Principal’s Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Week 5's Newsletter!

Last week, I attended the Armidale Catholic Schools Principal's Meeting in Armidale. This was an opportunity to connect with colleagues, listen, and learn from our system leaders about Leading in an Armidale Catholic School. We were fortunate enough to reconnect with Catherine Jackson, a principal consultant. She worked with us to enhance our understanding of the effective practices in leading the school, offering coaching conversations, suggesting strategies to work with teams back in our schools, and working together with us in strategic planning as a system of schools. I always look forward to these meetings each term, as I come away with renewed ideas on enhancing our wonderful school.

PARENT INFORMATION NIGHT & PTF AGM

This Wednesday, 26th February, at 5:30pm, we will host our annual Parent Information Night and our PTF AGM. We encourage all families to attend so you can share in our vision for 2025. We will conclude the night with dinner to connect and celebrate with our staff and families.

KINDERGARTEN TRANSITION PROGRAM

I am excited to share that we received significant interest from families in our community wishing to enrol their children in our Sacred Heart Little Stars Transition to Kindergarten Program. I have begun the enrolment process for these families and have started meeting them and showcasing our wonderful school. We look forward to beginning Little Stars on Friday 14th March.

2025 NAPLAN

Each year, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is sat by students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Students will participate in tests for writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation), and numeracy.

NAPLAN 2025 will take place from Wednesday 12 March to Monday 24 March.

NAPLAN is just one part of our school’s learning assessment program. The tests assess literacy and numeracy skills your child is already learning at school, so the best preparation is their everyday classroom learning. Our school will also undertake activities to help students become familiar with the types of questions and tools available in the online tests.

The public demonstration site - https://www.nap.edu.au/online-assessment/public-demonstration-site is available for you to see the format of the online tests.

Further information about NAPLAN is available on the NESA website - https://www.nsw.gov.au/education-and-training/nesa/naplan and the NAP website - https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/for-parents-carers 

If you have any questions about NAPLAN, don’t hesitate to contact your child’s teacher.

COMMUNICATION

Your child/ren’s teachers are the first people you should contact with any concerns about your child or other students. If you are ever unsatisfied with the outcome of a conversation or its follow-up, please contact me.

I am always willing to meet with parents about confidential matters or matters they do not wish to discuss with other staff. My door is always open, and the office staff can arrange an appropriate time for the meeting.

POSITIVE PARTNERSHIPS

In enrolling your child at our Catholic school, you enter into a positive partnership with Sacred Heart to maximise learning, wellbeing, and faith development outcomes for your child, as well as support these outcomes for the staff, other children, and young people at the school. 

This poster from Armidale Catholic Schools will support these positive partnerships as we work to build and maintain a strong family-school partnership as an essential condition to support the development of successful student learning pathways.

Wishing everyone a productive and rewarding Week 5!

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.

Warm regards,

Claire Ryan

Principal