Term 1 - Week 4 (17th February)

Student Protection Contacts

From The Principal

Dear Families

Engagement in Action – At Sacred Heart, we value deeply the partnership between families and teachers in the support of our learners and their progress. This partnership and subsequent mutual understanding between parent, teacher and student as to the child’s current rate of progress and next steps in learning, is what we refer to as parent engagement. We believe that when we work together, children can reach their next goals in learning and experience great feelings of success. This is a unique partnership like no other, integral to this relationship is a trust that each other is trying to do their best in their roles in this important work for your children. We are working with young people that need the relationship between home and school to be positive and heading in the same direction.

When we reach school age, our parents enrol us in school. Unlike taking your car for a service or repair, we cannot drop our children at school and hope that they will be ‘fixed’ by those who are trained to do the ‘fixing’. This is why we often refer to life and learning as a journey. When it comes to learning and the success of your children, this is a journey we need to take together. Like the mechanic, as teachers we have trained and studied and we work collaboratively every day to try and identify challenges that might be getting in the way of this success. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as removing a part and replacing it with a new or repaired part. We need the knowledge of the child and the parent to help us understand the complexities of each unique child. Afterall, your child is unique.

Raising a child to becoming a contributing, caring and productive member of society is the single, most important thing we can do in their lives. When it comes to education, we can’t do this on our own. When this partnership is valued, like it is at Sacred Heart, and our children see this positive trusting collaboration between home and school, they understand that we value education and their progress.  In our respective roles in this important work, educators are not mechanics, and parents are not the customers. We are in a partnership towards achieving a very special thing for your children every day – their success. Like any partnership, when this one between home and school includes trust, cooperation, and collaboration, it will flourish, and, as a result, so will your child.

Student Support Committee – This week, each of our teachers met with our school’s ‘Student Support Committee’. Our committee is made up of our Learning Support Teacher, our Curriculum Leader, our Assistant Principal and me. Occasionally, other specialists such as our Guidance Counsellor, our advisory Speech Language Pathologist and advisory Occupational Therapist, join this group. The purpose of this group is to offer advice and ‘next steps’ for teachers on learners whose progress has slowed or stopped. This includes children who are behind in their learning and those who are ‘high potential learners’. Teachers each present two or three students at a time for the group to consider and provide advice on. Parents are informed of the intervention, invited to offer further insight and feedback, and kept informed of the progress being made. This ‘wrap around’ support, ensures that all children at our school progress, no matter their starting point.

New Arrivals to the Sacred Heart Family! – This week was a week of celebration for two of our students who, in their respective families, welcomed a new baby into their families. Congratulations to Bentley on the arrival of his sister, Lola, and Ella on the arrival of her brother, Thomas. We hope that both babies and their mothers are doing well. Congratulations!

God bless,

Mr Tyronne Maher

From The APRE

MINI VINNIES
Last week, I spoke with our Year 5s and 6s to see how much interest there was in starting up a Mini Vinnies group here at Sacred Heart. I explained to the Year 5s and 6s that Mini Vinnies empowers primary school students to become advocates within their school and local community by putting their values into action. Students meet regularly to learn about social justice issues, develop leadership skills and engage with the wider St Vincent de Paul Society. After speaking with both classes I was hopeful that there was going to be enough interest, however, as I sat alone, waiting for the students to bring their lunch to the silver seats for our first meeting I had to admit I was rather nervous that the students may have forgotten or decided they would rather play than hear about Mini Vinnies. Slowly the students started to trickle over to me and soon we had too many students to squish around one table and our group overflowed onto another table. I asked the students not to bring up ideas until we were all together but while we ate our lunch the conversations kept surging back to how we can help people. We then gathered in the library to brainstorm social justice issues here at school; the students had so many ideas! We used the See, Judge, Act model to narrow down the brainstorm and decide on our first project. This is a model adapted from the Young Christian Workers movement.

SEE: We decided to focus on the amount of litter around our school.

