4 February 2011

Dear Parents

Welcome back to Sacred Heart School for 20111.
A special welcome to our new children: Conna Hiscoke, Aidan Dudfield, Hunter Jordan, Ryan Henson, Maiya Tagomoa-Kaa, Monique Wright, Pyper Huffadine and their families. I hope you enjoy your time at Sacred Heart School.
Thank you to Miss O’Neill & Fr. Jacob for our excellent start of year Mass yesterday. Thanks to those parents who were able to join us.
Certificates were issued to our Year 6 leaders. We look forward to their input to our school life this year.

Term Events
Swimming Mon – Thurs 1 – 2 pm. 7th – 24th February
Please have your child wear their sports uniform and easy to do up footwear.
Also ensure all clothing is named.
Any Parents able to assist in the changing rooms, please contact the office.

Meet the Teacher Night – Tuesday 8th February
6.00 pm Class Info Session
6.20 pm Repeat Session
6.45 pm Library - School Info
- Keeping Ourselves Safe with Constable Frith
Athletics
The Zone Athletics are on Tuesday 8th March. Practises for participating children are already underway.

Keeping Ourselves Safe
This programme will begin for some classes in week 3. Constable Paul Frith will talk about aspects of the programme at the Parent Info Night on Feb 8th.

Sports Notice
A notice is being sent home today regarding the terms sport events. Thank you to those parents who have already indicated they are able to coach teams. A full list will be published when all teams are in.

SACRED HEART SCHOOL
CHARISM

We begin our year highlighting the Charism of the Sisters of Mercy. CHARISM is a term that refers to what makes a religious community unique; the particular faith vision of the founder that has left a lasting character on the life and work style of the community. For us the “community” is Sacred Heart School and we wish to live in such a way that we are:

• Fair and just
• Caring for others
• Trusting in God
• Welcoming
• Serving others
and
• Showing compassion
Parent-Teacher Communications
Most classes have or will soon be sending home class information newsletters.
I have asked teachers to include e-mail contact details as the first port of call, and to state a suitable time for parent interviews during the week.
I am implementing a procedure of NO parent teacher interviews after 8.40 am in the morning.
If you need to discuss something important about your child, please make an appointment, or send a note or e-mail.
This is more confidential than having an interview in a busy class and also allows the teacher to prepare for or find any information you may request.
It also allows the teacher to meet and greet the children and other parents in the morning.

School Reports
I will hold a parent meeting in the next few week to explain our reports and in particular the graphs used. More information later.

Church Helpers – If there are any parents who would like to help with Children’s Liturgy at Sunday Mass, please call Susanne Brown 215-8883. We will commence a new roster in March and volunteers are normally only required to help 2 – 3 times a year. Feel free to come and see what we do with the children, if you are unsure.

Altar Servers - If there are any new volunteers for Altar Servers for Saturday night (7pm) and/or Sunday Morning (10.30am) Mass, please call Liza Adams 215-9995. The children must have been confirmed and received their 1st Communion – depending on numbers they are likely to be rostered on once a term.

OSCAR Childcare
OSCAR childcare is now available in the Parish Hall, Monday to Friday 2.45 – 5.45 pm. Casual enrolments are also accepted. For more information, phone 218-9520.

We need your help to Win $4000 dollars for Our School
Teachers, school staff, students, parents, grandparents... register your local school, and tell us why you think they deserve to win one of the four $4,000 ‘Paper Plus local community school grants’. The grant consists of $3000 to spend at Paper Plus and $1000 to spend on advertising your School's community event on Classic Hits!

Paper Plus and Classic Hits will select four deserving winners. Listen to Murray Lindsay who will announce each of the school winners throughout the months of January and February!

A great start to the school year.....your paper Plus local community school grant could get your school new books for the library, stationery starter packs for the school, tech books for the teachers, educational board games for new entrants etc.

The first winning school will be announced on Friday 21st January, then the final three on the following Fridays. The local Classic Hits and Paper Plus teams will present the Paper Plus local community school grants to each of the winning schools.

Please go to this site and register our school for this competition. It is an easy fundraiser!

http://www.classichits.co.nz/Competitions/

BNZ Banking - Should parents want the BNZ School Banking Service to continue this year, including collection & delivery of the Bank Books weekly by the Bank, the numbers using the service need to increase. Would any parents therefore interested in joining this scheme please advise the School Office and BNZ will arrange to come to school to open accounts for the children. If the numbers do not increase sufficiently, the service will decrease to monthly collections in the last week of the month from now on.

Drink Bottles – Please ensure your child has a drink bottle in class. With the building underway we have lost the use of one of our water fountains.

Fruit Delivery from Millers Flat – Deliveries have started up again, with Plums, Apricots, Greengages & mixed boxes on offer. If you are wanting to order fruit, which will be delivered to school on Thursday 10th Feb, please fill out the order form in the junior corridor, by lunchtime on Tuesday 8th (money must accompany your order).

Congratulations to Samuel Downing who gained selection in the Southland Yr 6 Cricket Team. Good luck to them in taking on Otago Country this Sunday at Queens Park.

Soccer - Summer Soccer restarts this Monday 7th Feb at Turnbull Thompson Park. Same school teams and players as last term.

Girls Brigade - Variety of fun activities designed to educate, inspire and develop girls aged 5+. Restarts Monday, 14 February at Windsor Community Church halls: 3.30pm-5.00pm (5-8 years) and 6.30pm-8.00pm (9-18 years). $85 per year. Newcomers welcome. Contact Cindy 2217017 for more information.

ROOM ONE HAPPENINGS

Don’t those smiles show happy children pleased to be at school!!
We have started our year talking about how our THINKING will help our learning.
We will try to use “GREEN LIGHT THINKING” and we are already using the HABITS OF MIND of “LISTENING, “TEAMWORK” and
“MAKING IT RIGHT BY DOING OUR BEST”.

We had a visit from Maggie this week. She came to school to get a good look at us because Miss O’Neill told her we were a good looking and very clever bunch of children.