31 January 2013

Dear Parents

Faith Facts in the Weekly Newsletter

As it is the Year of Faith this year our weekly newsletters will feature a Faith Fact for families to read and talk about. This is one way we will share our faith during this year and help each to increase our knowledge of our faith. When we use the word “faith” it has two meanings: the faith in which we believe, i.e. the Catholic faith and the faith by which we believe i.e. the gift of faith given to us by God that enables us to believe. 

Welcome back to Sacred Heart School for 2013. It has been an excellent start to the year with all classes settling in to their new teacher and routines.

We welcome Jack Harding, Logan Jordan & Karly Holland to join the children in Room 2. We hope they enjoy their time at Sacred Heart.

We also welcome Maryanne Christie who joins the Room 5 class on her final year as a student from the college.

A big thanks to Greg McLeod for building the seating around our outdoor Chess set.

We also look forward to new rugby posts going in in the next few weeks.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Hosie family.

This Monday 4^th February we will have our “Meet the Teacher” night.

Each class will have 2 sessions ~ 6 – 6.15 pm & 6.20 – 6.35 pm then a general meeting in the library at 6.45 pm.

The teachers will have class information sheets and will briefly explain some of the routines and procedures for the year. Email is our preferred mode of communication for notes etc. so we ask that you email your child’s teacher with your email address. Also send this to the office if you wish to have the newsletter emailed to you.

Room 1 Mrs Williams      vwilliams@shsinv.school.nz

Room 2 Mrs Stupples     vstupples@shsinv.school.nz

Room 5 Mrs Winders      nwinders@shsinv.school.nz

Room 6 Mrs Buxton       rbuxton@shsinv.school.nz

Room 7 Mrs Tagomoa-Kaa          stagomoa@shsinv.school.nz

Room 8 Miss Swney      tswney@shsinv.school.nz

Room 9 Mrs Lieshout      klieshout@shsinv.school.nz

Peter Forde                    principal@shsinv.school.nz

Office                            office@shsinv.school.nz

We will also use Facebook whenever possible for school updates and reminders.

Facebook Address:         www.facebook.com/sacredheartwaikiwi

You can also send a txt to 8987 with “Follow shsch435” to receive free updates to your phone.

Swimming

This year we have been allocated additional days so we will split the school into 2 groups. The senior pupils (Rooms 7, 8 & 9) will be swimming from 11 – 12 noon              

11 – 14, 18 – 20, 25 – 27 February

The junior pupils (Rooms 1, 2, 5 & 6) will be swimming from 11 – 12 noon

                        4 – 6, 11 – 13, 18 – 20 March

This will enable the senior children to concentrate on athletics for our Zones on 6^th March.

Term Events

1 Feb                School Mass & House Picnic

4 Feb                Meet the Teacher

4 Feb                Open Evening for pre-schoolers

4-8 Feb             Science Week

11 Feb              Swimming starts for Seniors (Rooms 7, 8, 9)

13 Feb              Ash Wednesday

6 Mar                Zone Athletics

Interval Time Change

As part of a Ministry Writing Contract we undertook last year, we looked at the timing of our class writing programmes and found that often morning interval has been an impediment to a consistent writing programme – especially for those children who struggle in this area. Staff visited several other schools and suggested we trial this to allow us to have uninterrupted blocks of reading, writing and maths.

School Mass & House Picnic

A reminder about the school Mass tomorrow at 9.30 am.  Also the Houses will be eating together tomorrow at lunch time.

The canteen will run as usual.

Children can wear their House colours but please no face paint etc this time.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused by the re-shuffle of the House teams. One of the reasons, apart from the fewer number of Houses, was the unevenness apparent in our House competitions. This happens every few years due to family and enrolment patterns and we have  a re-shuffle to even things up.

Room 5 Boys

We are fortunate to have a large number of boys in the Year 1 & 2 area of the school. From discussions with other principals this is not unique to our school. When we were setting up the classes last year it became evident that we could have two parallel classes which would have involved children changing classes part way through the year (which wasn’t acceptable this year) or a class boy dominant. I made the call to make it boy only and asked Mrs Winders to be their teacher.  This is a year only option and there will still be a lot of inter class and playground interaction with their peers. Once we establish our routines we intend to spend time researching and implementing teaching styles touted by experts to work especially for boys. I will include some of these in newsletters over the year.

We will also take part in a Ministry contract this year with boys educations one of our focus areas. Our aim is to see what works, what doesn’t work and then what can transfer across to all classes.

Science Week

We are having a Science Week for the whole school.

This will happen 4 – 8 February.

Don’t forget to ask your child about the exciting discoveries they will be making.

Post Box

The post box in the junior corridor is for all messages for the office.

The children are to put notices, money in a named envelope, into this box before school. This will help to keep the office area clear in the mornings  -  Thank you for your support with this.

Pita Pit

Pita Pit will resume for the children this Monday 4^th February. All orders are to be placed in the post box outside the office by 9am on a Monday.

Envelopes are available in the office.

Invercargill Police – Open Day Sunday 10^th February 10am – 2pm

Station Tours

Bluelight BBQ

Displays and interactions with Specialist Groups:

Armed offenders

Search and Rescue

Neighbourhood Policing Team

Youth Services

Road Policing

Room 2 ~ Class Happenings

What do 5 year olds think that a Scientist is?

"He makes things especially cool."  

"They get a cup of water, then they get another cup of coloured water, then they pour that cup into the other cup, then they put it into a machine with pipes."  

"They put things in the freezer.  They make ice blocks" 

What does a scientist look like?

"They have a white jacket (but not a warm one), and it has wee pockets at the top, for ingredients."  

Sacred Heart School

Open Evening

Monday 4^th February 5 – 6 pm

Rooms 1 & 2

Come and meet the New Entrant and Year 1 teachers

Bring your pre-schoolers to explore the classroom

A reminder the school

 will be closed on Wednesday

 as we celebrate

Waitangi Day!