Sacred Heart Primary School Mildura eNewsletter

Principal / Executive Leadership Team

Dear Parents, Carers, Staff, Students and Friends,

Welcome to the Term 3 Week 9 update. Only one week left until school holidays. Like you, I cannot believe how quickly the term has progressed.

2023 Prep Orientation Session - Buddy Playtime

2024 Preps will be visiting on Monday for the Buddy Playtime. Sessions will be held in the Library at the following times: 8.55am, 9.25am, 9.55am and 10.25am. During this session the Prep and their buddy will play in the Library, supported by one of the Prep teachers. Parents are invited to stay with their child or have a cup of tea in the staffroom during this session.

We still have four available spaces for 2024 Prep enrolments. If you know of anyone who is interested in enrolment at Sacred Heart please get them to contact the school.

End of Term Arrangements

Please note that students finish at the earlier time of 2.10pm on Friday 15th September. Students will eat lunch at 12:30pm and Assembly will commence at 1:30pm.

2023 Victorian Government Fund for Non Government Schools

I'm pleased to announce that Sacred Heart School has received approval for a $3,000,000 grant to enhance our current general learning facilities and related areas. Consequently, we are collaborating with Energy Architecture to conclude plans for the renovation of our older classrooms situated along Olive Grove and Twelfth Street.

Staff Resignation

It is with regret that I inform you that Mr David Paar has submitted his letter of resignation. I would like to formally thank David for his work as a cleaner at Sacred Heart.

RUOK Day

We have decided to postpone the RUOK? Day Breakfast to Term Four. This is mainly due to our Year 6 students being on school camp. The new date will be communicated to families early next term.

Melbourne Camp

We wish our Year Six students all the best for their camp to Melbourne. Students and teachers will leave at 6:30am on Monday morning 11th September and return to school on Friday evening. We will inform parents of the return time. This camp is a fantastic opportunity for children to develop their learning, social skills, independence skills, fitness and decision making. An enormous amount of work goes into organising a camp and so we must thank Mrs Thompson for her many hours spent preparing for the camp. Have fun everyone!

Students Leaving

We will be farewelling the Gaylard family at the end of this term. We wish Harry, Jack, Max and their family all the best with their future endeavours.

SHPS Family Footy Tipping

Thank you to all families who took part in this year’s Family Footy Tipping competition. This competition concluded at the end of the Home & Away season. Congratulations to Mrs Cathryn Rowles who was the winner on 149. In second place was ESPNfan0371742788 - we ask that this family makes contact with us so we can identify the parent or student with this account (this person finished on 148). In third place was Mr Ken Richards 145. We hope everyone will be back to have another go in 2024!

Assembly

Thank you to Karinya for hosting today's Assembly. Our last Assembly for Term Three will be held in the Stadium at 1.30pm on Friday 15th September. Our Student Leaders will host the Assembly and Principal Awards will be presented.

School Closure Days

Our Pupil Free and School Closure Days between now and the end of the year are listed below:

Monday 6th November: School Closure Day
Wednesday 8th November: Structured Literacy Pupil Free Day
Thursday 30th November: RE Pupil Free Day
Friday 15th December: Last day for students
Monday 18th December: 2024 Staff Preparation
Tuesday 19th December: School Closure Day
Wednesday 20th December: School Closure Day

With the end of Term approaching, all school fees are required to be paid unless you are on a special plan, eg Direct Debit. All Direct Credit Families please ensure you have paid your fees prior to the 14th of September.

SWPBIS Acceptance Focus

Over the last week we had a total of 687 students who have demonstrated ACCEPTANCE in both the classroom and the yard. Our commendations have now moved to 3053. We are now working towards 4000 to have another reward opportunity. We will continue working on ACCEPTANCE but will start a new focus on Good Manners.

School Sports Victoria (SSV) - District Summer Sports

Congratulations to our Volleyball & Hot Shots Tennis teams who competed at the District level this week. Many teams have qualified for the Division Finals. Thank you to the teams for displaying good sportsmanship against their opponents and to the staff who coached the students.

Have an enjoyable weekend,

God Bless!

Mark Gibson

Religious Education

2023 Sacramental Dates

First Eucharist - Year 4 & Above

Sacrament of First Eucharist - Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd October 2023

Thank you to parents who attended Wednesday’s information session. Everything for this Sacrament has been outlined in the green folder. Please contact the school or email Ryan O’Callaghan (ryocallaghan@shmildura.catholic.edu.au) if you have any questions.

Reconciliation - Year 2 & Above

Parent Information Evening - Wednesday 11th October 2023 7pm SH Church

Sacrament of Reconciliation - Wednesday 22nd November 2023 7pm SH Church

Learning and Teaching News

Seesaw-

Have you checked in to see the work on your child’s digital learning portfolio recently? Jump on and have a look, leave a comment and let your child know what you think of their work.

