Deputy News 

Dear Parents and families, 

We have had another great fortnight of learning and teaching across our school with NAPLAN, Year 3 Reconciliation and Year 6 Canberra camp added to the wonderful experiences our students have at Sacred Heart. I thank  the teachers who ran  very smooth NAPLAN sessions for year 3 and 5, especially Jayne Mackay and Dara Blake. 

Its hard to believe term 1 is almost coming to a close. It has ben an amazing term of learning and consolidating for teachers, students and parents alike.. We look forward to more learning challenges next term. 

I'm sure our Yr 6 campers will come back full of some amazing new knowledge and life long experiences of their final camp to Canberra. What great memories they've made this week in their last primary school camp. 

RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIPS OPEN AFTERNOON

Thank you to Simon Brown and all the teachers for hosting our first Respectful Relationships open afternoon last Monday 20th of March. There are so many amazing lessons going on around our school in this Wellbeing program. It was so fantastic to see so many parents here to see what is going on in their children's classrooms so thank you for being part of this wellbeing journey. 

SHARING BEST PRACTICE CONFERENCE

Several of our staff Kate Stroud, Matilda Tench, Bronagh Maloney, Sophie Prosser and Louise Donnelly and I  attended the Sharing Best Practice conference in Geelong last Saturday. Sharing Best Practice organises and hosts conferences committed to sharing current evidence-based practices. It was an excellent day of learning and so impressive that they gave up their own time by choice to enhance their own learning and add a few more tools to the toolkit of teaching. 

There were several keynote speakers sharing their knowledge.

Dr Stephen Dinham OAM PhD spoke about the concerns of Australia's trends in education and the issues and challenges arising from the data. 

Dr Lyn Stone spoke about making words stick and the importance of phonics leading into orthography. Orthography is the conventional spelling system of a language. We were reassured that our MSL (Multisensory Structured Language) program is addressing these needs of our students. She also spoke about oral language being a primary skill that we will pick up innately and reading and writing and spelling are secondary skills that we have to be taught. Written language is typically more formal, complex and intricate than spoken language. Lyn Stone has a wealth of knowledge and shared practical ideas that we can take back into the classroom. 

Tanya Serry, an associate professor at La Trobe University in literacy and reading  spoke about how cognitive science can assist teaching and learning. Her catch phrase was "Teach the stuff, cut the fluff'  She spoke about Cognitive Load Theory and the importance of understanding when students memories are under stress and they can't take any new information in. This is most important for teachers to know and understand. She reiterated the importance of explicit instruction to manage cognitive load in students. Our approach to  a structured literacy approach at sacred Heart reinforces this concept. 

After the keynote speakers we all chose different speakers to listen to in break out rooms. The topics for the next four sessions were varied. From The Theory Behind Reinforcing Student Behaviour, Quality evidence based spelling and Decoding programs, Memory Systems and Processes, Effective Primary Maths instruction,  Special Education and the ins and outs of Teaching Diverse Learners, A Coaching Approach to School Improvement. 

Overall it was an excellent day of learning and thanks to Kate Stroud for organising and encouraging us all to attend. Good teachers are life long learners.

EMBRACE FOR KIDS MOVIE

Thanks to Karen Hartnett our new LSO who has alerted us to a viewing of the new Embrace Kids movie which is showing at the Dendy Cinema on the 21st of May. Body image is an issue with young people today. If we can be part of the solution I'm all for it!  If you and your family are interested please watch the trailer and make a booking through Trybooking. 

LITTLE HEARTS PLAYGROUP

It was a delight to welcome our Little Hearts back to Sacred Heart today. Our year 5 students stepped in so beautifully to assist with playgroup, while the year 6's were on camp. We had many new faces join our Easter playgroup activities. We had Easter colouring and Easter stories and it was so special to have Carol our LSO to sing and dance to some Easter themed songs and the highlight was the bubbles! Thanks again to Carol, you make our Little Hearts playgroup extra special!

Wishing you all a  wonderful Easter and restful holiday break with your families and friends. I look forward to seeing you after the holidays, ready for another amazing term, 

Brigid Pennington 

Deputy Principal, Learning Diversity Leader and 3-6 Literacy Leader