Dear Parents/Carers

Last week, all schools in Tasmania celebrated Catholic Education Week; our year six students and staff attended a Mass along with our other Northwest Catholic Schools. The Mass was led by Archbishop Julian Porteous and concelebrated with our local parish priests. The theme for 2024 ‘Joyful in Hope, Faithful in Prayer’ reminds us to embody a life that is filled with hope and sustained by a deep, ongoing relationship with God through prayer. Catholic Education Week is a time to celebrate the strengths and achievements of our 38 catholic schools and all those who contribute to making a difference. We are grateful to acknowledge one of our exceptional staff members who received her twenty-five years of service, Mrs Sharlee McPherson. Mrs Sharlee McPherson has been a teacher assistant at Sacred Heart for over twenty-five years, supporting students in growing and learning. Sharlee’s two children attended Sacred Heart, and three of her grandchildren are current students. Sharlee quietly continues to help students and staff and truly lives out the words of Mary MacKillop, ‘Never see a need without doing something about it.’ We are all witnesses to Sharlee’s genuine caring nature, passion, and commitment to keeping us organised. Many students have been fortunate enough to have Sharlee support them in their educational journey, and we are all grateful for her presence.

"Reading is Magic" is the theme for this year's Book Week, and it perfectly captures the transformative power of books in a child's life. Reading is essential for all of us, especially as our children begin to make sense of the world around them. We must learn to read before we can read to learn. As Dr Suess quotes, ‘The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Reading…

Sparks Imagination: Books transport children to new worlds, fostering creativity and expanding their understanding of the world.

Builds Empathy: Children experience different perspectives through stories, helping them develop empathy and compassion for others.

Enhances Language and Cognitive Skills: Regular reading strengthens language abilities, memory, and analytical thinking, laying a solid foundation for lifelong learning.

Encourages Curiosity: Reading nurtures a love for learning, inspiring children to explore new ideas and knowledge.

Celebrate the magic of reading this Book Week and beyond... to help and inspire our children to explore the wonders within the pages of a book!

Thank you for your continued support

Charlene Best

Principal

Engagement Norms @ SHU

“The person talking is the person learning” (Ybarra & Hollingsworth). 

Student engagement is created when the teacher asks the students to DO SOMETHING every 1-2 minutes. We expect teachers to use these strategies to ensure high levels of student engagement. 

Attention Signal is a great tool to help students refocus after a Pair-Share or other group activity. We use a call-and-response signal. Students have to stop talking to make the response. This signal not only gains student attention, but it ensures that they are looking at the teacher and sitting up, ready to learn. 

Our whole school's attentional signal is:

Teacher: “Eyes front”

Students: “Ears on” (gesture to ears)

STAR Model

Sit tall
Track
Answer together
Respect

All staff use the ‘teacher-student’ game to encourage and reinforce the STAR model. It involves creating a tally on a whiteboard and awarding a tally mark to students if they are meeting the expectations. However, if they are not meeting expectations, the teacher is awarded a tally mark. The aim is for students to win.

Pronounce with Me helps students read new words they may not be familiar with. This is used to introduce new academic or content vocabulary, ensuring that students hear the correct pronunciation of new grade-specific vocabulary before reading it themselves.

Track with Me helps students connect oral words with written words. Teachers pre-read sentences while students track with their fingers on their papers or the screen. This way they are familiar with the words before asking the students to read it chorally. The teacher stops periodically for students to say the next word to ensure active engagement.

Read with Me supports students with choral reading of text. The teacher cues the students to read chorally the same text that they just tracked. Generally, the teacher reads along with the students to set the pace and to keep everyone together.

Gesture with Me can help students store information in long-term memory. Even when students struggle to remember a specific bit of information, they can often remember the associated gesture, which may help them recall the information. 

Pair-sharing + Pick a Non-Volunteer allows students to orally answer the question (which as a cognitive strategy means they have a greater chance of storing the information in long-term memory). It also helps them rehearse their response and provides an opportunity for them to academically converse with their peers.

This week Sacred Heart welcomed new student Samuel Edwards to our school and to 4/5 Penguins. Welcome Sam we hope you enjoy being here with us.

We have also farewelled Mr Steve Jackson this week.

Mr Jackson has been employed with Catholic Education for 24 years and has been here at Sacred Heart for the last 4 years. 

We wish Mr Jackson all the best and thank him for being part of our community.

This term, in 3/4 we have been participating in a novel study on 'Matilda' by Roald Dahl. We recently watched the Matilda Jr production at Reece High School, which provided a great introduction to the story.  Throughout the novel study, we are learning how to write an interesting sentence using different literary devices. 

Throughout the year, students explore a range of topics educating and upskilling them with how to be safe when engaging online. On Friday 16th August, Grade 3-6 students participated in vitual webinars hosted by the esafety Commisioner linking with 'Bullying NoWay National week of action. These webinars explored how students can engage safely and respectfully online, particularly exploring different online communities students belong to, how they can be kind and good digital citizens and how to keep themselves safe online.

A significant aspect of these webinars discussed the communities (chats and gaming communities that students are involved with online). Did you know that approximately 95% of students who were present admitted to engaging in chats either through chat apps or when gaming and many added that these chats include people they have not met in person. With group chat features, students are offered a great way to connect with friends and organise meet ups or events, however they are also accessible 24/7 and are often unable to 'switch off'. Most of these chats have/can include negative talk, frequent and persistent ongoing messages and at times intentional bullying. 

