As the year draws to a close we are able to look back on all that we have achieved. The Annual Awards celebrated all of the strengths that we have as a school and individuals. The focus on the type of people we hope our students aspire to be was recognised in citizenship, academic excellence, Christina witness, effort, growth and application.  School should always be a place where students develop skills that will make them life-long learners who can transfer what they learn in the school confines to a larger more challenging world. It was so wonderful to recognise such growth in our students and to acknowledge the successes of this year. We look forward to 2020 building on this growth and continuing to aspire to be the best version of ourselves. (Below is a copy of the speech I gave at the Awards, as it sums up the year that was!)

Annual Awards Presentation

Today marks the end of another year at Sacred Heart. It is important that we recognise the successes and achievements of 2019 albeit in a short and abridged version. I won’t take too much time in this oppressive heat but we must celebrate all that 2019 was.

I have always been a believer in the fact that it is good day when you learn something. It might not be what you expected to learn nor what teachers intended to teach. But we should continue to look each day for the lesson that will make a difference in how we move forward. There have been lots of lessons and lots of learning and 2019 had lots of good days

The hallmark of the year was the implementation and focus on challenging learning. Challenging learning in so many different ways – the way we taught, the way we designed activities, the way we identified how our students learn in a diverse way. So many different ways to make the learning better for all our students. We are grateful to Catholic Education for their financial and personnel support of the challenging learning initiative. We will continue this as our focus for 2020 wherewe are determined to continue to improve the outcomes for all students. The three important focus questions have been; where are we going, where are we now and how do we get there? This is as important for our school as it is for our students. This will be our mantra for 2020 as we strive to take each and every student forward in pursuit of the teaching and learning that they need and deserve.

2019 saw a myriad of opportunities for our students to embrace new challenges and to develop new skills. Our public speakers saw regional success, our sporting teams continued to eclipse their bigger rivals. Our writers impressed, our musicians shone, so many wonderful things that would take too long to name individually. We are going from strength to strength -  with our enrolments peaking at 330 students for 2020. We have much to celebrate!

We farewelled Fr Joshy and wished him well on his new parish of Goulburn and welcomed Fr Lolesio to be our spiritual leader. We will also farewell many staff as they plan big adventures in 2020. We say farewell to Mr O’Brien, who began at Sacred Heart 24 years ago and has served in so many different positions of leadership and KLAs. He has left once before and only to return to spend the last years of his illustrious career with us. We will miss his humour, his wisdom and his friendship. We thank Mrs Kerrie Murphy for her investment in the wellbeing of our staff and students and wish her success in her newest endeavour. Mrs Murphy took on the role of wellbeing programme coordinator and has been devoted to ensuring our community had access to skills and programmes to be resilient and positive We also wish Mrs Kate Maher every blessing as she takes this coming year to smell the roses, Mrs Cohen who is taking time to indulge her other passions and we officially farewell Mrs Jacki Cameron who is now firmly entrenched at the Elouera School. We ask Mrs Murphy and Mr O’Brien to come forward to accept a small gift on their official farewell from Sacred Heart

A school is a place where learning is the core business but at Sacred Heart we are very much in the business of shaping students to take on the world, to dream bigger and make a difference. We want our students to recognise all that they have to offer and that regardless of what life throws at them that they can pick themselves up, dust themselves off and face new challenges. We strive to make our students realise that we have a responsibility to make our school the best it can possibly be. Our community is, and always has been, the very best thing about Sacred Heart.

We also need to acknowledge everyone who has been committed to building our school and community. I would like to acknowledge the work of; the Leadership Team, Katie, Patrece, Erryn and Bra,; who work for the very best for Sacred Heart and are enormous support to me in leading the school, our wonderful staff, who go over and above to provide the countless opportunities for our students each and every day, the hardworking P & F, who provide all the extras that we often take for granted, the dedicated Board who offer expert advice and guidance and the parents, who selflessly support their children in the endeavours. But the biggest thank you goes to our students, who turn up every day to accept the challenges and opportunities that Sacred Heart works so hard to provide.

Remember if you have to choose between being exceptional or kind…. Be exceptionally kind.

Student Leadership 2020

The 2020 Student Leadership Team was announced on Monday. We are blessed to have so many students who would relish the opportunity to be involved in service as a leader of our school. Congratulations to;

School Leaders: Piper Scott and Will English

O’Shaughnessy House Leaders: Laura Ward, Nick Louttit, Nellie Ward and Lucy Patterson

Mercy House Leaders: Emily Bodycott, Jordan Beath, Henry Hazlett and Zara Bodycott

De la Salle House Leaders: Claudia McLeod, Malachi Murray, Thomas Peacey and Alex English.

Staffing 2020

Class lists are now finalised and we have assigned staff to Stages. We are now up to the frantic stage of trying to timetable all that we need to get done into a workable and equitable timetable. Students will be informed of their class allocation on Day One 2020 Wednesday 29 January.

Early Stage One: Ms Emma McDonnell and Mrs Susie Alexander/Mrs Emma Randall

Stage One: Year 1  - Mrs Heather Hunt/Mrs Stacey Fry and Year 2 – Mrs Anita Chesworth

Stage Two: Mrs Natalee Litchfield and Ms Wendy Van Kerk Oerle

Stage 3: Mr Winsor/Mrs Winsor, Mrs McLeod /Mrs Maxwell and Ms Hudson

Secondary additions: Mrs Kylie Murray, Mr Peter Turner (returns for 2020)

CST/Pastoral Leadership: Mr Ken Mooney

We look forward to further growth in 2020 and know that we have an amazing team of teacher, Classroom Assistants, Admin and general staff to ensure that we continue to achieve in the new year.

Thank you for all you do for our students and community.

Go gently and if you can be anything…be kind!

God Bless

Mrs Nicky Trinder

Principal