Term 1 - Week 8 (17th March)

Student Protection Contacts

From The Principal

You might recall that I included our ‘Why’ statement, in the first newsletter this term. A ‘Why’ is like a vision for the future but is very specific in defining why at Sacred Heart, we do the things that we do with, and for our learners:
“To nurture and empower, resilient, lifelong learners so that they can contribute to a positive future in a changing world.”
Attached to our why is ‘how’. These are the things we do to ensure we are striving towards our ‘why’ every day. As a part of our strategic direction, and reflected in our annual action plan this year, we are focusing on making sure that children are ‘ready to learn’.

When we are ‘ready to learn’, we are more able to be resilient when faced with the challenges of the day. Statistically, we know that each of our children come to school every day with their own unique set of challenges. For many of our children, they have experienced some level of trauma in their lives that makes getting ‘ready to learn’ and being part of the learning, challenging.

To assist our children in being ‘ready’ every day, we have introduced agreed practices across all of our classrooms so that our environments are consistent and predictable. This compliments daily eating, movement, learning and play routines, to ensure children feel safe and welcomed at our school.  On the agreed teaching practices that we have installed is the ‘Morning Meeting’.

During the ‘Morning Meeting’, our children gather, perhaps in a circle, and follow a routine that includes:

• A greeting – they greet one another and the teacher/s by name. This might be a handshake, a fist bump or a high five.
• Values – they talk about what values they will need to bring to the learning today. ‘Cooperation’ might be an example of a value that they would need for some group work coming up.
• Expectations – the teacher revisits classroom agreements for how they will be working and interacting for the day.
• Announcements – this is where children can share something positive. Birthdays, awards and successes might be examples of these.
• ‘Positive primer’ – this is something fun that helps to release stress from the body and positively prime the children for the day ahead. These breaks are carefully selected and are also used throughout the day to ‘chunk’ the learning and bring children back to being ready to learn.
• ‘WWW’ (‘What went well’) – children are asked to share what has gone well for them so far today.

The routine builds positive relationships in addition to getting our bodies ‘ready to learn’. In busy school days, we sometimes miss an opportunity to connect with each person and see how they are. These relationships are not only important to learning, but also help us to actively live our motto of ‘Walking with Jesus every day’. When children feel like they belong, they are ‘ready to learn’.

Toowoomba Catholic Schools Excellence Awards - The staff in our schools, kindergartens, Outside School Hours Care and office are formally recognised through the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Excellence Awards.

Each year, nominations are called for from school staff, parents and community members to acknowledge the outstanding work of our school’s teachers, school officers (office, library and classroom), leaders and volunteers. From these nominations, finalists are selected and, at a special award's dinner during Catholic Education Week, the recipients are announced.

The awards are in 10 categories across three areas and capture the varying career phases, roles and responsibilities that enable Toowoomba Catholic Schools to provide high quality education and care in a distinctively Catholic environment.

Please click below and scroll to the bottom of the web page to complete a nomination for someone you would like acknowledged and considered for the award.

Share your thoughts on Catholic Education  - The Queensland Catholic Education Commission (QCEC) is conducting an important survey with parents and carers about the Catholic education system in Queensland. QCEC would appreciate your feedback via a short online survey to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence families in choosing a Catholic school. QCEC are working with Market & Communications Research and the Online Research Unit to compile feedback. You can complete the survey online by clicking on the link below. All responses are anonymous.

Enjoy the week ahead.

God bless,
Mr Tyronne Maher

From The APRE

Mini Vinnies
Our Mini Vinnies group hosted a free dress day on Tuesday this week! This was very well supported by our students and staff dressing up in the Mini Vinnies colours of pink, yellow, green and blue. We raised $261.95 which will be used to make care packages for people in need this Easter.

Golden Ticket Winners
Congratulations to Gabriella, Janieve, William and Ella for Walking with Jesus! Thank you for making our school a better place; one choice at a time. These students all received a golden ticket to a Pizza Party with Mr Maher.

