Term 4 - Week 6 (11th November 2022)
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Student Protection Contacts
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From The Principal
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From The APRE
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Prayer of the Week
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From The Middle Leader/Curriculum Co-ordinator
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From the Learning Support Teacher
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From the Guidance Counsellor
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Classroom Awards
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Class In Focus
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Readers' Cup Finals
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Sport News
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From The Arts
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iPad Returns
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Tennis Coaching in 2023
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The Uniform Shop
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Sacred Heart Parish
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Community Notices
Student Protection Contacts
From The Principal
Dear Families,
While attending the Term 4, Toowoomba Catholic Schools Leadership Forum this week, I, along with other Principals and Religious Education coordinators, had the privilege of listening to Professor Brother David Hall. Over the course of a day, David challenged us to think about what it is that we in our Catholic Schools do that is distinctive and sets us apart from other schools.
In reflecting on this question, I didn’t need to go any further than the first question that I ask in every enrolment interview; ‘Why Sacred Heart Primary School?’. The responses vary from location to the parent being a past student or the parent having a positive experience in catholic schools themselves. However, the most common response, is; ‘We heard this is a good school’ or ‘We like the values of your school’. Throughout the day, I reflected on these answers and arrived at what I have always known, that it isn’t so much ‘what’ we do in our school, but ‘how’ we do things.
Interestingly, at a time where more and more Australians are ticking the ‘other’ or ‘no’ box in response to the ‘religion question’, many people choose our school for their children, because of our values. Values, that are unapologetically, Catholic. We could summarise, that while many of our parents identify with having no connection with a particular faith, they do want their children to have a connection.
In our school, we talk about God and the fact that we are made in the image of God and to be God for one another. We talk about what Jesus would do when trying to navigate tricky situations and challenge our children to ‘walk with Jesus every day’. As importantly, we model for each other and for our learners, in our interactions and our day-to-day activities, integrity, hospitality, compassion and excellence. Afterall, to show love and care for another, is to be God for someone else. We see this in the actions of our teaching team, our children and in our parents.
I thank our families and our teaching team for the way they enact our values for one another in the very visible actions our children see every day. When our staff show care and concern and a genuine interest in the lives of our children, we are showing our catholic faith. When our families volunteer to support learning or other initiatives, we are showing our children that all adults in our school care for them. Thank you for your partnership in the nurturing of your children. Together, we will surely continue to do great things for them.
‘Up’ Morning – Next Thursday 17th November, our 2023 Prep students will come along and experience a morning as a Prep student. In doing so, each class (except for year 6) will move ‘up’ to their class for next year. This experience serves to start the important relationship between each learner and their teacher while helping to reduce any nerves for children as they transition into their next year level. While some class structures are set (as mentioned in the week 4 newsletter), the Prep to Year 2 classes will not be finalised until after this day. The make up of classes, where a year level is split across classrooms, is carefully considered taking on the advice of the current classroom teacher and the support team that work with them. The ‘up’ morning begins at 9am and concludes at 10:15am.
Parent Engagement Network (PEN) Annual General Meeting (AGM) – You will recall that in recent months, a motion was proposed and then voted on to merge the school’s Board and Parent’s and Friends Association into one group; the Parent Engagement Network. This group’s main function, while continuing to organise important community building events, will also be to engage families in how your children learn and how they are supported at our wonderful school. At the next meeting on Monday 21st November, the president and secretary positions will be voted on for 2023. If you would like to nominate yourself or someone else for the position, please refer to the email that was sent to you in the last few weeks. Alternatively, you can email me directly with your nomination. Invitations to this meeting (to all families) will be emailed out soon.
God bless,
Mr Tyronne Maher
From The APRE
Father Roque visits our classes
Over the last two weeks Father Roque, our Parish priest, has visited each class. In these visits, Father Roque led a prayer with the students and then sung a hymn and then taught the students the liturgical actions to help get them involved. It is wonderful to have such an engaging and genuinely friendly parish priest!
Compassion in Action
During Monday’s Assembly we launched our Compassion focus for Term 4! We are supporting the Vinnies Christmas Appeal as well as the Yellow Bridge’s Yellow Bucket Appeal. All donations will be gathered at our last Assembly and then shared equally between these two amazing organisations. We are asking for donations of non-perishable Christmas food. On Monday, we welcomed Julie Inskip, who is the Youth Engagement and Development Officer for St Vincent de Paul. Julie spoke of the overwhelming gratitude that is expressed when she has been able to deliver the Vinnies Hampers to families in need and how the families love to hear that the donations have been kindly donated by such caring Toowoomba families. Imagine the difference we can make to so many families in need if we each bring in just one non-perishable item! Please see below for more information about the types of donations we are after. Children can bring in their donations to their classrooms where there will be a basket and a yellow bucket that each class will aim to fill!
