting, we will also discuss the updates to our court refurbishment project and master planning.

Please be aware that previously published end of year dates have changed. The last day for students will be Monday 15th December. The previously published date of Wednesday 17th of December was incorrect. Our staff have been provided with two professional learning days to review and consolidate the school improvement plan which will be developed after the school improvement review which will occur in late October of this year. The second day will allow for the completion of Level 2 First Aid for all our staff who support students. The correct dates are on our school calendar which can be accessed on the school website.

Ticket sales for our major raffle are selling well! If you are able to sell more than one book (4 X $5 tickets) please send your child to pick up another raffle book from the school office. We continue to plan for our 125 year celebration which the colour run and raffle draw will be an important aspect of. Please share our facebook posts for the daytime ceremony and time capsule opening on October 17 – we would love to see as many ex-students as possible at this event.

I wanted to take the opportunity to recognise two of our staff members who will be retiring at the end of this year. Karen Nihill has been at Sacred Heart since 2006 and has undertaken both teaching and wellbeing roles. Karen has led many of our choir and other music performances and we will miss her talent and dedication to her roles. She is very much looking forward to retirement. Loretta Robbins has been with Sacred Heart for the past four years and has had a key leadership role in leading learning and pedagogy. Loretta’s knowledge and experience have been invaluable, especially in this past 12 months as she has led the rollout of Magnify in our school. Recruitment of staff to replace Loretta and Karen has commenced and we hope to have this finalised by mid next term.

Thanks to the families who filled in our ORIMA survey, this will provide us with valuable information for planning and review purposes. We had responses from 33 families which was pleasing. Most of our students from Year 4 – Year 6 completed the survey and almost 90% of our staff completed the survey. We look forward to providing you with some feedback from the surveys as the results are made available to us next term. 

In closing please take note of our reminder regarding school pick-ups from the carpark opposite our school. Safety of our students is a major concern for us and we were

concerned about the reported near miss of one of our younger students last week. The rules for our school pick-ups are:

Please remember when using the parish carpark:

1 - Reverse into parking bays.

2 - Exit Car - please collect your child from grass area in front of St Mary's Hall

(students should not meet you in the car)

3 - Parents - Always monitor children in the car park area.

4 - When leaving the school with your children please exit promptly from the carpark

(It is a hazardous place for children to play if you are talking with another parent)

5 - Please exit car park slowly and cautiously keeping watch for children.

Finally, I’d like to wish all our families a happy and safe September holiday period. I sincerely hope you all enjoy the break from routine that the school holidays provide.

Blessings,

Carolyn Goode

 Principal

Reminder regarding student absence

At Sacred Heart we expect and encourage 100% student attendance.  We understand that there are some circumstances where your child needs to stay at home.  Please be reminded that it is the parents' responsibility to notify school of any absence.  The best way to do this is through PAM or by ringing the school at 8.30am.  Unnotified absence requires follow up from the school as it is essential that we know where our students are each school day.  If you receive a text, please follow this up by calling the school to let us know the reason absence.  If no follow up is received then the school needs to make phone calls to parents which takes considerable time.  We appreciate your support in this matter.

FEE CONCESSION FOR HCC HOLDERS

Families with a Health Care Card and would like to receive the CESL Fee Concession are reminded they need to commit to paying $520/student throughout the year - preferably by school organised Direct Debit or by arrangement.  Please see Debbie in the office if you have any questions regarding this.