Green Gotcha Winners
Thank you to the following students for going out of their way to pick up other students’ rubbish! Hudson, Harry, Hudson, Bol, Rocco, Alia, Ally, Harper, Slaina, Kyle and Lilith (absent) all had their green gotcha drawn out at our Assembly and they all received a special invitation to our Mini Vinnies’ lunch time dance party which is on next Friday 24^th March in our school hall.

Compassion in Action
During PE lessons this week, I have really noticed our Mercy value of Compassion in action. From Max French calling out to another classmate to encourage him to keep going to Levi Turner finishing his race and then turning back and running with his classmates who were yet to finish. I have noticed everyone trying their best and allowing their classmates with the opportunity to try their best too!

Mrs Alice Lucas

Prayer of the Week

From the Learning Support Teacher

Importance of regular hearing checks  
The hearing health of your child is vital in their access to educational, social and emotional development. Even a mild hearing loss can mean that your child may be missing 25% of the speech that occurs in the classroom – that is one in four words! Hearing loss (whether permanent or fluctuating) can also be linked to fatigue, disengagement in school and social skills development.

What can cause hearing loss?
Hearing loss can be permanent, caused by hereditary or genetic conditions, diseases, or trauma from loud noises or injuries.

Temporary (or conductive) hearing loss can result from wax build up, excess mucus or fluid in the eustachian tube caused by colds and runny noses, and otitis media from middle ear infections.

Fluctuating conductive hearing loss, caused by fluid and otitis media is the most common cause of hearing loss in young children.  Otitis media can exist for weeks and even months, without any symptoms of pain and fever.  Regular hearing screening is important in detecting hearing concerns to provide our students with the best chance of success at school.

This year we are fortunate to be able to offer hearing screening to our students through Sound Scouts.  This is an app that has been created in conjunction with Hearing Australia. 

Hearing screening will be conducted for Prep students during the next two weeks.  At the beginning of Term 2 parents of students who are having difficulty with their schooling or who are showing signs of hearing difficulty will be contacted in regard to possible screening.  If you have any concerns with your child’s ear health or hearing, please contact your class teacher or myself to discuss an assessment.  

Students who have possible hearing concerns picked up in the screener may, with parent permission, be referred to an audiologist for a more comprehensive assessment.  Some students may then be referred to an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist for further management.

Mrs Genny McNair
Learning Support Teacher

From The Middle Leader/Curriculum Co-ordinator

The Importance of Reading
Do you remember as a child when you learned to read? Most of us probably don’t and now you can’t imagine life without being able to read. It is obvious that without the ability to read, you could not understand anything written online, you would not be able to text or email, or even follow recipes. It is easy to see why reading is just so important. Furthermore, it is incredibly important for our children. As they grow, they will need to possess strong reading skills to make it through school and into their adult lives.

When children are young, reading books aloud to them stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word. One key benefit of teaching the habit of reading is the development of critical thinking skills. Reading books increases knowledge, enhances inventiveness, builds vocabulary and generally makes you smarter. By reading with a child daily they can learn new words and this regular and consistent reading can help improve a child’s concentration abilities. Overall, one of the most important skills any child can leave primary school with is the ability to read independently and effectively for meaning.

At Sacred Heart we teach and assess reading and comprehension, focusing in the early years on the decoding, reading accuracy, retelling and comprehension of texts. Moving up the years once the foundations are solid, we focus on growing students’ comprehension skills. This includes strategies to improve responses to reading that are literal, require reorganisation of information, require inferencing, understanding of vocabulary, providing evaluations and reactions to the texts being read.

Charlie Barrett
Middle Leader/Curriculum Co-ordinator

NAPLAN – Changes in reporting:

The National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) provides information on how Australian students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are performing in reading, writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar and numeracy. The QCAA is responsible for administering and reporting on NAPLAN in Queensland.

At Sacred Heart, we have been preparing our students for this annual testing with the recent move of testing taking place in March this year.