Numeracy tips to help your child in everyday life -

Family participation in learning is one of the most accurate predictors of a child's success in school and beyond. Providing opportunities to discuss and engage in mathematics supports your child’s learning in and out of school. Your child will also begin to connect the importance of maths with their everyday activities, such as navigating public transport, comparing and choosing the best item to buy in stores, setting a budget, and cooking.
Talk positively about maths so your child also values it. If your experiences in maths at school were less than ideal, avoid making comments like “I was bad at maths at school,” or “I didn't like maths because it was too hard.” Comments like these can lower your child’s expectations of themselves, and can perpetuate myths about people being naturally bad or good at maths. Conversely, if you did well at maths in school, avoid jumping in with answers or solutions. Encourage your child to talk about how they might work out maths problems. Regardless of your own school experiences in maths, be reassured that maths today is not about learning by rote. Today, the focus is on recognising that there are multiple ways to get an answer, and being able to explain how and why you chose the approach you did. Expecting your child to work quickly on maths can cause maths anxiety. Try to focus on the process and not the outcome.

Asking questions to investigate
Ask your child questions like these to encourage them to investigate maths:
• What shapes can you see?
• How could we measure the...?
• How will we find half?
• What is the best way to share the...?
• How do I get from … to …?
• Which is closer: the sandpit or the swing?
• How tall can you build a tower before it falls?

Sports provide a good opportunity to engage your child in maths, particularly if they are a keen sportsperson.

Here are some questions to ask your child:
• How do sports tally the score – for example, tennis, golf, cricket, netball, football?
• Who is at the top of the ladder? How is this determined?
• Are there other ways to record the score?
• How long do your favourite sport games go for in minutes and seconds? How is the time in the game divided? Into halves, quarters or something else?

Encouraging your child to think about money, saving money, and considering how they spend money is very important. Here are some tips and activities:

• Encourage your child to work out how much change you will get after buying something.
• Investigate costs for family trips together. For example, a visit to a theme park or exhibition may include the cost of transport, entry tickets, food and transport.

Prep Unit News

This week in Prep we have investigated 2D and 3D shapes. We have learnt that 2D shapes have sides and corners and 3D shapes have faces, edges and vertices. Talking with your child at home about this new learning or going on 2D and 3D shape hunts around the home will extend their knowledge. We then explored the terms ‘whole’ and ‘part’. We learnt that a ‘part’ can be half and that the size of a half depends on the size of the whole. We have written sentences using the conjunctions 'because’ and ‘but’. Conjunction words join two ideas in a sentence. ‘Because’ tells the reader why something has happened and ‘but’ indicates a change in direction. We have also been learning how to read maps to locate things and we have drawn our own maps. Over the holidays you may visit some places (the zoo, water parks, playgrounds) that have maps the students could collect to share with the class. We enjoyed wearing our footy colours today and practising our footy skills!

Sounds to continue working on with your child at home: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, r, f, o, c, d, h, e, n, g, l, k, u, b, j, w, ck, ll, ff, ss, sh, ee, qu, z, zz, ch, v, x, y, wh, th (unvoiced as in ‘thick’), ng, ay. It is important that we continue this practice as we are reading and writing with digraphs in Literacy time.
Make sure we are continuing to read every night at home and recording it in the Reading diary.
Learn all the tricky words at the back of the reading diary.
Library day is Monday.

Show and tell reminder = When I grow up I want to be…

Prep Unit Team Contact Details

Unit Leader: Mrs Rebecca O'Callaghan
Cooinda: Mrs Rebecca O'Callaghan - bocallaghan@shmildura.catholic.edu.au
Wahroonga: Mrs Wendy Collins - wcollins@shmildura.catholic.edu.au

Junior Unit News

Wow! What a way to finish the week. Congratulations Karinya on an outstanding assembly. We certainly learnt lots about the history of AFL and the students' interests. We enjoyed wearing our footy colours and practising our footy skills. Thank you to the clever senior students for their support in making our footy clinic so enjoyable.

On Monday, Karinya were blessed with the opportunity to hear stories written by the talented children in Minga. Students enjoyed listening to the stories and were grateful to hear the story straight from the authors.

All classes have had visits from Coco this term, which has given students the opportunity to enhance their volume, tone and delivery when communicating with others. It has been pleasing to see the growth in student confidence around Coco.

Year 2 excursion last Friday to Ten Pin Bowling was so much fun for teachers and students. There was a lot of competition between all players and teams on each lane! We were so proud of the students' behaviour while representing our school out in the community.

Even though we finish early on Friday next week, all Junior Unit students are required to bring their library books and library bags to school so that they can borrow new library books and take home books for the holidays. Students are encouraged to keep practising reading their tricking words, found in the back of their diaries.

Attached are Junior photos from the Back Flips Against Bullying performance we participated in last week

Junior Unit Team Contact Details

Click on the teacher's name if you wish to email them.

