Dear Parents and Carers,                                  

Welcome to a new year at Sacred Heart.   

We hope it is a year full of new beginnings, guided by the love of God and embraced by us here at Sacred Heart. In some aspects our experience will be the same as last year but in many ways we hope it will be an entirely different experience. Just as we faced the fear of Covid last year, this year we can go forward knowing that we will be “living with Covid” rather than the constant fear of the unknown last year. This year we hope to be able to manage more social contact and more opportunities to connect.

A number of opportunities to connect and communicate over the following weeks will be:

Parent Teacher Meetings - Week 3 via Zoom

Traditionally these meetings are held at school at night. This year they will be held via Zoom. Each meeting will be an hour long and will consist of an opening address by myself, a presentation by the teachers about the routines and expectations for the grade as well as a question time at the end. Questions can be raised throughout the session via the chat function on zoom and they will be answered at the end. The sessions are at the following times. The zoom link will be sent with a reminder of your session next week.

Community Mass 7.45am every Friday morning at Sacred Heart Church. Parents, teachers and students may attend this mass together. This is one of the regular opportunities that we currently have to meet together. It is a short “busy” person's mass. We hope to see you there. Year 5 and 6 may attend without parents and can walk back to school with teachers. Adults will need to wear a mask in church. 

Our Opening School Mass will be held this Friday at 9.15am. 

Unfortunately restrictions do not allow parents to attend mass in school times. Mr. Brierley forwarded the Zoom link via Compass this morning but here are the details again:

Parents and carers are more than welcome to join us via Zoom. All you need to do is use this link: https://scscatholic.zoom.us/j/93167645966. The password  newyear will be required upon entry.

Please remember that we will only allow Zoom users with their full name and surname visible when entering the Zoom feed. Please resist the urge to use nicknames or initials as we are very conscious of protecting our students and community from external visitors.

Year Six students will receive their leadership badges and so Year Six parents may want to tune in. Other classes will watch the mass via zoom as our student numbers exceed the allowable church numbers.

Current Covid Allowances Please see NSW Health for the most up to date allowances.

1.5m for social distancing

30 maximum indoors after school eg P and F meeting 

50 maximum outdoors after school eg Welcome evening

NSW Health unfortunately do not allow parents on site as yet except for the early years to settle children into school.

Thank you so much for your co-operation 

We often hear the words of Jesus and reflect on them in our own lives. Forgiveness is often preached but can be difficult in reality. A remarkable example of forgiveness in action was launched this week by two families whose children attended one of our Sydney Catholic Schools. The story of the  Abdalla and Sukr families as they launched  the i4Give Day on the anniversary of their children’s death is inspiring. In the following link is the family's story: 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-31/parents-launch-i4give-day-annoversary-oatlands-crash/13106662

The vision for i4Give Day can be found at https://www.i4give.com/

Class Parents 

One of the very special ways we connect at Sacred Heart is by working with our class parents. These parents are volunteers who help create community within our school by organising get togethers for grades so that parents can feel a connection to our community. 

The following classes still need some parents to volunteer as class parents. 

Kindergarten - one new parent to join a group of experienced parents

Year One - we need some volunteers

Year Four - we need some volunteers

If you would like to volunteer or have already done so can you please send an email to parentliaison2021@gmail.com so we can confirm and publish the class parents details.

We are still looking to fill the parent liaison role for 2021. If you and a friend are interested please send an email to parentliaison2021@gmail.com to inquire more about the role.

The following events have been organised as a get together for the Kindergarten 2021 parents.

Welcome to Kinder families 2021 events

Friday 19th  February 6pm - 7.30pm at school

Kinder Blue parents are invited to a face to face drinks evening at school 

Kinder Gold parents are invited to a face to face drinks evening out school 

More details to follow from the class parents

Heads Up!

Any Kindergarten children who would like to “try out” soccer with our XLR8 coaches will have the opportunity to do so in the upcoming weeks. Parents may attend the session and talk to our Soccer conveners.  Please look out for a note to Kindergarten students.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Regards

Julie Caldwell