There have been some changes to the reporting however and we have recently been advised by the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority of the need for a proficiency standard be introduced for literacy and numeracy assessed by NAPLAN. Education Ministers agreed to the change in reporting in response to the online testing transition and the move to earlier testing in March.

The new proficiency standard has four levels of achievement for each year level and replaces the previous 10-band structure and the national minimum standard used across the four domains.

The four levels of achievement are:

• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs additional support.

From 2023, the individual student report (ISR) will change. The ISR will be based on the four levels of achievement. It will also continue to show the national average, the range of achievement for the middle 60% of students in each year level, and a dot placement for the student comparing their achievement against these measures.

This new standard and its benchmarks will provide information to parents/carers and teachers about what a student can do against a challenging but reasonable standard of literacy and numeracy expected for students at the time of the tests.

Parents/carers who are interested in knowing more about these changes are directed to the FAQs on the ACARA or QCAA website.

From the Guidance Counsellor

Connection through Community
Working as a Guidance Counsellor at Sacred Heart Primary School, I feel very privileged to be part of this School Community. Whilst there are many schools in Toowoomba, I choose to work here. Although my time here each week is short, (3 days per fortnight), I still value each and every day that I come to work with others who share a collective efficacy. We work together sharing similar values, beliefs and goals for our students.  I value education, and believe that all children have a right to have the best available opportunities to achieve success in all aspects of their lives, whether this be academically, socially and emotionally. Most children I talk to like attending school because of their mates, the friendships and the belief that they can be successful. Each child knows that they attend Sacred Heart knowing that they have responsible adults to talk to about their choices, and most importantly know that they can learn through making mistakes and realizing that they are more resilient than some adults give them credit for.  I also understand the everyday life pressures, interest rates, housing affordability, and general living expenses can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. 

If you or someone you know needs to talk to someone, please suggest that they call services that are free, confidential and can offer a different perspective to one’s life challenges. Alternatively, if you or another parent is seeking some connection through the community, I’d recommend attending a workshop, or parenting evening to meet other families that can support each other.  Catholic Care is one service available in Toowoomba, that offers education, counselling, and parenting programs. Please have a look at the Catholic Care website and I’ll leave you with this quote,  

"Through difficulties we are strengthened. Through sadness we learn compassion. Through compassion we connect. When we connect, we build our resilience" - Lyn Worsley

Take care and be kind,

Mrs Sarah Jackman

Class In Focus

Year I/2T

In Mathematics this term we have been learning to:

• count to and from 120 by ones from different starting points
• skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s - read, model, write and order numbers to 120 and beyond
• represent the place value of numbers using tens and ones

In English this term we have been learning to:
Reading:
Use decoding strategies – identifying initial, final and medial sounds, blending sounds, flip the sound
Use comprehension strategies – we are looking at text features, checking for understanding (literal comprehension), finding the main idea
Language conventions: -form complete simple sentences - use punctuation – full stops and capital letters
Spelling: - recognise and use short and long vowels - use consonant blends - develop knowledge of syllables

In Year 1/2T one of our Classroom Learning Statements is - We work hard at school and we talk to our parents about our learning.
As parents, we are all too familiar with the experience of asking our child 'What are you learning about?' and hearing responses such as 'Dunno. Maths, Science' - not much we can do with that information! Creating a habit of asking questions early on lets our children know that there is an open channel of communication, improves their self-esteem, and gives parents a vital look into the child’s values and desires. Perhaps you could try out some of the questions below. 
10 questions to ask instead of how was your day?                                               

1. What was really fun today?
2. What was something that was challenging today?
3. What new things did you try today?
4. How did you help a friend today? How do you think they felt?
5. Did you read a book today? What was it about?
6. How are you feeling right now?
7. Did you need help with something today? How did you solve it?
8. What did you eat first at lunch today? Was anything particularly delicious?
9. How did you take care of your classroom today?
10. Tell me about an amazing thing your learned today?

