So many wonderful things have happened or are happening this week. We have hosted the regional schools – St Annes Temora and Macauley Tumut – for the annual retreats. Our students were exceptionally well behaved and appeared to make important connections over the course of the retreat. Thank you to Mrs Maxwell for her organisation and to the teachers, Ms Wade, Mrs Martel and Ms Murray for their support of the students. We also had a lovely celebration of our Year 4 First Reconciliation candidates. Fr Lolesio spoke wisely about preparing ourselves by cleaning our hearts and that the students be open to Jesus. Again, Mrs Maxwell prepared a wonderful twilight retreat for the candidates where they joined together in a reenactment of the last supper and then they shared a supper together after the sacrament. Thank you to the Stage 2 teachers for their assistance. The students will now make their First Eucharist sacrament at the Saturday night vigil Mass 16th March at 6pm. All are welcome. Please see Mrs Maxwell’s news further on in the newsletter.

Tonight, our dedicated P & F will hold the Annual Colour Run. We squeezed it in before daylight saving finished and before it grew too cold. It is a fabulous fun community event for the whole family. The night will begin with registrations (CASH and EFTPOS) at 5.00pm under the COLA and the run will start around 5.30pm. The school canteen will be open for drinks and slushies (which will have EFTPOS) but the BBQ dinner (cheeseburgers and sausage sandwiches) will be cash only. Hope to see you there.

The Parish BBQ is this weekend - Sunday 17^th March . We will introduce our school Leadership teams to the Parish. The Parish will provide the meat and we ask families attending to bring a salad or dessert to share. All are welcome.

NAPLAN has begun and we have already completed a whole range of the different tests for the different age groups. Our students have been positive and engaged in the whole process. We do remind parents to ensure students come prepared with a charged IPad (not Year 3), earphones, keyboards (if they use one) and that they get lots of sleep prior to the tests. Next week there will be catch up sessions for those students who missed tests. Please note that Monday 18^th is the last possible date to complete the writing test before it is closed.

Our enrolment period has been opened and we are busy taking enrolments already for 2025. Thank you to the parents who have already submitted their enrolment forms online for the 2025 intake into Year 7, Kindergarten and any other class that has vacancies. Please let any parents who are interested in enrolling their children for 2025 to log onto the school website www.shcoota.nsw.edu.au and click on the large enrolment tab or they can contact the school during office hours. We will begin interviews later in Term 2. The information session for the 2025 Kindergarten intake will be on Tuesday 21 May. We will advertise the details of the Year 7 2025 information session as soon as they are available.

Our Stage 3, Year 8 and Year 9 students have received details about their excursions that will occur later in the school year. There is a considerable cost (that can be offset by fundraising) and there is also a deposit schedule so that the costs don’t become overwhelming later in the year. Stage 3 will be travelling to Ballarat, Year 8 to Narooma and Year 9 to Melbourne. Already many students have shave 100s of dollars off the total cost by selling raffle tickets, bulbs or other initiatives. Please contact the school if you consider the costs challenging and we will discuss financial options. The Year 7 students will receive details in the coming week about their cultural immersion and retreat at Camp Hudson. Thank you to the very generous teachers who spend a great deal of their time organizing and preparing the excursion opportunities and then give up their own time to supervise the excursions.

Many students are very keen to represent the school which is very pleasing and is a benefit of being in a smaller school. Contingent on representative honours are the expectations that they are following school rules and living up to the responsibilities we see as important for our students. Attendance in class is paramount, but this also includes attendance at all school activities like Cross Country, Retreats, Special events etc. Obviously extenuating circumstances that impact attendance will be taken into consideration. Appropriate behaviour, effort and classwork will also be taken into consideration.

It is always a great thrill to learn about students who are excelling in areas outside school. Macey Bryant has qualified in Barrel racing and pole bending for the National Junior High School Rodeo Australian Team and will be competing in Des Moines IOWA, Unites States from 23^rd to 29^th June 2024. More to come as Macey prepares for the trip of her lifetime. Congratulations Macey.

On one of the early days of Term One our Leadership team travelled to Yass to participate in a professional learning program to implement a new school wide behaviour program that looks to explicitly teach behaviour skills, expectations, routines, protocols, and appropriate social skills. Below is a short summary of the initial phase and explanation of the program that will be instituted in Term 2. Already the staff have begun discussing what this could look like for our school. It is aimed to make the transitions between classes smoother and safer and will build more productive class time.

CLASSROOM MASTERY: Change is coming: Building on what works: Part 1

Changes are coming to Sacred Heart in the form of a behaviour and student engagement process that will be instituted schoolwide from Term Two. 

What does this mean?

Along with a number of other diocesan schools, including Hennessy , Young and Trinity Goulburn, Sacred Heart has been invited to take part in a trial of the program Classroom Mastery. This means that our Leadership Team have already begun training in classroom mastery and will include school wide teacher training that begins on Day 1 of Term 2

The aim of the program is to institute behavioural and teaching and learning protocols that are transparent and consistent across the school.

Why?

Although we like to think student behaviour at Sacred Heart is pretty good, our goal is to provide the best learning environment for our students, the best teaching environment for our teachers and the safest school we can for our students. We make no apologies that learning is our focus and like all things, desired behaviours need to be specifically taught and consistently reinforced. 

What this will look like, sound like, feel like.

Before we institute the program we have been working hard on ensuring our behavioural expectations are clear, that unwanted behaviours are named with students and that the sanctions for those behaviours are targeted and consistent for every child, in every classroom. When we begin to institute the program in Term 2 there will be some very visible signs of change. It will begin with little things that take us back to basics. This may include a consistent, safety focused, entry and exit protocol for all classes that will require students to be respectful of themselves and peers, punctual, organised and focused on learning. Students may be asked to line up outside classes, to enter the classroom quietly and respectfully and to arrange themselves for learning. As with all learning, the teaching of behaviour will be explicit and students will be rehearsed on the protocols that we choose to implement like for entering and exiting classrooms and for participating and engaging in lessons. This does mean students will practise and drill in these protocols.

Some of this sounds familiar.

Many of the protocols associated with Classroom Mastery are also evident in the High Impact Teaching Practices and the Catalyst program that Catholic Education has instituted over the past 3 years. These things include an expectation that all students are engaged in learning, that content be explicitly taught (this includes classroom expectations for behaviour), that all students are expected to be on task and to be able to prove it through their responses. 

Stay tuned for more details in upcoming newsletters. Next week we talk Student Engagement Protocols and Teaching Expectations.

There is never a reason not to be kind.

God Bless

Ms Nicky Trinder