Dear Parents and Carers,

We have been blest over the last couple of weeks with many beautiful sunny days were the children can be out enjoying the sunshine and playing after being in isolation. They are very quickly settling into the rhythm and routine of life back at school. Please let your child’s teacher know if your child is still finding it difficult.

The Feast of Sacred Heart is almost here, and we have been talking a great deal, about how we will celebrate this special day in our 50^th year of educating children for life-long learning. The current situation means we have had to postpone the cupcake festivity for the moment and be creative in finding things that keep us safe and connected. We are planning a day of prayer, fun and relationships. Please find information from Mrs Imbriano around what the day will look like in today’s newsletter.

We would also like to plant a Mary MacKillop bottlebrush hedge in the garden between the Church and the school. Is there someone in the community with time and energy to remove the dead shrubs in preparation.

Take care and God bless,

COVID-19 practices

We thank families for supporting us in our health and safety practices as we returned to school. Since two weeks have now passed and the rate of infection in the community has remained very low, we would like to update some practices and remind you of others. We will keep updating the Q&A on our webpage.

1. Adults: We are still required to limit the number of adults within the school grounds. The children have adjusted very well to being dropped at the gates in the morning. We still require that if a parent needs to come into the building you must come to the office. Staff will then help you and your child to be where they need to be. Social distancing is expected of all adults in or near the school grounds.
2. Drive-throughs on Murphy St and Hodgson St: The introduction of a 2^nd drive-through on Murphy St has helped somewhat to alleviate the congestion we expected at pick-up. It has taken time for the younger children to learn this new routine and it will take a little longer for some as they need help managing car seats. It is okay for adults to get out of the car at Murphy St to help with car seats, but please wait for the teachers on duty to bring your child down to you. This will help the line to move along and avoid other families needing to go around parked cars and keep us all safer as many families are crossing Murphy St on foot. Instructions on the website Q&A HOW CAN I DROP OFF/PICK UP MY CHILD AT SHPS? https://shpspearce.schoolzineplus.com/remote-learning
3. Parking around the school: The area outside kinder courtyard is a bus bay. There are solid lines on the road surrounding the intersection of Murphy St and McNeil Pl. Drivers can be booked by police for parking in these two areas. This is the reason the drive-through bollards are down near the oval. The church carpark is also not to be used for after-school pickup.
4. Morning line-up: We have returned to lining up together on the blacktop in our class lines. When the bell goes, teachers take classes inside to be ready for morning announcements over the speaker.
5. Birthday cakes: No cakes at the moment. You may send a small individual treat to hand out to classmates eg: lollipop, choc frog, purchased individually wrapped cakes. As always classmates can say 'Happy birthday, but no thanks' to a treat.
6. K-2 Home Readers: Parents have been asking for this change! We will start sending home readers and reading diaries starting Tuesday 9^th June for nightly reading. Please ensure your child has their reader wallet at school to carry our precious books in. We would always expect good hand hygiene when handling any book. So please remind your child to wash hands before they read their books and then to place the book back into their reader wallet to stay safe and clean. Parents are welcome to wipe the cover of any book with disinfectant. Families can elect to keep using Wushka if this is your preference – just let your teacher know.
7. Cleaning: We have been advised that cleaning of outside equipment is no longer required. We will continue the extra cleaning of desks and surfaces inside the building.
8. Hand Hygiene: We are continuing to expect children to wash or sanitise hands when they enter or exit the building and before eating. A number of families are sending their child with sanitiser, thank you as this is bolstering our supplies. Soap and water is still the best method. Please have your child wash their hands when they leave home of a morning and arrive home of an afternoon.
9. Canteen: Ordering for lunch and recess remains online via Qkr! Thanks to the families who have begun supporting our canteen again.
10. Feedback Survey: Thank you to the families who completed the survey. It is still open until 9^th.https://forms.gle/PbHMkHewP5WfNB3U7   The comments have been very realistic and supportive of our response to the closing of schools – both to our communication and curriculum. We asked for ideas if we were to close again, and our community offered several wonderful and useful ones. A few comments are included here.

The learning grids were a good start to home learning with activities that allowed them to work independently. The packs were simple and had enough supplies and content to get started with.