These questions over time have a lasting effect on children – they begin to genuinely believe in the value of their learning each day, and their efforts and participation in class continue to grow with positive effects. Most importantly, however, by showing wonder and admiration in our children when they share their learning (even when prompted by us), they believe in their own value and self-worth – ‘I TAUGHT someone something today, thanks to my learning at school. I made my family proud!’
So families, I encourage you to use these questions regularly to have conversations with your child.

Mrs Angela Tevelein

Prev

Showing images 1 - 8 of 37

Next

Year 3C

WOW!! It is hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of Term 1 already! The time has flown by while we have been busy learning, exploring and creating in Year 3.
In English we have created Persuasive letters and Narratives in preparation for NAPLAN. The students loved writing letters to teachers, Mr Maher and even their parents, attempting to convince them of something! There are very good arguments for vegetable gardens, a pool and more games at school; whilst there are equally good arguments for pets and more money for chores at home. There are also some very convincing letters about why we shouldn’t have homework!
In Maths this term we have explored calendars, time, mental facts and addition strategies for larger numbers. We played many games with our classmates to reinforce this learning. At the moment we are solving an Addition Detective case where we need to use newly learnt addition strategies to find ‘suspects’ in the case. We can’t wait to find out who the culprit is!!

Week 8 and 9 sees NAPLAN upon us and the students are well prepared and ready to go. We have completed our Writing Task – one down, three to go.

Miss Allison Campbell

Class Awards

Sport News

T-Ball Gala Day
Our Year 4s have started to prepare for the Toowoomba Catholic Schools T-Ball Gala Day. Mrs O'Dempsey and I will be accompanying the students to the gala day. As I said in the initial information, if you are available on Tuesday 28^th March, please come along and cheer on your child.

Cross Country
Our Cross Country training has started up on Wednesdays and Fridays before school and there’s been an impressive amount of interest. In our PE lessons students have been trying to run one lap of the track as fast as they can and then having a rest to bring their heart rate down to a resting rate before they run another lap. Our Cross Country on Wednesday 29^th March is less than 2 weeks away now!  We are not assigning times to the races; however, our first event starts at 9.00am. Please come along and cheer on the students! Students are to come to school wearing their sports uniform but it is optional to wear their House coloured (sun safe) shirts. From next Thursday 23^rd March house coloured polo shirts should be available to purchase from school’s Uniform Shop for $15.

Our Parent Engagement Network will be facilitating a cake stall (kindly donated and run by our Year 3 parents) and parents can also purchase a cup of tea or coffee from the stall as well. If you’re taking your child home at the completion of their race, please sign them out with Ms Campbell.

Swimming
Glennie Aquatics are holding a swim accelerator program over the Easter holidays which may be of interest to parents who would like to improve their child’s swimming and water safety skills. Please give the team at Glennie Aquatics a call if this is something you would like to book in!

West Zones Selection
Congratulations to Justin Nelson for your selection in the West Zone Under 12’s Basketball squad! Justin will now compete for a place in the Darling Downs team on March 28^th at St Mary’s College. Well done, Justin!

Mrs Alice Lucas

From The Arts

KEEP THE DATE:

Easter Pageant

STATIONS OF THE CROSS
 Thursday 30^th March at 9.00am (School Hall)

This event showcases each class with an item, a choir item and class and whole school singing. This year our focus has been incorporating Auslan (Sign Language) to our class prayers. The students have really enjoyed learning key words and being able to represent these words in a physical and visual way.

I am looking for some help in building/creating some props. I need four long spears and a crown of thorns made. If this is something that you would be able to help with, please contact me asap. cherie.runciman@twb.catholic.edu.au

Choir

Every Tuesday at 2.55-3.30pm in The Arts Room (near the school hall)

Students in Year 3 – 6 are welcome!

 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

Ms Cherie Runciman
Music Teacher

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

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

MEAL DEAL (replacing weekly snow cones)

Funds raised support the 2023 Seniors and their end of year Grad Mag publication

Week 9 (Wednesday 22^nd March)

Week 4: $5 meal deal – sausage in bread & snow cone

These orders must be placed on Flexischools no later than Friday 17^th March please.

Sacred Heart Parish

Community Notices