The weeks are passing very quickly and we are almost half way through the term. This week has been ‘action stations’ with so many different things happening. We welcomed students and families for Year 7 2023 to have a tour and information presentation in preparation for transition in a couple of weeks. Our current Year 7 and 9 students were outstanding in explaining the wonderful things that Sacred Heart has to offer and they generously gave up their time to assist on Tuesday afternoon. If you know of anyone else who may be interested in joining our community please get them to contact the school and we will arrange a tour of the school at their convenience.

This week we gratefully received a $1000 donation from the Cootamundra Emergency Services towards funding a Resilience Project program in 2023. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to build life-long skills in resilience and dealing with the difference challenges that life can throw at them. We are very appreciative of the Emergency Services support of our school and our students.

Next week we will be holding our annual school photos on Thursday 18 August. This will be full winter school uniform with all the necessary trimmings including ties, jumpers and shiny shoes. Normal expectations around hair and jewellery are still required. All photo envelopes have been sent home and additional options like family photos and ID cards need to be pre-ordered. All details are explained in the newsletter.

Raffle tickets were sent home this week for the Ten Grand in the Hand P&F fundraising. Please do not lose the tickets as it is a legal requirement that they are returned sold or unsold. We would love people to sell them to their neighbours, family and friends so that we can continue to supply all the “extras” for our students, namely additional iPads for the Infants classes and representative sport uniforms for the primary and secondary. There are also tickets in the father’s day raffle available. The P&F have sourced a BBQ, car seat covers and a fuel voucher for the raffle and tickets are available through the front office.

We ask that testing continues if the students display any COVID-like symptoms. We are continuing to monitor the numbers of COVID cases within the school and amongst the staff. Please contact the front office if your child tests positive to COVID. Also all secondary students who are close contacts must continue to wear masks and test negative for the next 5 days.

Planning is in place for classes for next year. Please contact me at the school if you have plans for 2023 that impact on our enrolments. Also please encourage anyone you know who is considering Sacred Heart to make an appointment to meet with me at their earliest convenience.

Congratulations to both our Small School teams on making the State Grand Final. That is an exceptional effort. Both teams played with an enormous amount of heart but were beaten on the day by very good teams. Thank you to Ms Withers and Mr Murray for their efforts in organising and coaching the teams. Thank you to all the parents who made the effort to get the boys to Bathurst for the Final. Bring on 2023!

We also had teams travel to Harden for the Trent Barrett Shield competition. All our teams performed exceptionally well and won all their games. Thank you to Miss Van Kerk Oerle for her organisation and to all the parents who travelled over to watch and assist.

This week 9 commissioners from the Catholic Education Commission travelled to Cootamundra to have a look at our school. They remarked on the friendly positive culture that they experienced and that they will work to help us refurbish and maintain some of our facilities. It was lovely to have them with us. Thank you to our fabulous Student Leadership Team who were so impressive in conducting the tours and highlighting the strengths of our school.

This week we have had the talented Wendy Rix and her niece Charlotte creating a spectacular mural celebrating our indigenous community and connection to our catholic tradition. ‘Our Place’ is a wonderful piece of art that adorns our De la Salle building. Thank you to Mrs Maher for her organisation and support of our indigenous community.

If you have the chance to make people happy, just do it. Sometimes people are struggling silently. Maybe your act of kindness can make their day.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Blessings

Ms Nicky Trinder

Principal