Principal's Message

Good afternoon all,

We have had some great activities for our students over the past few weeks at Sacred Heart. Some of the highlights include the down ball tournament in Shepparton, interschool cross country and Grade 5 and 6 interschool sports last Friday. These activities have provided our students with valuable opportunities to challenge themselves in sporting activities while socialising and meeting students from other schools. On Friday some of our students from Grade 4- 6 will participate in a classical singing workshop here in Tatura. This is facilitated by Opera Scholars Australia – youth outreach and Opera in the Country. There are three other schools also participating in this workshop. Students will have the opportunity to perform at an evening concert at Victory Hall in Tatura with a group of four emerging opera singers. This experience will provide more exposure to the arts and give opportunities to students to try something they would not normally get to do. Further to this experience, many of our students have been busily drawing and painting buildings in Tatura. Some of these artworks have been selected for the Tatura Art Show exhibition which will be held from June 6th . There will be prizes awarded to some art works and we look forward to some of our young artists featuring in this exhibition.

There are also some excursions coming up including Science works for our Year 2 students next Wednesday, while our Year 5 &6s are doing an excursion the following week to learn more about the Dunera boys which they have been studying as part of their humanities unit. It is wonderful that our students are afforded such a range of activities to supplement their learning program.

At our first Advisory Board meeting for term 2, we spent some time reflecting on the domains of the ACER (Australian Council of Educational Research) School Improvement Tool. Minda, one of our Advisory board members and an accredited school reviewer, led us through the tool and its nine domains. This tool will be used to review our school in October. The review provides a great opportunity for our school to see how we are tracking within the internationally recognised nine domains. It will also provide us with valuable feedback to build a new school improvement plan for our school. The nine domains of this tool includes: Driving an explicit improvement agenda, Analysing and discussing data, Promoting a culture of learning, Targeting school resources, Building an expert teaching team, Leading systematic curriculum implementation, Differentiating teaching and learning, Implementing effective pedagogical practices and Building school-community partnerships. During our review we will be asked to provide evidence of the aforementioned domains. Parents and students will also be asked to comment on their experiences in relation to the above. There will be more information provided on the SIT review as we approach term 4.

Presently our teachers are busy preparing school reports. These will be available to families toward the end of this term and will provide families with information on their child’s progress. There has been a change initiated by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) which requires schools to report against Mathematics Version 2.0 across Levels Foundation to 10 with an overarching teacher judgement each semester, providing a single, aggregated score. In the past there were mathematics domains that were judged separately. If you have any questions regarding the reports, please do not hesitate to ask your child’s teacher or a member of our leadership team.

Uniform reminder

By now students should have transitioned to the winter uniform. Just some gentle reminders:

Wear sport uniform (including white socks with no labels) only on sport days
Wear school beanies (not other beanies)
Wear school jackets/ tops not hoodies or other jackets

Please send your child with a note if they are out of uniform letting their teacher know how long this will occur for. Further information on the uniform is available here.

This week is National reconciliation week and our students will be participating in a range of activities to promote their learning and awareness of reconciliation and its centrality to Catholic social teaching. On Thursday our Year 5 students will participate in the Fire carrier commissioning at 12.40pm. Fire is an acronym for Friends Igniting Reconciliation in Education. The goal of the FIRE Carrier program is to promote respect, fairness, and inclusion for First Nations People in Education. The program promotes reconciliation by the sharing of culture and spirituality within our school. The year 5s take on this role and lead our other students to further their understanding of our first nations people and the importance of knowing, understanding and respecting their story. The following is a prayer which provides a focus for us during this National reconciliation week:

National Reconciliation Prayer

Creator Spirit,

All creation once declared your glory,

Your laws were honoured and trusted,

Forgive us our neglect as our country approaches

the most critical moment in its history.

Listen to our prayer as we turn to you,

Hear the cry of our land and its people,

Just as you heard the cry of Jesus,

your Son, on the Cross.

Help us to replace our national shame

With true national pride by restoring the

dignity of our First People whose antiquity is

unsurpassed.

May our faith and trust in you increase.

Only then will our nation grow strong and be

a worthy place for all who wish to make their home in our land.

Amen.

Aboriginal Catholic Ministry, Melbourne.

Blessings,

Carolyn Goode

Principal

PLEASE NOTE

We currently have an unallocated $15.00 payment that was remitted into School Account for Bus Travel to the Down Ball Competition without any payee identification thus we are unable to apply . Please advise the office if this payment applies to you.

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.