Age of my child (7) meant he needed 1-1 support to complete the work, which of course we didn’t mind but due to having two siblings (one who had an intense amount of school work and homework during those weeks), plus our own work commitments meant our son completed some of the pack but not everything. His teacher was understanding and supportive of this.

The daily Teams meeting with the teacher was by far the highlight of the day.

Structure and the videos. Structure helped ensure all work was done and gave a sense of routine. Teacher videos kept my kids connected to school and ensured their engagement.

A bit too much information overload with the instructions, would have preferred a set of hard copy work sheets that the kids could work through at their own pace without the need for parents to have to continuously refer back to the instructions schedule or decipher different online links, logging into apps, work book pages etc.

The initial setup was the trickiest part of the whole process for us (downloading apps, logging in etc). But once we’d gotten the hang of how everything worked it was easily managed.

 Programs, like Wushka, reading eggs and mathletics. These worked well as they could navigate these independently with little supervision/support required from me.

YMCA After activities were a highlight. Our son was very exhausted after the first week so we were grateful. Also, our sons teacher touch based with us after one emotional day. We were grateful for the brief ‘touching base’ chat.

The story book was very good and reassuring for her. I think the daily team meeting helped her remain connected with her teacher so returning wasn’t so stressful as the relationship was solid.

Communication has been magnificent, keep it up! 

Making it seem as normal as possible for them

The excietment from all the welcome back signs was just beautiful. The communications you provided throughout and especially in the few days before school reopening were very helpful and we could talk through these to prepare for the return.

Wouldn't have mattered what you did, they belong at school and were happy to go back.

Remind the children about importance of hand hygiene regularly.

Contact the parents if you feel you have noticed anything out of character.

It was a really difficult time in many respects, for the kids, for parents and teachers and staff. But there were positives as well - we loved the slowdown in our pace of life, and the extra family time we had. We greatly appreciate the efforts the teachers went to make this home learning time as positive as it could be for the kids.

Ideas if there is a next time:

Embed the positives from the experience into the new norm. My child has loved the independence from continuing the remote learning pack style at school. – Staff have already talked about this, thanks.

Continuing to provide information about what the school is doing and why – That’s the goal.

MS teams. Would have loved the opportunity for the teachers to have been visible for longer on screens provided the opportunity to support children remotely with questions that arose. – We had plans to do this from Week 3, but by then we were planning return to school.

I appreciate how difficult it was for the teachers but it would of been good to have a one on one phone call with the teacher when students are shy of zoom conferences – Great idea.

Offer of parent/teacher sessions to provide parents with the basic outline of curriculum and planning. – Great idea.

My only comment is there was no feedback to the child about submitted work. – Great feedback.

Emailing the plans out to parents. It would be good to be able to see what was planned without having to access my child's Ipad. – Yes, great idea!

Interviews

Parent-teacher interviews in Week 10, 29 June – 2 July will be held either face-to-face in the classroom or remotely online. Start thinking about what will suit your family at this time.

The booking platform for interviews will be opened next Thursday.

Yours faithfully,

Kerry Wode 

Assistant Principal

What makes Sacred Heart so special?

Click on the image to download the brochure.

Canteen Recess Reminder: Counter sales for the canteen are unavailable at the moment. You can order recess from Qkr-Canteen-snacks and your child's order will be delivered to their classroom. 

Canteen/Clothing Pool product update: 

• Spray/wind jacket (navy) $25
• Gloves (navy) $5
• Healthy snack: carrot/cucumber strips with hommus

World Environment Day 5th June

The World Environment Day – Can you Recycle Right? Quiz will test your students recycling knowledge. Take the quiz and you could earn a token #ForNature that can be redeemed for activities at the Recycling Discovery Hub! Hint! Watch the video of the MRF before completing the quiz!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/wedrr 

Sacred Heart Feast Day

A FUN and exciting new program about faith for kids will be launched by the Archdiocese.

Designed for parents and children to watch together, “Beyond” is an engaging series featuring stories, drama and practical activities to appeal to primary school-age kids.

Each episode will look at a big question of faith in a simple and child-friendly way, and include sharings from school children across the Archdiocese.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse said the aim of the series is to encourage children to look “Beyond” and see Jesus.