JUDGE: We decided that something needed to be done to raise awareness amongst the school community and to positively reinforce people picking up litter that has been abandoned.

ACT: We came up with the idea of a special Green Gotcha that will be handed out when a student is spotted picking up rubbish. Jye then took on the challenge of designing the Gotcha ticket and to his credit emailed me through a mockup within an hour of school finishing that day. Maddie and Alia were selected to speak at our Week 4 Assembly and other students asked to research environmentally friendly rewards. We decided that during each fortnight’s whole school Assembly, Mini Vinnies members will draw out 5 Green Gotchas and those students will then be invited to a lunch time disco at the end of the Term.
Julie Inskip, who is the Toowoomba Youth Engagement and Development Officer for Vinnies Youth then attended our second meeting to talk with the students about opportunities we have to advocate for those in need. We will hold a Commissioning Ceremony during our Week 6 Assembly to recognise the Mini Vinnies members’ commitment to helping others and identify them as leaders in the school. The students will be presented with a special certificate and Mini Vinnies badge during the Commissioning Ceremony.

SACRAMENTAL PROGRAM FOR 2023
An Information Evening for preparing and receiving the Sacraments of the Catholic Church will be held Friday 24 February 6pm. Dates of lessons throughout the year are available at our school’s office as well as the Sacred Heart Parish Church’s foyer for you to take home. A warm thank you to Fiona Webb who will be leading the program this year. Contact Fiona directly at wowebbs@wowebbs.com or the Parish Office to register.

LENT 2023 WITH THE CATHOLIC GUY BRUCE DOWNES
For 40 days you will receive a short, practical and inspiring video in your inbox every morning to help you make this Lenten journey more powerful and prayerful. This program is free and you can sign up here: https://BruceDownes.org/Lent23

SHROVE TUESDAY
Thank you to Mrs Barrett and Ms Parkes-Moller for your coordination in organising for students to be able to enjoy pikelets next Tuesday 21^st February.

ASH WEDNESDAY
We will gather in our Sacred Heart Parish Church at 2pm next Wednesday 22^nd February for an Ash Wednesday Liturgy. During the liturgy ashes will be distributed. Parents are welcome to attend! Our prep students will hold a liturgy in their classrooms to introduce the students to Ash Wednesday.

Mrs Alice Lucas

Prayer of the Week

From The Middle Leader/Curriculum Co-ordinator

Starting at the end of Week 4 and throughout Week 5, each of our classes will be visiting the Life Ed Van for child focused lessons on health and wellbeing. Life Ed Queensland works in partnerships with more than 800 schools and teachers across the state to support and reinforce the important health messages being taught at home and in the classroom.

The modules delivered are aligned with the Australian Curriculum for health and physical education and are developed to support teachers reach these specific learning outcomes and complement learning in the classroom. Each module provides core knowledge and skills in a fun, interactive and age-appropriate manner.  The programs focus on:

• Nutrition, healthy eating and the importance of physical activity
• Personal safety
• Respectful relationships and emotional well-being                                     
• Cybersafety and strategies to combat cyber-bullying
• Safety with medicines
• The effects of smoking and alcohol on the body
• Legal and illegal drugs.

For example our Prep classes will participate in the module “Harold’s Friend Ship” where they will investigate topics such as how to build friendship and to care for one another to safe and unsafe situations. This then grows in content as the ages increase to the year six class, who participate in the module “Relate, Respect & Reconnect”, where they investigate the importance of respectful relationships for wellbeing in both face to face and online connections; covering concepts of respect, empathy and consent.

The other modules are:

1J- “Ready, Steady, Go”

12T- “Safety Rules”

2A- “Growing Good Friends”

3C- “Harold’s Diary”

4G- “Bcyberwise”

5R- “On the case”.

