Sacred Heart Primary School, Cunnamulla eNewsletter

Principal Report

This year the Toowoomba Catholic Schools has re-vamped the diocesan wide reading strategy that we all use to effectively teach reading. The newly named Diocesan Approach to Reading (DAR) moves with the changes in the V9 English Curriculum to focus on decoding and encoding as well as comprehension. This aligns with Scarborough’s Reading Rope which outlines the skills and knowledge needed for students to become effective readers. I spoke a little bit about this at the PPF meeting earlier this term. Feel free to google this.

We have had some questions about home reading and want to reassure you all that we are working to find a solution to provide students with books or online texts that match the sounds/letter patterns that they are learning in class. Some students have already been receiving decodable passages from our UFLI phonics program and these most certainly address the focus sounds. As they are American, please feel free to change that ‘o’ in Mom to a ‘u’ so it says Mum!

All students should be taking home ‘authentic’ texts which are really just texts that students either have read to them by an adult or are books they can read themselves (older students) which assist with the development of comprehension skills. The students always borrow authentic texts from the library each week. Next term we will be sending home a bookmark to assist parents/caregivers with appropriate questions that you can ask your child/children. Until then, it’s always a good idea to have students re-tell the story in the correct order and for them to be able to explain who, what, when, where about the story.

We are currently researching the best decodables for us to buy as school resources. We will keep you updated as we progress on this learning journey.

Mrs Cara Haig

Co-Principal

Prep

Holy moly... week eight! Time truly is zooming!!

Surprise surprise, we have had another massive fortnight for learning. The preps have blown me away with the incredible growth they have been showing me day by day. It is awesome to see their learning developing so quickly and authentically.

In English, we have touched on so many nursery rhymes and it has caused so many giggles and so much fun with the prep students. We have also been learning all about different letters, week by week. We have learnt about the letter A, the letter M and the letter S. It is wonderful to see them get so interested in finding other animals, objects or names that start with those letters. Their natural curiosities and wonders are great to see in class.

In Math, we have been talking about all things SHAPES related, with a particular focus on triangles, circles, rectangles and squares. Our assessment will be creating our own shape monster, and the students need to choose particular shapes and justify their choice with mathematical terminology. Also in math, we have continued our conversations on counting, and we have been figuring out the best strategies on how to count a collection of items.

Learning has been wonderful and astronomical this past fortnight. I can't believe we have almost finished the term! As always, if you have any queries, concerns or great news, you are more than welcome to come and tell me! Have a lovely fortnight ahead!

Miss Sophie Walker

Prep Teacher

Year 1

I can’t believe we are already in Week 8! Time is flying by!

The highlight of our fortnight was definitely our visit to the Tourist Information Centre and Museum. The students were so very excited for this excursion and were very engaged and interested in all of the different items on display in the Museum. This visit prompted a variety of questions from the students that we will be using when we engage in our interviews. Over the next couple of weeks the students will be interviewing their grandparents to find out what aspects of daily life have stayed the same or changed since they were kids. We are definitely looking forward to this experience!

In Maths we have continued our study of Data by identifying shapes within the playground and representing the number we found as tally marks. We are working towards displaying this data as a picture and bar graph.The students have also been working hard on identifying and representing numbers to 50 as both numerals and quantities. Our Daily Review continues be a favourite amongst the class and the students have demonstrated fantastic growth in their understanding and use of the routines associated with it.

English has seen us continue our UFLI phonics program. The growth in the automaticity of sound and letter recognition, as well as speed in which we complete each step has been fantastic to see! We have focused on the /kw/ sound represented by qu and the /v/ sound represented by v over the past fortnight. Seeing the confidence and pride in the students when they succeed with segmenting, blending or even simply recognising letters and sounds is fantastic and a pleasure to witness. In our unit work we have continued developing our ability to recall details from texts and use them to answer questions, sequence events and provide a retell. We began practicing how to sequence the events in the story using picture prompts, which then morphed into the students verbally providing a retell based on the pictures. As a class we will continue to practice this and consolidate our understanding of this concept.

I hope you all have a wonderful fortnight and I look forward to touching base at the end of the term (only 2 weeks away!).

Miss Ellie Charlton

Year 1 Teacher

Week 8!! Our term is racing towards the finish line.

The year 2’s have been working hard over the last two weeks, as we are getting towards the end of term, the year 2’s have been showing amazing determination, persistence and communication skills when tackling their assessment tasks.

We continue to develop of letter sound knowledge with our UFLI lessons, these lessons have helped us understand how to “map” our letters and sounds especially when spelling unfamiliar words or tricky words and sentences.

In our connected unit we have been learning how to pose questions to gather data. Once we have our data we then sorted and classified this data. We then used our technology skills to create tables and graphs using Microsoft Word.

In Maths we have continued to work on our place value knowledge, we have been looking at place value houses and learning the value of digits in the “hundreds, tens & ones” houses (146 = One group of hundreds, 4 groups of tens and 6 ones). We also had fun using playing cards and dice to make addition sums for each other to work out!

In English we are looking at describing character traits and we have used Julia Donaldson books to pick a favourite character and create words to describe our characters. We will then be creating a poster about our favourite character to describe to a friend.

Miss Ailie Lewis

Year 2 Teacher

Year 3/4

Week 8! How is it here already!

What a busy term is has been in 3/4. We are getting into our assessment tasks and consolidating our learning with discussions and conversations. It has been a very interesting term full of learning and fun.

This fortnight, we have dived into the world of line and rotational symmetry. We investigated the differences in shapes and how some are symmetrical and some are not. We have learnt how to rotate shapes in order to create different patterns.