Vinnies Christmas Appeal
Ideas for donations:
- 1L drink (e.g. cordial)
- Baked beans
- Biscuits (not small)
- Can of fruit
- Cereal
- Chips
- Christmas cake
- Coffee
- Custard
- Fruit containers
- Gravy powder tin
- Jelly containers
- Lollies
- Long-life milk
- Pasta sauce
- Plum puddings
- Spaghetti
- Tea
- Tin vegetables
- Cans of Tuna
- Soap
- Toothbrushes
- Toothpaste
- Deodorant
Yellow Bucket Appeal
Our buckets are the perfect size for smaller items rather than large, bulky ones. Here are some ideas:
- Boxed or packaged chocolates and confectionary
- Jams and preserves
- Chutney, relish and mustards
- Pickled or marinated selections (e.g. cocktail onions, sundried tomatoes, olives)
- Special crackers and biscuits
- Sweet or savoury sauces (e.g. chocolate, mint and cranberry)
- Savoury nibbles (e.g. nuts and pretzels)
- Christmas food (e.g. rumballs, small fruit cakes and puddings)
- Christmas accessories (e.g. napkins)
Remembrance Day
On Friday we gathered as a school community to commemorate Remembrance Day, which marked the end of World War 1 over a hundred years ago. Although it was a long time ago, it is an opportunity to remember all those who have died in wars and conflicts since then. In our world today, life is difficult and there is still conflict in places such as Ukraine. We pray that we value the freedoms that we enjoy today and commit ourselves to creating peace in our world by recognising that peace begins in our own families, classrooms, schools and communities.
Mrs Alice Lucas
Prayer of the Week
From The Middle Leader/Curriculum Co-ordinator
ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING AT SACRED HEART
We are fast entering the finalisation of assessment and report card writing at Sacred Heart for 2022. Semester Two Report Cards will be uploaded to the Parent Portal on Wednesday 30th November.
Mrs Charlie Barrett
From the Learning Support Teacher
Types of reasonable adjustments
Reasonable adjustments are different in each school and for each student according to their different strengths and needs. The reasonable adjustments will be made to support your child to attend, learn and participate in school activities. They may be required in the classroom, the playground, the school environment or during school excursions and camps.
Examples of adjustments could include:
- teaching in a different way, for example, using diagrams and charts
- providing extra learning to address areas of difficulty, for example, small group learning
- using different resources and materials, for example, larger print, reference material, Braille
- using different approaches to assessment
- involving a teacher aide to support the classroom teacher at some times
- using assistive technology, for example, speech to text tool, slope board
- using different approaches to assessment
- teaching a different year level in an age-appropriate way and developing a Curriculum Modified Plan (CMP)
- providing personal care supports, for example, to facilitate health or daily living needs
- arranging the classroom or other learning environments so that all students can access what they need and move around the environment
- making changes to areas of the school environment such as playgrounds or eating areas
- providing a quiet area for students that responds to sensory issues or to support emotional regulation
- using different strategies to ensure that all students are safe in emergency situations such as fire alarms
- providing additional supports to students during school or out-of-school activities.
Mrs Anne Robinson
From the Guidance Counsellor
Helping Children with Friendship difficulties
Quite often, for children, their day is focussed on their friends. Some of these strategies may assist if your child is having friendship difficulties.
- Help all children start the school day with a period of calm by providing quiet learning or reflective activities. The child who needs to de-escalate worries, tension or anger will be better placed to cooperate with others and be accepted or tolerated by peers and the peer group.
- Model positive social skills when interacting with all staff and students. Expect all students to interact with you in the same respectful and pro-social manner. Remind students to smile, to look towards you and create a comfortable level of eye contact. Use a friendly voice and pay attention to the other person.
- Help the child to have positive, successful interactions with other children. Identify and support the use of foundational skills needed for success in various social learning environments. These include patience, waiting and turn taking, using words to convey needs and wants, respecting personal space, and speaking politely.
- Model and support the conversational skills of give and take. Apart from taking turns to speak, help each child learn to listen, to add their ideas to conversations, to ask clarifying questions and explore others’ thinking. Friendship and peer acceptance require positive reciprocal interactions.
- It’s not just about you! Encourage each child to show an interest in what peers think and like. Identify any children who constantly talk about themselves. Gently discourage this practice. Suggest ideas and strategies for talking about other topics showing a genuine interest in peers, and acknowledging others’ interests, needs and ideas.
- Create an expectation of kindness and respect for others. These are key determinants of peer acceptance. Challenge the class to initiate at least one act of kindness towards a person at school and at home each week.
- Support the young child to earn leaves to add to ‘The Tree of Kind Deeds’. For example, choose children each day who demonstrate a positive interaction, an act of kindness, or calm persistence with a challenging task to reinforce a culture of kindness, acceptance and social success, highlighting that we can all change or improve our behaviour.
- Teach forgiveness. All friendships can go through periods of conflict. Help children explore and understand what might have led to an upset, and to share the feelings they experienced. Suggest that accepting an apology is more constructive than harboring resentment and explain that we all make mistakes and can learn from them.
Mrs Sarah Jackman
Guidance Counsellor
Classroom Awards
Class In Focus
Year 1J
Over the last couple of weeks, 1J has been working hard to fit as much schoolwork in as possible with the disruptions that come with end of year. It is crazy to think we have three weeks to go before Christmas holidays!