If you have any queries around the content, please contact your child’s teacher and note that you can check out the website for Life Education at: https://lifeeducationqld.org.au/

Mrs Charlie Barrett
Middle Leader

From the Learning Support Teacher

ORAL LANGUAGE AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 
Learning language is the most important thing a child will ever do.  It is often assumed that all children learn language and to communicate.  However, this is not always the case.  Children need adults to encourage and support their development.

Language is vital in order to learn, make friends and feel confident.  Poor language puts children at risk of poor reading and writing, poor behaviour and a lack of success in school.  It can also result in long term difficulties including poor social skills limiting career and lifelong success. 

Children with speech language and communication difficulties may

• have difficulty following instructions and understanding what is being said to them.
• have a limited number of words in their speech or be unable to put words together to form sentences.
• have speech that is difficult to understand. They may mix up or miss out sounds in words, making their speech unclear.
• have hesitations in their speech or may prolong or repeat sounds and parts of words or sentences. They may struggle to get their words out at all. 
• have a good vocabulary and can put sentences together but they may struggle to know how to use their language to have conversations, play and socially interact well with others.

How you can help your preschool child…

• Add words to children’s sentences to show how words fit together eg If a child says ‘brush dolly hair’ you can say ‘Lucy is brushing dolly’s hair. That looks great.
• Share books and talk about the story and characters. Have children join in with you when you read.
• If children say words that are not clear, repeat what they have said using the right words and sounds. There is no need to make them say it correctly.
• Songs and rhymes help children to learn the patterns of speech and language, important skills when learning to read.
• Have conversations about real things with children. Let them start the conversation, listen carefully to what they say and follow their interests.
• Join children in pretend play. Play alongside them, let them take the lead. Listen and talk about what they are saying and doing rather than asking lots of questions.
• Give longer instructions for them to follow.

How you can help your school age child…

• Play board games that involve taking turns as this helps children to listen.
• Play around with words and sounds eg think of words that begin with the same sound.
• Get children to think of words that belong to the same category eg as many different animals as they can think of.
• Introduce new words and phrases eg think of lots of different words that mean a similar thing eg words for ‘big’.
• Play around with rhyme eg cat, fat, hat, splat.
• Encourage your child to respond to you in complete sentences. Eg Instead of say just ‘Yes’ in response to you asking a question, they might say ‘ Yes. I would like to go to the park’.

Supporting your child with their language development is one of the greatest gifts you can give.

Mrs Genny McNair
Learning Support Teacher

From the Guidance Counsellor

What are SSPC’s?

SSPC stands for ‘School Student Protection Contacts’. SSPC’s are staff that students across the school can speak to if they are feeling unsafe or are experiencing abuse whether this be emotional/ physical or sexual. The role of the SSPC is a legislated role, which means, each school must have at least two SSPC’s who have received additional Student Protection Training each year. Children may not know or realise that they are the victim of abuse and that is why in each school each year, all staff are required to complete Student Protection Training and be able to identify, respond and report any allegations of abuse or harm a child might be experiencing. SSPC’s role isn’t to investigate the abuse, but rather, to identify and report it to the relevant authorities.  SSPC’s are nominated by our School Principal, Mr Tyronne Maher. There are posters around the school identifying our SSPC’s. If you have any questions about an SSPC, please contact me, or the principal.  Every child has a right to feel safe when they come to school each day, and that is why I thought that this would be my first newsletter item for the year.  Please have a chat to your child and see if they know who the SSPC’s are in the school. Sometimes, children who have been abused may choose to talk to a trusted friend before they speak to an adult. Ensuring that all children know that they can talk to an adult who knows how to help them or their friend, can ensure that children who are experiencing abuse or harm can get the help that they need. Child Protection is everybody’s business, and our role is to keep children safe.

Sarah Jackman
Guidance Counsellor

Class In Focus

Prep

What an amazing and busy start to the term for Prep!!! After the establishment of routines, we have now been able to delve deep into the learning. The students have begun building the skills that provide the foundations for reading, setting them up for success in their future schooling. They have begun learning the sounds that letters represent, practising letter formation and learning to hear the different sounds in words.

