Sacred Heart Primary School Mildura eNewsletter

Principal / Executive Leadership Team

Dear Parents, Carers, Staff, Students and Friends,

A Reading from Paul to the Colossians (4:3-6)

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and

thankful, and pray for us, too, that God may open

a door for our message so that we may proclaim

the mystery of Christ.

Be wise in the way you act toward

outsiders; make the most of every

opportunity. Let the words you speak always be

full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may

know how to answer everyone.

Catholic Education Week

It has been a great week celebrating Catholic Education. Today we were fortunate to come together with our neighbouring Catholic Schools for Mass at the St Joseph’s College Mercy Campus. As always, this was a very moving and respectful celebration. Thank you to all schools for their contribution to making this another memorable occasion.

Open Classrooms

Thank you to parents, grandparents & friends who have been able to visit the school for our Open Classrooms. It was great to see so many visitors coming in throughout the week to see students taking part in various learning experiences.

Diocesan Catholic Leadership Award

This evening in Ballarat, Mrs Marion Guthrie will be presented with her Diocesan Catholic Leadership Award. As Mrs Guthrie is away, Mr Gibson & Mrs Carmichael will receive this award on Mrs Guthrie’s behalf at a dinner in Ballarat. Mrs Guthrie is a truly deserving recipient of this special award and it is testament to her outstanding work in the area of Catholic Mission over many years. You are an inspiration Mrs Guthrie, congratulations from everyone within the Sacred Heart community.

District Football & Hockey

Well done to our boys and girls Football & Hockey teams who competed in District games on Tuesday. Thank you to Mr Burford & Mrs Rowles who attended with our Football teams and Mrs Beckwith & Miss Matthews who attended with our Hockey teams. All students thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity and showed great sportsmanship and excellent behaviour throughout the day. All teams have qualified for the Division Finals which are being held on Wednesday 14th June.

District Netball & Soccer - Friday, 2nd June

We wish our boys and girls Netball & Soccer teams all the best at Friday’s District games against St Paul’s, Trinity Lutheran and Henderson College. Mrs Thompson & Mrs Campbell will attend with our Netball teams and Mr Burford & Mr Whitehead will attend with our Soccer teams.

2024 Prep Enrolments Close Friday 26th May

We are currently taking enrolment applications for 2024 Prep Students. Enrolments will close on Friday 26th May 2023 at 4pm. We encourage existing families to apply now via the school website if you know your child will be attending Sacred Heart: (Click here)

If you know of any new families who are looking at enroling we encourage you to share our enrolment processes that are outlined here.

Instrumental Music Lessons

Sacred Heart is lucky to have Maddy Barbary available for Year 4-6 students to receive instrumental lessons at Sacred Heart during or after the school day. Lessons can be offered in flute (classical), flute (folk), recorder, saxophone, clarinet or piano. Maddy is in her final year of study at The University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium of Music studying a Bachelor of Music.

Maddy will offer a $270 per term program for each student and will offer a choice for individual lessons or group lessons that can be arranged with parent consultation. This allows for at least 8 lessons each term. Time slots would be 25 minutes for individual lessons and 35 minutes for paired/group lessons.

If interested please contact Maddy directly on 0457 081 016 or email maddy.barbary20@gmail.com

Sacrament of Confirmation

We pray for many of our Year Three students who will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation this weekend. There will be five Masses over the weekend. As a school community we wish students and their families all the best at each of these special celebrations.

Student Teacher

Thank you to Miss Charli Massotti (Placement Teacher) for her work in Minga this week. We wish you all the best with your teaching career.

Assembly

Thank you to Kyema for hosting today's Assembly. Waminda will be hosting next week’s Assembly which will be held in the Stadium on Friday at 2.30pm. All welcome to attend.

Parish Mass

Karinya, Nangare and Barramunga will attend Mass this Wednesday at 9:30am. All welcome.

Have a great weekend everyone and God Bless!

Ryan O’Callaghan

Religious Education

2023 Sacramental Dates

First Eucharist

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

Reconciliation

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

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

Learning and Teaching News

Book Fair

Thank you for your support of the Book Fair- after a hiatus of many years it has been incredibly successful and it has been wonderful to see the children excited about books! Once all payments are confirmed I’ll share how much we raised for the school. Any books purchased which are on back order will be delivered directly to your child as soon as they arrive from Scholastic.

We had two guessing activities prior to the Book Fair and the following children received a book of their choice as their prize.

Lachlan O’Brien & Ariana Simonetta (closest to the Jelly Bean number which was 748- they both guessed 750!)

Jason Deiesi (closest to the number of pages in the stack of books which was 709- he guessed 712!).

National Simultaneous Storytime

We had a lovely turnout on Wednesday at the reading of The Speedy Sloth- a lovely picture story book about a Sloth who wasn’t the fastest in a running race but certainly a determined competitor. If you would like to share this story with your children, have a look at thr PDF version link below.

The Speedy Sloth

Learning Diversity News

Prep Unit News

This week we completed our design and technology unit by making toy cars. The students had so much fun constructing and decorating their car and then testing out whether it moved with a push or pull force.