Each episode of “Beyond” kicks off with a question to engage children and provides opportunities for discussion between parents and kids and also prayer.

A new episode will be released on the website each Saturday.

https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/

Beyond: Episode One – Where does it all come from?

https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/video-beyond-episode-one-god-and-me/#more

Beyond: Episode Two – God and me

https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/video-beyond-episode-two-god-and-me/

Beyond: Episode Three - Who is Jesus?

 https://www.catholicvoice.org.au/video-beyond-episode-three-who-is-jesus/

 

The Year 6 Faith Leaders have been engaging the school community through prayer over the PA system to celebrate religious days of obligation in the Church and days of recognition in our community. The Faith Leaders have been inspiring others to love and serve using Jesus’ model for servant leadership. They are looking forward to organising Sacred Heart Feast Day on Friday June 19.

 

 

David McKenna is the current President of the Lions Club of Canberra Valley. On Friday 29^th May he visited our school to make a presentation of library books. This year’s books are from children’s author Adam Wallace – “How to Catch the Tooth Fairy” and “Cowboy and Birdbrain” and form part of the Lions Clubs International Reading Action Program. Lions Clubs around the world have been part of this program since 2012. Locally most of our Lions Clubs purchase books and then donate them to local schools in help offset the fact that 1 in 4 people of reading age are illiterate. Our school is again very grateful for this gift from the Lions Club of Canberra Valley.

 Year 2w have been practising their AFL skills.

Community Council Connections

This week the Executive Council met for Term Two to discuss building works, school holiday programming, new enrolments, canteen and uniform shop, marking Sacred Heart day, and of course Covid-19 planning. We have so much to look forward to as a community, as we continue to build on our strengths and resilience. Council decision highlights for sharing:

School holidays sorted! In a win for our school community the YMCA team, who currently provide before and after school care, will commence a school holiday program in the July school holidays. The program schedule will be published by YMCA next week on their site and is open to all primary school aged children in the community. There will be a limit to numbers, and the caveat is the child must be enrolled in primary school, so get in quick! Siblings, cousins, and friends at other schools are welcome. Special thanks to Jac Hrast and Sharon Poole on the Council for pushing this one through.

New enrolments! Last week your eldest child bought home our new pamphlet promoting the many benefits of SHPS. Share this with your friends and family, and add in that we now have a school holiday program running on the school grounds (plug plug). Great work by Catherine Woods and Kerry Wode on sharing our Sacred Heart story.

Edible native garden! We have been given funding to put in a landscaped edible native garden on the Beasley Street side of the hall. This will be an extension of our indigenous reflection space and make use of the sloped area.

Interior courtyard works to start this year! Thanks to all the great fundraising over the last couple of years (shout out to the Fete team in particular) we will go ahead with the project works to make the interior courtyard a learning and sensory space. The design will be shared later this term once the contractor has been approved by the Council.

Sacred Heart day! The day will be celebrated on 19 June, and with a different slant in consideration of physical distancing and limited sharing. The theme will be gardening and putting back into nature. The school will share the details.

Celebrating our golden age! Our plans are disrupted but not disheartened. The committee is looking at a number of memorial and small-scale activities to engage our community later this year. Thanks to Josie Lanzetta and the team for their flexibility in planning! On behalf of the community, we have gifted all our staff with a 50th anniversary jacket to mark their role in our anniversary year. Looking sharp team!

We all have our part to play in keeping Covid-19, flu season, and all other communicable viruses at bay. Thank you to Kerry Wode and Tash Barrenger for sharing the wealth of information and support services through the school website and newsletter. The school continues to be guided by ACT Health and the CE Directorate in relation to Covid-19 practicalities. Let’s keep smiling through the tough times and supporting each other.

Sarah Lloyd

Chair SHPS Community Council

Parentline ACT

We would like to advise that Parentline ACT continues to provide free telephone and face-to-face/Skype/Zoom counselling services and support to parents and caregivers. We would love all the local parents and caregivers to know that they can contact us in these times of hardship.

Congratulations to the following students celebrating their Birthday 

Ashton B, Lachlan H, Aiden H, Finn H.