TAKE A BREAK!! Encourage the use of ‘do not disturb’ features to have a break from notifications

Did you know that 85% of bullying incidents are witnessed by others online. Bullying has been shown to stop within 10 seconds when someone takes positive action. Be that UPSTANDER. 

KEY MESSAGES FROM THE WEBINAR

Tips for Parents - How can I help my child engage in online communities?

1. Know what you child is doing online: Are you aware of all the chats/games that your child is engaged in? Do you check in on these chats? Do you frequently talk to your child about what they are doing online? Are they in a communical area in the house (eg. loungeroom) when going online?

2. Empower your child: Wherever possible, try to build your child’s confidence and help them make wise decisions for themselves, rather than telling them what to do. If you feel they may be struggling to open up to you, connect them with other trusted adults or with counselling or health support.

3. Collect evidence: Take screenshots and collect evidence of inappropriate online behaviours, including the dates and times it happened and details of the account used to post or send the material.

The evidence may be useful if the behaviour continues and you need a record of how long it has been going on. You will also need proof if you decide to report it.

4. Report the online harm: Report the content to the relevant online service provider. Many social media services, games, apps and websites have a simple process to report content posted by other people. The eSafety Guide has more information about how to report issues to commonly used online services.

5. Prevent further contact: Advise your child not to retaliate or respond to bullying messages, as sometimes people say hurtful things just to get a response and it could make things worse. If they have already responded, encourage them not to respond further.

• Help your child to use in-app functions to ignore, mute or block the other person. 
• Encourage your child to check their privacy settings and restrict who can see their posts and profile page. 
• Encourage your child to ask their friends whether mean content is still being posted and if so, ask them to report it.

6. Upskill yourself: Explore the eSafety website for more information on starting good online habits young: https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/issues-and-advice/good-habits-start-young

Parent Webinars

With the completion of the 2024 School Soccer Season, please return all soccer uniforms to the school office by next Friday, 30 August 2024 to receive your deposit refund.

Thank you

Our school car park is one way and has lines marked yellow for parking bays, crossing, walkways and also to indicate no parking.

The stop signs ask you to stop and give way to pedestrians crossing in the car park.

Students are taught to always stop and look before crossing and we ask that families also provide this message regularly.


This area pictured is not a drop off or collection zone. If vehicles stopped here, it would mean that cars would back up in the driveway and out onto the street which could then cause safety concerns.

Please ensure you are modelling and providing the message to your children to not walk behind parked cars and to use the yellow marked walkways to the crossing and entrance gate.

When waiting to use a parking bay or driving through the car park, please ensure you are driving with a high level of caution, especially when reversing.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

COMPASS NOTIFICATIONS

Please ensure your notifications are turned on for Compass so you receive important updates and reminders sent from the school.

To set this up please go into Settings, find the Compass App and click Notifications.

Then click Allow Notifications (showing a green bar).
This enables you to receive any notifications.

If you have any questions in regards to this please contact Michelle Waldhauser.

SUN HATS

From Monday 2nd September Students will be required to wear their school sun hats during outside activities.

Being sunsmart is a whole year approach. It means using sun protection when the UV is 3 and above (September to April), and safe sun exposure for Vitamin D (May to August). In Tasmania the UV is 3 and above from September to April.

Please ensure your child has a school sun safe hat from this date. Should you need to purchase a replacement, please see the school office.

Thank you

Please notify the school if you would like us to celebrate your child's high performance achievement or state team recognitions, for inclusion in the newsletter.

This week we celebrate:-

Do you have any old school shoes in good condition, that you could donate to the school for use in the spare clothes cupboard for student use when required?

If so, could you please bring them into the school office and we will put them to good use.

Thankyou

St Brendan-Shaw College Presents Dr Andrew Fuller 
Renowned Clinical Psychologist, Family Therapist, Author, and Speaker

Date: Monday, 9 September 2024  
Time: 6:00 - 7:00 PM  
Location: Nazareth Centre  
Entry: FREE  
RSVP: Click here to register by Wednesday, 4 September

Event Overview:
Join in an enlightening session with Dr Andrew Fuller, a leading clinical psychologist and the creator of Learning Strengths™. With a career spanning work with over 4,000 schools and 500,000 young people worldwide, Dr Fuller will share his profound insights on building resilience and unlocking learning potential in children. This free event is an invaluable opportunity for parents to gain practical strategies for supporting their children’s educational journey.

About Dr Andrew Fuller: 
Dr Andrew Fuller has dedicated his career to fostering resilience and a resilient mindset in young people, describing it as “the happy knack of being able to bungy jump through the pitfalls of life to rise above adversity and obstacles.” An Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Dr Fuller has served as a scientific consultant for the ABC and is a regular presenter on Radio National. 

Topics Covered in the Parent Session:  
- How parents can help their children to learn
- Increasing motivation and concentration
- Ideal learning times
- Identifying the best (and worst) times for learning
- Neurochemistry and learning
- The importance of systems over goals
- Building upon learning strengths

Why Attend?
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn from Dr Andrew Fuller and empower your child’s educational success. Whether you’re looking to boost your child’s motivation or understand the science behind learning, this session will provide you with actionable insights.

RSVP Details
All are welcome, and you can register for multiple attendees, so feel free to share.