We had a very exciting visitor last week. After 10 days of learning, Zero the Hero came to visit the Prep students. He comes to visit whenever the students reach a day of learning containing a zero. To signify our 10 days of learning, Zero the Hero bought with him the book ‘10 apples up on top’ by Dr. Seuss, providing the opportunity to practise our counting to 10. He also brought masks, so that we were able to look just like Zero the Hero. We are very much looking forward to Zero the Hero’s next visit.

Ms Jesse Curtis & Mrs Melissa Nelson

Year 5R

The Holy Spirit in Year Five R
What a beautiful concept to begin our year with. Students in Year Five have started looking at the Holy Spirit and how the spirit works. They explored the following terms: faithfulness, patience, love, joy, goodness, self-control, peace, kindness, and gentleness. Students discussed and provided examples to where in their life they have displayed such characteristics to others. They learnt that these were the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul talks about the fruits that come from our sin: greed, anger, jealousy and other such characteristics. He believed that by following in Jesus’ footsteps and living as Jesus asked us to, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and this helps us to make positive choices.  So, as we continue into our first term of school students are reminded to show these traits and act in a Jesus like way.
Students created beautiful, colourful mobiles of the Holy Spirit. These are now hanging over our prayer table in our room. We remind each other that these traits cost nothing to do, but meant the absolute world to those who receive them.

Mrs Megan Radford

From The Arts

We have made a great start to the year here in ‘The ARTS”. We have been working hard on our Stations of the Cross Easter Pageant with all classes having their own prayer to lead and whole school singing.

KEEP THE DATE:

Easter Pageant Thursday 30^th March, 9am (School hall)

This year ‘The Arts’ Room has moved down near the hall and next to the OSHC Room. All classes with myself and the music tutor are held in this room.

Choir 
If you would still like your child to be involved in the choir please send them along! We rehearse Tuesday afternoon 2.55-3.30pm in the Music Room. The choir is available for all students in Year 3 to 6. We had a wonderful start to choir with 26 members. I would love to be able to get to 30 students!!!

 We are currently working towards the Easter Pageant (March), the Toowoomba Eisteddfod (May) and the Catholic Arts Fest (June) where the students will have the opportunity to perform in a mass choir of 300 students and involved in a concert that includes 1000 students from around the Toowoomba Diocese.

If you would like your child to be involved in the choir, please contact me or send them along next Tuesday after school. 

Instrumental Program 

There are still spots available for this year. If you would like to enrol your child, please fill in the online form below or contact me directly via email.
Cherie.Runciman@twb.catholic.edu.au

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=_f1LV0RCBUK3EBaPWwxYDVbF2GR6D2hAo-dL1hpSKMRUQTBXNEcwWURNTk05MlgxNVJBRkRUQjI4Sy4u

Course Outline for ‘The Arts’ 

4G
Students will develop body awareness and explore elements of dance (space, time, dynamics, and relationships), create dance sequences (locomotor and non-locomotor movement) and experiment with simple technical skills and expressive skills. They will explore dances used in First Nation Culture, using Song Cycles as inspiration.
Students will discover how to communicate feelings, explore elements of drama (role, situation, language, place), accept and participate in fictional situations and reflect on their own drama experiences and contributions through classroom activities.
Students will perform their class item at the Easter Pageant, Week 10, Term 1, Poem in Pairs, Term 2 Week 3 and 4 during class time with the top 3 pairs performing at the Week 5 Drama/Dance concert in term 2.

5R
Students will be exploring the Elements of Dance and Drama throughout this semester with a focus on First Nation examples. The Elements of Dance include space, time, dynamics and relationships, locomotor and non-locomotor movement and expressive techniques. The Elements of Drama are role, situation, language, and place. As a class we will use dreamtime stories as our inspiration and create a whole class dance routine and a play. These will be performed during the Drama/Dance Concert, Week 5, Term 2.
During the semester students will have the opportunity to demonstrate improvised and structured pieces of dance/drama during classroom games, songs and other activities.
Students will also perform their class item at the Easter Pageant, Week 10, Term 1.

