Principal's News

The School newsletter will be emailed to families each Tuesday 

via your email address used for your PAM account.

Dear Parents/Carers 

Our office is fielding plenty of enquiries about children with colds and runny noses etc this week. Do the children have to stay home and should they be tested? 

The answer to both is, “Yes”.

This is consistent with the health advice from Victoria’s Chief Health Officer and our Premier. The instructions for all of us are to get tested as soon as we notice these kinds of symptoms, in order that we protect our community from this virus.

Anyone who has been tested must remain in isolation until they receive a negative test result (24-48 hours now, I’m told.)

Siblings who do not have any symptoms are welcome at school. My apologies if this is contrary to advice given out yesterday, one more example this year of trying to answer questions when the rules are being written continuously.

School is certainly a busy place at the moment. It may be just the re-adjustment to 420+ children back on to our site, or that we are all conscious of having a lot to do in such a short amount of time. 

As we know, we have all missed out on things this year, our kids included, however we will not be able to make up for all of these things in One term. If we try to we will only increase the pressure and levels of anxiety on all of our kids and on ourselves.

Parents and friends have asked me what I think the “Remote Learning” experience will mean for our students and the answer is that it will mean different things for different students. Some parents tell us  that one or some of their children loved the experience of learning at home and attending to tasks according to their own schedule while other parents have found the experience extremely challenging. It is my opinion that the pure academic effect will be minimal in the longer term. That is, if school continues as it is now for another 6 months then results for the kids will be about where they would have been without the interruption of Remote Learning. I’m not sure but this is my educated guess. Our teachers are planning lots of diagnostic testing to help us establish all of this. This won’t just happen this term, but will continue into 2021 as well. So the message is: Let’s not stress too much about the academic stuff.

However as we have said from the beginning of this crisis, the emotional and mental health of our children is more of a concern. I recall writing that our children will be watching us - we will be teaching them how to deal with adversity. What to prioritise in difficult times. How we treat each other. The pandemic continues and the challenge continues…

PUBLIC HOLIDAY Our school will be closed this coming Friday, October 23rd as it is the Grand Final Public Holiday. As part of the festivities our students are invited to wear their footy colours to school this Thursday, October 22nd. In other circumstances we might have enjoyed some footy food like a hot dog but unfortunately this is not possible in the current climate.

ALL SAINTS DAY One of our traditions at Sacred Heart is to celebrate Mass on the Feast of All Saints (Nov 1st) and to then hold a “Mission Fete” where we raise money for the work of Catholic Missions throughout the world. Unfortunately it will not be possible to either gather for the Mass or hold our fete (Lots of scenarios for doing this have been discussed and ultimately rejected).

Instead, we will be using technology to pray “separately but together” on Thursday 29 October and will instead be having a Pyjama and Silly Sock day. Our Grade 6 leaders are organising the day and will be running a couple of competitions such as guessing the number of lollies in the jar on this day as a way of supporting the Mission work of the Church. Children should bring a Gold Coin donation for wearing their Pyjamas and maybe another dollar or two to enter the comps and raffles.

More details on next week’s newsletter.

SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHS We have kept our booking with our usual school photographers, Arthur Reed to come to school on Friday 30 October to take the traditional school photographs. As of last night photographers are permitted to enter the school grounds. Ordering details to come.

In previous years siblings from Trinity have sometimes been included in family photos - this will not be permitted this year.