Unit Leader: Mrs Katrina Groves
Karinya (Year 1): Mrs Katrina Groves (Monday-Thursday) & Mrs Christine Sherry (Friday)
Bundaleer (Year 1): Miss Hayley Moore
Barramunga (Year 2): Mrs Chris Carmichael
Nangare: (Year 2): Mrs Maree Irvin

Middle Unit News

SEL Picture Books

In our Social Emotional Learning this term students have been writing their own Picture Story books that spoke about how to overcome conflict and problem solve challenging situations. On Monday Minga students were very lucky to have the opportunity to share their stories with Year 1 students in Karinya. All students had a wonderful time sharing their learning!

Why Trees are Important

In Year 4 this week we have been writing a paragraph responding to the prompt: “Trees are important because…” Excitingly, students’ work will be displayed in Langtree Mall as part of the Cooling the Streets Project run by Mildura Rural City Council. It will be on display on Saturday 16th September from 10:00am - 2:00pm. We hope lots of families will be able to see the outstanding work on display!

Thank You & Best Wishes to Mrs Zaxos

This week Mrs Zaxos completed her time in Minga as her final placement for her teaching studies. Thank you to Mrs Zaxos for her hard work and commitment during these four weeks. All the very best to you as you begin your teaching career!

Year 3 Science

In Year Three we have been learning about the three states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. This week we explored how chocolate would react when heat was added. We explored the question “does the size of the chocolate determine how quickly the chocolate will melt?” Students have enjoyed the mini experiments we have been conducting within our Science lessons this term.

Parish Mass

On Wednesday morning Minga and Yongana attended Parish Mass led by Fr John at the Church. We were very proud of all students and the respect and reverence that was shown during the Mass.

Staff News

We wish to send the biggest congratulations and well wishes to Mrs Whitehouse and her husband Dakota who shared the wonderful news this week that they are expecting a baby!

Middle Unit Team Contact Details

Click on the teacher's name if you wish to email them.

Unit Leader: Miss Sophie Price
Amaroo (Year 3): Mrs Sarah Beckwith
Yongana (Year 3): Mrs Georgina Whitehouse
Mootwingee (Year 3): Mrs Jaimi Willersdorf
Minga (Year 4): Miss Sophie Price
Eumeralla (Year 4): Miss Rosie Lennox

Senior Unit News

Year 6 Camp

We are looking forward to seeing all students bright and early Monday morning please arrive just after 6am the bus will be leaving at 6.30am sharp.

Year 5 Update

Yesterday information regarding our camp was uploaded to PAM.

We are heading to Ballarat on Wednesday 25th October to Friday 27th October. Please make sure you read through the information and let your students' teacher know any extra information to support your child on camp.

Other exciting news is that next week Year 5 students will be meeting their prep buddies for 2024.

Senior Unit Team Contact Details

Click on the teacher's name if you wish to email them.

Unit Leader Year 5: Mrs. Natalee Johnson
Unit Leader Year 6: Mrs. Loretta Thompson
Illawarra (Year 5): Mrs. Cathryn Rowles
Kyema (Year 5): Mrs. Natalee Johnson
Myalla (Year 5): Mrs. Emma Kotsiakos (Monday-Thursday) & Mr. Corey Barbary (Friday)
Narooma (Year 6): Mrs. Jo Campbell
Dourim (Year 6): Mrs. Loretta Thompson
Illawarra (Year 6): Mrs. Amelia Pacher (Monday-Thursday) & Mr. Jacob Burford (Friday)

Library News

Scholastic Book Club News:

Issue #6 orders will be arriving soon and will be sent home with the students next week.

Did you know that every purchase you make on Book Club earns our school 15% of the order value in Scholastic Rewards? We use these to purchase more books and educational resources for the school. It all helps!

Issue #6 earned almost $50 in Scholastic Rewards.

Thank you for supporting the students’ reading welfare and the SHPS library.

Ms Zema at azema@shmildura.catholic.edu.au

SHEC News (Sacred Heart Environmental Committee)

Well done to the students and families who embraced our inaugural Wrapper Free Lunch Day. The aim of the day was to increase our awareness of the daily choices we make that add rubbish to landfill.

The number of students in each class who had a completely wrapper free lunch.

F	Cooinda	13
F	Waroonga	11
1	Bundaleer	17
1	Karinya	12
2	Nangare	15
2	Barramunga	10
3	Amaroo	8
3	Yongana	11
3	Mootwingee	14
4	Minga	11
4	Eumeralla	8
5	Waminda	5
5	Kyema	13
5	Myalla	5
6	Illawarra	Out for interschool sport
6	Narooma
6	Dourim

Greening Mildura and Sunraysia Sustainability Network presented our school with a certificate of appreciation this week, for our involvement in the 2023 National Schools Tree Planting Day. You can see the trees planted by our SHEC members along Scherger Drive, as you head down to the Landfill Site.