Principal's News

Dear Parents and Carers, 

As this term goes by I am meeting quite a few parents who are considering enrolling their child at Sacred Heart in 2022. The hope and excitement that comes with these meetings was certainly missing last year. 

During these meetings I usually talk about the “Broad Curriculum Aims” of our school. These were written in response to the question, “What do we want for the graduates of Sacred Heart?”

Here’s what we wrote:

“The curriculum of our school aspires to mould individuals who can take responsibility for themselves and their choices, giving consideration to their own personal well being, and the rights and concerns of others and the environment.

 

We want our children to recognise that we all have gifts and talents, which, with respect, acceptance and teamwork, enrich all of our communities.

 

We want our children to be confident individuals who value learning and knowledge and who are able to communicate effectively with the world around them.

 

We want our children to know that they are a wondrous creation of a loving God who continues to call them through the example of Jesus Christ.”

So when I meet with young parents whose eldest child is 4 or 5, I often ask them to picture their child as a young man or woman of 24 or 25. What do we want this young person to be like? 

It’s a good question, because believe it or not, the time will fly until they are that age. We have to work on building those characteristics now. And we have to teach them consistently and by example. Parenting and teaching are very similar jobs. We all feel a bit guilty because none of us are perfect at either job.

If we want independent, courageous, honest, resilient, generous, reliable, kind and responsible offspring then what are we doing about it now?

Remember we are all works in progress, and some characteristics take longer to emerge and take more nurturing and patience. We need to give our children chances to practise these things and reward their efforts and improvement. If honesty is something we value and admire in a person, then what do we do to encourage this in our children? If we want them to be resilient, being able to “bounce back” from disappointments, how much practise are they getting over little things and how do we support them?

Oh and remember, it will be not what we say but the example we set that will have the biggest impact.

SCHOOL COUNCIL NEWS Our new School Council was formed at last Wednesday evening’s Annual General Meeting. We farewelled 2 outgoing members: 

Claire McConachy and Paul Millar and thanked them for their service before welcoming Olivia Dooley and Sean McGuane onto the new council.

Leanne Klahsen was re-nominated as Chair of our school council, Zoe Barren as Deputy Chair, Jeremy Richardson as Secretary and Rachel Amos-Ritchie as our Parents and Friends representative. 

Ian Seuren and Simone Hay continue on school council as parent representatives. Fr Michael and Emmalie Cain also remain as ex-officio members of Council.

UPDATED WEBSITE A very big “thank you” to Jeremy Richardson and Trinh Tran who are rebuilding our school’s website. Part of our School Council business has been consideration of a raft of new policies from our new governing authority, The Diocese of Ballarat Catholic Education Limited. Parents can access these policies via our new and improved website. www.http://www.shcolac.catholic.edu.au/ 

END OF TERM ARRANGEMENTS Term 1 will finish next THURSDAY, April 1st. School will finish on this day at 2:25pm. Children may wear Casual Clothes on this day. 

Unfortunately, we will not be having a Hot Dog lunch. 

There has been some conflicting advice about permission to do this and with only a week to go to organise it, I feel we will be safer to offer the kids a hot dog and drink later in the year.