Principal News

Dear Sacred Heart School Community,

A Prayer for our Community

Celebrating "100 Days" Of Year Prep

Congratulations to our magnificent Year Prep students pictured below (minus Jessica who is holidaying with her parents) who celebrated their one hundredth day of Year Prep today. Don't be alarmed by the photos of the class and teachers Amanda and Giulia. I know for a fact that they have all had a great year so far, with much learning, making friends and happy times had. Yes they have "aged" somewhat, but that is what happens sometimes without realising until we see a photo of ourselves (at least it happens to me all the time)!!

New Child Safe Standards

As Catholic educators, we have a moral, mission-driven and legal responsibility to uphold and actively promote the wellbeing and safety of every student entrusted in our care.

Our commitment to the protection of students is enabled in nurturing, respectful and safe communities where the uniqueness and sacred dignity of every young person are celebrated and they are able to flourish in their learning and development.

Last year, the Victorian Government announced a new set of Child Safety Standards to commence on 1 July 2022.

The eleven new Standards have replaced Victoria’s former seven standards and principles.

Key changes include new requirements:

to involve families and communities in schools’ efforts to keep children and young people safe
for a greater focus on safety for Aboriginal children and young people
to manage the risk of child abuse in online environments
for greater clarity on the governance, systems and processes to keep children and young people safe.

Changes have been made to support greater national consistency, reflecting the National Principles for a Child Safe Organisation developed following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

There are some unique features in the new Standards. A new standard focuses on cultural safety for Aboriginal children and young people.

The new Standards provide greater clarity for schools on actions required to meet minimum standards. Victoria has had over five years’ experience of mandatory Child Safe Standards, so schools already have well developed child safety frameworks.

At Sacred Heart we are in the process of ensuring our policies and practices that have been part of a culture of Child Safety these past five years, reflect the new child safe standards. For instance all staff signed off on the new version of the "Sacred Heart Child Safety Code of Conduct" earlier this term.

2022 Premier's Reading Challenge

After a two year hiatus due to COVID restrictions, our students are again invited to be part of the Premier's Reading Challenge. Our students are all ready to participate after they were given an information session by Jess in our library this week and all the work of Anna (nonna of Alex Year Four and Isabelle Year Six) and Prem (mum of Arvin Year One) have completed these past few weeks setting up all our students on the computer system for the challenge.

This week a number of students have already shown me books they are reading for the challenge. Whilst the challenge is not compulsory, I do ask that parents encourage and support their child's participation. As we all know and our teachers continually reinforce, reading is the foundation upon which all our language skills develop. Reading gives us the vocabulary, sentence structure and imagination to express ourselves clearly, accurately and with confidence both orally and in the written form.

School Captain's Recognition

Yesterday I picked up our two plaques that recognise our school captains and the student awarded the "Sr Gabriel Good Samaritan Award" at Year Six graduation each year. This year's captains Isabelle and Julian now have their names engraved on the school captain's plaque and Nicola, last years Sr Gabriel Good Samaritan Award recipient, has her name on the Good Samaritan Award plaque. These two plaques hold pride of place in the school foyer.

Some New Dates

District Athletics Carnival: Wednesday 24th August (selected students from Year Four to Year Six)

Art Show: Wednesday 19th October (time to be confirmed)

Italian Day: Wednesday 26th October

Parents and Friends News

We will hold our next meeting on Monday 8th August. We are trying a Monday date as some parents are keen to attend these meetings but have commitments on a Friday. As always, new parents are warmly welcomed to attend. The meeting will take place in the staffroom at 9.00am

Enrolments for 2023

Whilst enrolments for Year Prep 2023 unofficially closed at the end of last term, we still have positions for Year Prep in 2023. We will therefore continue to take applications. If you know of any families who would like a tour, please encourage them to contact the school by phone or email.

Joke Corner from the Parish Bulletin

John Smith, a Protestant, moved into a large Catholic neighbourhood. On the first Friday of Lent, John was outside grilling a big juicy steak on his barbecue. Meanwhile, his neighbours were eating cold tuna for supper. This continued each Friday during Lent. On the last Friday of Lent the local families came together and decided that something had to be done about John, as he was tempting them to eat meat each Friday during Lent and they couldn't take it anymore. They decided to try and convert him to Catholicism. They were thrilled when he decided he would become a Catholic. They took him to church and the priest sprinkled some holy water over him and said, "You were born a Baptist, you were raised a Baptist and now you are a Catholic". Now that their biggest Lent temptation was resolved, the local families were relieved. Next year's Lent soon rolled around. The first Friday of Lent came and at dinner time when the neighbourhood was settling down to their fish dinners there was a wafting smell of steak cooking on a barbecue. The families nearby could not believe their noses! What was going on? They called each other up and decided to meet over in John's yard to see if he had forgotten it was Lent. The group arrived just in time to see John standing over his grill with a small jug of water. He was pouring small droplets over his steak on the grill and saying, "You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish."

Take care.

Yours Sincerely

Mark Tierney

Principal