April Newsletter

As we celebrate Easter, we are reminded of its profound significance—the resurrection of Jesus Christ, symbolising hope, renewal, and the triumph of love over adversity. This sacred event inspires us to reflect on our school value of Service, which calls us to actively contribute to the well-being of others. In the spirit of Easter, our students recently visited Emmerton Park Aged Care Centre, bringing joy to the residents by delivering easter eggs and handmade bookmarks. Our school choir also shared their talents, performing uplifting songs that brightened the day for everyone present. These acts of kindness not only embody the message of Easter but also provide our students with a meaningful opportunity to connect with and serve their community. May this Easter season bring peace, joy, and a restful break for our families as we carry forward these values in our daily lives.

Catholic Education Tasmania has put together some easy reference flyers to support families' awareness and understanding of the importance of children attending school everyday. Please familiarise yourselves with the information:

As we gather this Easter season, we celebrate the heart of our Catholic faith: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. After the solemn days of Lent and the sorrow of Good Friday, Easter bursts forth with the light of hope, the joy of redemption, and the promise of new life.

Easter reminds us that death is not the end. In rising from the tomb, Jesus conquered sin and opened the gates of Heaven for all who believe in Him. This is not just a moment from history—it is a living truth that continues to transform lives today. Every Mass, every act of love, every moment of forgiveness echoes the power of the Resurrection.

As we celebrate with our families and communities, let us not lose sight of what this season truly means. Easter calls us to renewal—not just in spirit, but in action. It invites us to live as Easter people: to bring peace where there is conflict, light where there is darkness, and joy where there is despair.

NAPLAN assessments for our students in Grades 3 and 5 have been successfully completed for 2025. This year, our students demonstrated great perseverance as they participated in these important national tests.

The NAPLAN assessments, which cover literacy and numeracy skills, provide valuable insights into student progress and help us tailor our teaching strategies to better support their learning. 

Thank you to Miss Petty, Miss Malley and Ms Monson for preparing and supporting our students throughout the NAPLAN process. Their commitment to ensuring our students felt confident and prepared is appreciated and valued.

We look forward to receiving the results and using them to continue enhancing our educational programs.

‘Visuals to increase engagement and retention’

Have you ever heard or thought about the saying ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’?

The saying implies that a single image can convey new information, ideas or stories more efficiently than what a  verbal description can. 

So, why in our day to day learning, do our teachers support student learning with visuals:

 Engagement and Attention: Visuals capture students’ attention more effectively than text

alone, which increases students’ attention and engagement with the topic being taught.

 Memory Retention: Most of us tend to remember visuals better, which enhances long-term retention (moving the learning from short term to long term memory).

 Clarifying Concepts: A visual representation of information can help students organise and categorise their knowledge, meaning they can also explain the topic through their own interpretation.

 Providing Real-World Context: Visuals like photographs, maps, and videos help bring real-world contexts into the classroom.

Language development: images assist students to learn, understand and use increasing levels of language and vocabulary skills more easily.

Program Spotlight - MiniLit Sage

MiniLit Sage works alongside InitiaLit in Years 1 and 2. It is an intervention program for Tier 2 students who need that extra bit of support in literacy or that aren’t quite meeting the literacy targets we have in developing decoding skills. It is run in small groups 3-4 times a week for 30-40 mins each session. We are quite intentional about when we hold this program to make sure it doesn’t interfere with other learning. The program provides explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, systematic synthetic phonics for reading and spelling, letter formation, and connected text reading. It is built on the latest research and is evidenced-based. It aligns with InitiaLit, it just provides that extra small-group support. Some students may need the intervention for a few terms, whereas other students can demonstrate quick progress, and may not need the intervention anymore.

Soon we will be sending home letters and progress reports for those students who are on intervention so that parents are able to partner with us in these programs and see the results intervention is giving. 

If you ever have any questions about any of the Literacy and Numeracy programs we run, please do not hesitate to call or email me.

Laura Korpershoek

Literacy and Numeracy Leader

Congratulations to all our Shooting STARR Award recipients:

Congratulations to our End of Term STARR winners:

Individual - Logan Rutter

Class - Year 4

House - Hanlon

Congratulations to our 10 random STARR winners, drawn at our End of Term Assembly.

Congratulations to Amity Lee who has gone above and beyond the SPC values. 