6B
Students will be exploring the Elements of Dance and Drama throughout this semester with using Fractured Fairy tales as our inspiration. The Elements of Dance include space, time, dynamics and relationships, locomotor and non-locomotor movement and expressive techniques. The Elements of Drama are role, situation, language, and place. As a class we will use different fairy tales that the students know and create a whole class dance routine and a play. These will be performed during the Drama/Dance Concert, Week 5, Term 2.
During the semester students will have the opportunity to demonstrate improvised and structured pieces of dance/drama during classroom games, songs, and other activities.
Students will be heavily involved in the Easter Pageant performance this year. They will be able to participate in either a spoken role or acting, plus the whole school singing. The Easter Pageant is Thursday, Week 10, Term 1.

Ms Cherie Runciman
Music Teacher

PE News

Catholic Schools Swimming Carnival
Last Friday, students were selected to participate in the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Swimming Carnival. Congratulations to Alexander and Kimberley, Ella and Lillie, Alia and Liam for the pride you took in representing yourselves and our school at this carnival. Thank you to Mrs O’Dempsey for accompanying the students on the day.

Sporting Schools
This week in PE, our Sporting Schools coach, Ray, has been focusing on moving from dribbling the ball to striking. The students are really enjoying Ray’s coaching and I’ve been impressed with students who have a fixed mindset when it comes to PE and soccer in particular and then by the end of the lesson they are saying that they are really enjoying getting involved.

Mrs Alice Lucas

Library News

Library borrowing/returns

Please find below the days for class library borrowing:

• Tuesday – Prep C, Prep N, 3C
• Wednesday – 4G
• Thursday – 5R, 6B
• Friday – 1/2T, 1J, 2A

Please note that Friday classes MUST return their library books and readers on Thursday.

It has always been the school expectation that students have a library bag in which to take home their books.  Could you please support your child by providing them with the black school library bag or a suitable waterproof bag that is big enough.

Mrs Jan Watkins and Mrs Becc Wheeler

Scholastic Book Club

School Fee Payment

The school accepts payment via a bank transfer, direct debit or Centrepay.  Our preferred method of payment is direct debit.  To access the direct debit form, please click on the link below.  Thank you to those families who have already actioned the direct debit form.

The first instalment of school fees has now been billed to families accounts and is due by Tuesday 28th February.  You will receive this bill via email.  If you choose to pay via a bank transfer, our bank details are at the bottom left of the statement.  Please make the reference, your account number and name, ie. SAC111 Johnson. Your account number can be found at the top right of the statement.  Please don’t hesitate to contact the office for assistance.

2023 Shrove Tuesday Fundraiser for Missions

Shrove/Pancake Tuesday is next week on 21st February (the day before Ash Wednesday) and it is when traditionally Year six students sell pikelets to raise funds for Caritas.
The ordered pikelets will be delivered to each class for morning tea on Tuesday (we are providing the gluten free option too).
Thank you in advance for our families (particularly the Year 6 families) who have offered to cook or buy some pancakes to be delivered to school on Monday or Tuesday next week. Your donation is very much appreciated.

The Uniform Shop

*We accept EFTPOS only - NO CASH OR LAYBY*  
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.

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.
Ms Betty Davison
CONVENOR

Prep 2024

If you have a child who is ready for Prep in 2024 (Born 1st July 2018 - 30th June 2019), we are currently taking applications.  Our first interview day is Friday 24th March.

Please see below the enrolment application link:

https://enrol-sac.twb.catholic.edu.au/enrolment-application/start

If you have any questions or require further information, please contact the office on 4634 3436.

Tennis Coaching in 2023

Sacred Heart Parish

Community Notices

ST URSULA'S COLLEGE 

2023 Open Day 

Please book using the link below
https://www.trybooking.com/CEQER