In English, we have continued to look at Matilda and discussed different complex sentences within the text. We then used this knowledge to create our own sentences with nouns, verbs, adjectives, coordinating conjunctions and adverbial phrases. We have continued our work with the UFLI program to continue supporting our sound knowledge. Students are working on their ability to encode when dictating sentences, and orthographic mapping (how to correctly match the sounds to words). The students have shown excellent progress so far, and we will continue to work on this all term.

In our Connected Unit, we investigated Chinese New Year. We discussed how this celebration is significant to our country as it demonstrates our identity and diversity. We read the story ‘Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year’ and discussed what we would experience at this celebration with our five senses. We finished off this celebration by making paper lanterns and paper dragons.

Please make sure students are reading each night and this is being recorded in their diaries. Student diaries are to be returned on Friday to be checked and signed. For any additional homework, please feel free to come and see me. Have a lovely fortnight!

Miss Aimee Bretherton

Year 3/4 Teacher

Year 5/6

Welcome to week 8! Over the last fortnight the 5/6 class has really put into action the old saying, ‘time flies when you are having fun’. It feels like we blinked, and now term one is almost over. Despite the term going so fast we have used every ounce of learning time to better our understanding of a range of topics and mould ourselves into nice humans.

In HASS, we have been investigating ways to manage land to reduce the impacts of natural disasters. Last week we built dioramas of small towns and then flooded them with a hose to see whose would have the least number of impacts. We then documented our findings in the form of diagrams.

We have continued our work on decimals in mathematics. This fortnight the students split into two different groups. Half of the students revised their understanding of reading and comparing decimals, while the other half investigated solving multiplication and division problems with decimals.

Over the term we have built upon our knowledge of sentence structure, plot structure, creative writing strategies and spelling. On Friday we began putting our skills into action as we started our final English assessment for the term. We will be writing short stories that will be submitted into a literacy competition, where we will have the opportunity to win a cash prize.

In Religion we have been learning about the names and titles given to Jesus throughout scripture. We have enjoyed acting our stories, reordering them, and creating crafts to retell main messages. Last week we created a visual representation of Jesus and spoke about his relationship to God and humanity.

The students should be congratulated on their leadership liturgy last fortnight. They did a great job leading the school in worship. Congratulations again to all our Year 6 leaders of 2024.

Mrs Abby Kindelan

Year 5/6 Teacher

Class Awards

Birthdays

Sacred Heart Choir

Leadership Liturgy

Last Friday our Year 6 Students received their leadership badges for 2024. Congratulations to all.

Music Monday 18th March

Next Monday 18th March Mr Kieth Waples (Instrumental Music teacher) will be visiting in person. He is happy to do a meet and greet with parents between 8am - 8.30am. He then will teacher the students in person. Don't forget your instrument on Monday

Regional Sport

Congratulations to Penny Schmidt for being picked to represent the region in Netball and Touch Football. Netball state trials are in Toowoomba next term and Touch state trials are in Brisbane in Term 3. We also wish her all the very best for the state swimming trials at the end of this term.

Uniform Policy

The school uniform represents the pride we have for our children and our school. A smart, neat and user-friendly uniform encourages the children to take pride in their appearance and in the school. The school uniform requirements:

Hats: Our school policy is ‘NO HAT – NO PLAY’. A green school hat must be worn and can be purchased form the office.

Jewellery: The only jewellery allowed is one set of fine studs or sleepers, a chain with some form of religious significance and watches.

Nail Polish: Nail polish is not to be worn.

Hair: Children’s hair must be neat and tidy. If hair is below the collar it needs to be tied back with appropriate white or green accessories. It is expected that hairstyles reflect the code of dress required by the school. The colouring of hair and unusual hairstyles are not acceptable.

Tuition Fees

School Fees for Term 1 will be sent home. Can these please be paid by Friday 15^th March 2024. At Sacred Heart, we have several payment options for your convenience: Cash, Cheque, ETPOS, Direct Debit and Centrepay. For further details on these payment options please see the school office.

Tuckshop

You can ONLY order Tuckshop on the App. Please down load the Flexischools App.

Flexischools App

The tuckshop uses the App called Flexischools. This will make ordering and paying for Tuckshop easier. Attached are the instructions to download and use the App. Make sure you update your child's class name.

Student Protection

At Sacred Heart the safety and wellbeing of our students is our highest priority. All children should grow up free of violence or exploitation and be able to learn in a safe and supported environment. Schools have a number of specific child protection reporting obligations that are detailed in our Student Protection Processes and Guidelines.

It is a legislative requirement that all non-state schools have at least two nominated staff members to whom a student can report the behaviour of another staff member that the student considers inappropriate. We call these specially trained staff members School Student Protection Contacts, or SSPCs. Each SSPC has been nominated by the principal in recognition of their integrity, approachability and knowledge in the area of student protection. Whilst students are encouraged to speak up to any trusted adult in the school community, it is important that they know they can access these specific staff members at any time should they have worries, queries or concerns. You will have noticed posters throughout the school depicting our current SSPCs. The SSPCs are also published on our school website along with information about our student protection processes. In everything we do at Sacred Heart Primary School student safety is our highest priority, therefore the SSPCs at our school are key personnel in our overall safeguarding processes.

If a student wants to talk to someone about harm, abuse or inappropriate behaviour toward themselves or others, they can speak to a trusted staff member or one of our School Student Protection Contacts (SSPCs). The SSPCs receive additional training and are identified in the student protection posters displayed around the school.

Summary documents have been developed for parents and caregivers about our student protection obligations and our broader strategy for maintaining safe school environments.

Further information on all of the above topics can be found on the Toowoomba Catholic Schools website at the link below:

Embed Link - https://www.twb.catholic.edu.au/parents-and-community/student-protection/