20th March - Amity Lee

SPC Way Service Award

Congratulations to the following students on receiving Aiming High Awards:

Kinder - Harry Pike & Alilah Brown

Prep - Tilney Cotton & Skye Ollington

Year 1 - Logan Pateron & Ruby Doel

Year 2 - Harry Gourley & Louie Tonks

Year 3 - Cienna Bell & Hamda Usama

Year 4 - Huxley Bryan & Charlotte Tucker

Year 5 - Harry Dawson & Terrence Dela Cruz

Year 6 - Sophia Hardy & Charlie Ollington

Thank you to everyone who has donated throughout Term 1 towards the SPC Bake Raffle. All money raised will go towards the upgrade of our current playground.

Congratulations Oliver Wright and Indianah Howard on your winnings! 

Thank you so much for those that have donated to the raffle and bought tickets.  Your support is greatly appreciated with funds going towards new playground equipment.

The winners of the Raffle prizes were:

1st - Shona Sheehan

2nd - Tilney Cotton

3rd - Rylah Langton

4th - Jedda Brown

5th - Kylie Monson

6th - Wesley Cotton

7th - Jordy Medwin

8th - Shae Tonks

9th - Macklen Coombs

10th - Ruby Doel

11th - Monty Cooke

Grade 4 Mixed Relay

Hux, Wes, Finn, Millah, Luca, Isla- 3rd 

Grade 3 Mixed Relay

Jordy, Oliver, Henry, Cienna, Ava, Tilly- 1st

Questions:

What’s your favourite food?  Anything sweet

What is your favourite thing to cook? Hazelnut Meringue Roll with Raspberries and Cream

First item on your bucket list?  To travel around Australia.  A donation of a Winnebago would be greatly appreciated.

Something we don’t know about you? - I was the sweets cook at Christie’s Corner located 

adjacent to the Circular Head Council.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with students and staff from both Sacred Heart and St Peter Chanel using the Make Jesus Real (MJR) philosophy. We tended to focus on a new acronym MAD – Making a Difference (Just like Jesus). The students were extremely receptive in discovering how they can make a positive difference in their own lives and others live at home, school and in the community. 

Again, it was mentioned that the students still are back-chatting at home (and sadly a few at school) and that makes a negative difference. We also looked at making a difference to our planet and to our health. We actually spoke about taking care of ourselves and spoke about the impact of social media and especially ‘fads’ such a vaping. 

The students were amazing (plus their super staff) and we had a real ‘magic’ day – please ask them about their day with ‘Magic Marty’ and hopefully, they will positively engage you with ideas about ‘Making a Difference’.

Recently, ‘Robot Man’ visited our school inspiring students with the creative possibilities of technology. Students love exploring new technologies, and robotics offers them a platform to express their creativity and develop innovative solutions.

Robotics projects often require collaboration, fostering teamwork and communication skills among students. For some students, robotics may be their niche, earning them respect and recognition among their peers and boosting their self-esteem.

By incorporating robotics and coding into our curriculum, we aim to inspire creativity, foster teamwork, and prepare our students for a tech-driven future. Thank you to Robot Man for an engaging presentation that brought these concepts to life for our students! 

In Term 2, we will have two teams from Year 5 taking part in the National Trivia Challenge.  The challenge will run from Week 2 - Week 7, each Wednesday, and is open to all primary aged students in Australia. 

What is involved:

- Over the course of 6 weeks, our teams will take part in the weekly trivia challenge, where they will have 30 minutes to answer the weekly questions. 

- They must submit their answers online, without the help of books, the internet or adult assistance. 

- Each week, the top 10 scores are posted online with a cumulative leaderboard. National and state champions are recognised at the end of the 6 week challenge, with the National Champions winning $200 for their school. 

You can follow along at: https://www.advocacy-for-kids.com/National-Trivia-Challenge.html

Brooke Lardner

Student Support Coordinator

Will be held on Tuesday, 6th May. 

A Class Timetable has been sent home for families and everyone is welcome to attend.  The course will be a bit different this year.

Friday, 16th May is the NW Cross Country to be held at Stella. The top performers from Year 3 to Year 6 will be selected to attend.

Families should have received notification via COMPASS of the annual Cross Country Carnival to be held on Tuesday, on the second week of Term 2.

We will celebrate on Friday, 9th May with a Liturgy at 12pm followed by a whole school lunch held in the Josephite Centre.

Lunch can be ordered via the Qkr app.  The options will be Roast Lamb or Chicken rolls with gravy, veggie burgers and chocolate cake with ice cream or ice cream with topping for dessert. Money raised from this will go towards new Playground equipment.

We have created an option in the Canteen Menu to pay for outstanding items, Money owed to Canteen. This can be used when you forget to order lunch and the app has closed for the day rather than duplicating orders.

Please be aware that Friday, 6th June is a student free day.