We have been learning some tricky words in class over the last few weeks - I, a, the, is, my, was, to, you. Remember these words cannot be directly sounded out using the sounds we have learnt to date. Remind your child of the tricky part of the word e.g. is (the s, sounds like z in the tricky words ‘is’, ‘has’). You can be practising these ‘tricky words’ with your child in the back of their reading diary. The sounds we have learnt to date are: m, s, t, a, p, i, n, f, r, o, c, h, d, e, g

This week we have sent home new sound charts and fluency word lists. Daily practice of these will help ensure your child learns these letter/sound correspondence automatically and how to blend them to read words. Automatically is when your child can see a letter and say the corresponding sound without hesitation or having to pause and think. This is a critical foundation prior to learning how to blend and read whole words. If you feel your child has these sounds automatically please practise them in lots of different ways (so they aren’t simply memorising the order).

Looking ahead, we are preparing ourselves for the Junior Unit Social on Thursday 8th June at 6pm! Last week a note was sent home about the history of the Junior Unit Social and the costumes each Prep class will be wearing for the evening. This week an invitation to the Junior Unit Social came home with further details about the night. If you have any questions please contact your child’s teacher.

Thank you so much to the parents who came into our open classrooms this week. It was wonderful to share our learning during Catholic Education Week with you all!

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

Today’s Catholic Education Week Mass enabled our students to celebrate with staff and students from other Catholic schools in the Sunraysia area and share the Good News together. Our Junior Unit students were incredibly reverent and demonstrated great respect during this celebration. This week we have worked on promoting Catholic Education throughout our school and how to spread the 2023 theme of "Let the words you speak always be full of Grace" (Colossians 4:6) with those around us.

In Maths, Year One students have been learning the different vocabulary associated with subtraction (Subtraction language- take away, minus, take, run away,, subtract, less
Equals- total, altogether, left, difference, remaining) and writing subtraction stories.
Karinya, Nangare and Barramunga will attend Mass next Wednesday at 9:30. You are most welcome to join us.

Looking ahead, we are preparing ourselves for the Junior Unit Social on Thursday 8th June at 6pm! (Students are to arrive at 5:45) An invitation and note has been sent home about the history of the Junior Unit Social and the costumes each class will be wearing for the evening. If you have any questions please contact your child’s teacher.

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

Thank you so much to the parents who came into our open classrooms this week. It was wonderful to share our learning during Catholic Education Week with you all!

A reminder we are posting lots of learning tasks on Seesaw. Should you be having issues accessing your parent account please contact your child’s teacher.

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

A big thank you to the parents who came into our open classrooms this week. It was wonderful to share our learning during Catholic Education Week with you all!

Year 6 have been learning about electrical energy. They have enjoyed exploring and creating electrical circuits. When an electrical current moves through a light bulb, the electrical energy is transformed into light energy and heat energy.

During week 7, students will design, produce, test and evaluate a product or system that uses electrical energy. They will need to source some materials to help with their design, boxes no bigger than a shoe box, toy house furniture, lego etc. This will be discussed further in class session with their teachers.

In science this term we have been learning about electricity.This week we did an experiment where we tried to light up a light bulb using a battery and connecting wires, and a bit later on we added a switch. Science this term has been really fun, so we can’t wait to see what we do next.

-Ivy Richardson, Felicity Pike-

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)

Sacred Heart Environmental Committee (SHEC)

This week our SHEC members were busy making recycled paper firebricks. These fire bricks are a wonderful source of heat on an open fire and are a great way to recycle paper. Other SHEC members worked with Mr Carmichael to plant daffadil bulbs in the gardens, so we’ll have a beautiful display in spring.

Library News

Rewarding Library Sessions:

Each class has a library session once a week, depending on extra activities assigned for any particular week. So far this term, the students are more familiar with and growing their independence in borrowing and returning books, which has freed up time to enjoy their books while in the library. These two senior classes—teachers included—are wonderful examples of quiet and respectful reading time and enjoying the lovely sunshine through the library’s expansive window area.

Please note: Many new books are always arriving, so look out for the new book sections. Students can borrow new novels upon arrival, and picture storybooks are available after two weeks when all class teachers have had the chance to read specifically selected ones to their students.

Scholastic Book Club News:

Issue #3

The much-anticipated Issue #3 orders were sent home with students during the week. A big thank you to those who support Scholastic Book Club for SHPS because your contribution of $60.45 in Scholastic Rewards will fund a variety of new books for the library for students to enjoy.

Issue #4

Book Club catalogues were sent home with students during the week. Each order contributes to Scholastic Dollars that the school can use to supplement resources. Please order via the online LOOP ordering system through the link provided or by following the instructions on the back of the catalogue. The school does not accept cash and cheques.

Please make your order via the link: https://mybookclubs.scholastic.com.au/Parent/Login.aspx

Orders close at the end of the day on Thursday, 8th June and will be delivered to the school within two weeks. When the orders arrive at the SHPS library, the students will receive them from their classroom teacher/s. If you have questions or issues with Book Club, please do not hesitate to contact me rather than directly messaging Scholastic.

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