Message From Our 

Principal

Dear Parents and Caregivers,

Pope Francis has proclaimed the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will be celebrated in July each year, near the Feast of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne, the grandparents of Jesus.

We are looking forward to welcoming our grandparents to Sacred Heart on Friday to celebrate and give thanks for the wonderful gift they are.  Grandparents play an important role in the family story of our children. They have given them the gift of life and continue to give them the gift of love. We invite all our grandparents, great grandparents or special friends to come to our 9:15am Mass in the church and then visit our beautiful school. Following that you are invited to morning tea.  It would be greatly appreciated if school families could send along something for morning tea and come and help serve our special visitors if you are able. Pope Francis reminds us “Grandparents are a treasure in the family, please take care of them and love them”. We thank God for the gift of grandparents and ask that we are always thankful for all that they are and all that they do for us.

Next Monday, August 8th, is the Feast of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, our first Australian saint and we give thanks for this extraordinary woman. Mary MacKillop was an educator, a pioneer and a leader, someone who had compassion for others regardless of their situation. Strengthened by her belief in the value of education as the foundation for a fulfilling life, Mary’s motto was ‘never see a need without doing something about it’.  Mary’s legacy of helping all people in need, so we create more connected, stronger communities is so important today and calls us all to follow her beautiful example. Through our Graduate Outcomes all at Sacred Heart aspire to grow more like this wonderful Australian saint each and every day.

The following week, August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Catholic tradition recognises the importance of Mary as the Mother of Jesus and on this special Holy Day, we remember Mary ending her earthly life and returning to heaven to be reunited with God.  Still today Mary is a wonderful model to us.  We are reminded of her example as she responded to God’s call and faced her challenges with strength and faith.

Congratulations to our children who are preparing for their Sacrament of Reconciliation. Last weekend they were presented to our parish community and received their books, Our Times Together and are now working in their home groups in readiness for receiving this Sacrament. Congratulations also to Toro Mark who was recently Baptised when he was on holidays in England. We remember all these children and their families in our prayers.

Congratulations to our fantastic Foundation class on reaching their ‘100th Day of School’. To celebrate the children came along dressed as their super hero with 100 things on their cape. Well done to our Foundation children, their parents and teachers for the way you have all begun this important first year of school.

Last night the SAC met and we welcomed our newest member Julie Murrell to our School Council. The revised Behavioural Management Flow Chart was presented and endorsed by SAC and can now be found on our website under Pastoral Wellbeing. We also discussed ways dates and events can be better communicated to parents.  Our main form of parent communication is through PAM via SIMON Everywhere app. Can I please ask that parents ensure they have downloaded the app and enable push notifications. Refer to the SiMON Everywhere  help downloading the app or accessing your PAM account.

Our website has been recently updated to include the new Child Safe Standards that came into effect July 1st. Child safe policies and procedures can be found under the Child Safe tab on our website. The Sacred Heart Behavioural Management Flow Chart and Student Behaviour Policy is available under Pastoral Wellbeing.

Thank you to Marie and Rob O’Meara who have donated a wonderful first prize, a Kiewa Valley Snowsports Voucher for our school raffle. We also have included some other great prizes, two basketball backboards and a netball ring. Children will bring home raffle tickets this week and it is hoped that we are able to sell lots of tickets to help fund our lovely new fence. The raffle winners will be drawn at the upcoming school concert. There are some really great prizes and we would be very grateful if families could support our school by selling lots of tickets. Please see PAM and the school news page of this newsletter for further details.

I wish all our grandparents and great grandparents a special Grandparent’s Day and look forward to welcoming those who are able to come to Sacred Heart on Friday.

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus continue to watch over our school community and bless us always.

Pauline Hindson 

Principal