During Week 4, the children enjoyed travelling to Glennie on the bus and jumping in the pool to learn some of the fundamental skills of swimming. It was great to see the improvement from the start to the end of the week.
In English, we have been exploring picture books that allow for discussions on what it means to be persuasive. The Year One students have had many opportunities to identify persuasive language techniques used in stories to win an argument. We also looked at how to structure an argument to make it more convincing. The children have begun to use this knowledge to write a letter to Santa, asking him for a present for Christmas. Watch out Santa!
Health, Design and Digital Technologies have been incorporated with Lego Serious Play this term as students design, create, and record Lego models in response to my questioning. These 3D models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge sharing, problem solving and decision making. It has been a rewarding process to sit back and watch children, who at the start of the year would cry to get their own way, and now, use a strategy such a ‘Paper, Scissors, Rock’ when they a confronted with a challenge with a peer e.g., grabbing a piece of Lego at the same time.
As this is the final newsletter for 1J, I have included pictures of the bright and bubbly children I have had the pleasure of teaching this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching them learn and grow and I wish them every success for their bright futures!
Mrs Hannah Jesshope
Year 5L
Who else needs an island holiday?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on a tropical island?
Our Year 5s have been exploring all things island! English
We’ve read ‘The Island’ and then students were asked to ponder these two questions:
- how do we find happiness?
- And once we find it, how do we hold onto it?
We jointly constructed a list to determine what tools the author, John Heffernan, used to make such a good story. Then students were asked to use these tools create to a prequal or sequel to Heffernan's original story.
Visual Arts
Students then selected specific exerts from their story to create illustrations for. Once again, they were asked to mimic the illustrator, Peter Sheehan.
Maths
Students created a map of their own island resort.
Design Technology
Students were asked to create a mockup of their island resort using Mine Craft Educational or materials from the art cupboard.
Media Arts
Students were asked to use Canva to create a pamphlet to promote the main attractions at their island resort.
Ms Heidi Kelly and I are both looking forward to enjoying these last couple of weeks with the Year 5 students before the move Year 6! It's such a special time for them!
Mrs Alice Lucas and Ms Heidi Kelly
Readers' Cup Finals
This year the Readers Cup Finals were held at the school.
All students were keen to participate and showed a sound knowledge of the picture books and novels they had been studying.
Congratulations to all students who participated.
Results are:
Thank you to the families and friends who came to watch and be part of this experience.
Mrs Jan Watkins and Mrs Becc Wheeler - in the library.
Sport News
In week 8, on Thursday 24th November, our 8 to 12 years old children, will participate at our 2022 Swimming Carnival. An email was sent to all families this week outlining the details of our carnival. Unlike recent Covid impacted years, parents can come along and support their children on the day. Children will travel by bus at no additional cost. The carnival will begin at 9:15am and conclude by 12:30pm (times are approximates only). A draft program will be emailed out to families next week. You are encouraged to look through the program and contact the office if any changes are required.
From The Arts
This year for our Christmas Celebrations, Sacred Heart School will be presenting
Tracking Santa: The Musical
Each class will have an item they will be able to perform as we move around the world following Santa Claus dropping presents off to all the boys and girls.
I have supplied a list of costume requirements for each class. Could you please start sourcing these items. They need to be plain block colour with no printing. If you have any issues, please contact me.
Sacred Heart Instrumental Concert
We will be showcasing the students who have been involved in the instrumental program this year in an end of year concert. This is not compulsory, but a chance for parents and friends to see the wonderful progress that students have made throughout the year. The Sacred heart Choir will also be performing at this event!
Monday 14th November
Sacred Heart Hall
Arrive: 5pm
Concert Starts: 5.30pm
iPad Returns
Earlier this term, families received information relating to the change in our school iPad Program for 2023.
If you have chosen to return the iPad to the school, please ensure that the following occurs BEFORE returning it:
- Back-up personal content from the iPad (such as photos) at home. The following link will step you through the process: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977
- All passwords and Apple ID are to be removed
- Charging block, cord, and cover are returned
We thank you for your support in this matter.
ICT Support Team
Tennis Coaching in 2023
The Uniform Shop
Thank you for your continued support of the school’s uniform shop.
Normal Uniform Shop hours:
Mondays & Thursdays 8.00am - 10:30am.
If Monday is a holiday, the Uniform Shop will open on a Tuesday.
SCHOOL BAGS: School Bags are COMPULSORY to the WHOLE SCHOOL. Do you have the correct bag? Available from the Uniform Shop for $39.50
SCHOOL PULLOVERS - This is a compulsory uniform item for Years 1 to 6.
SPRAY JACKETS are compulsory for students in Years 1-6 only.
PREP STUDENTS DO NOT REQUIRE SPRAY JACKETS!
FREE BUTTONS available for Boys’ red shirt, girls’ red and white blouse & Prep red polo.
The uniform shop carries donated pre-loved items (including Prep).
Thank you for all the donations to the uniform shop these are greatly appreciated. Please continue to support the uniform shop with donations. These can be left at the office.
*We accept EFTPOS or Layby*
Ms Betty Davison
CONVENOR