Grade 8 Girls at Saint Mary's Cathedral Basilica

Sacred Heart School of Halifax grade 8B class went to the Saint Mary's Cathedral Basilica this week to assemble Christmas gifts for seniors who go to their drop in.  The gifts included Christmas cards made by the girls in class.  They spontaneously broke into singing hymns as they worked away!  Thank you for bring such joy to everyone, girls!

Check out the video:  click here

Sacred Heart Advent Service on Monday, Dec. 2nd

The Sacred Heart School of Halifax will present its annual Advent Service of Readings and Carols on Monday, December 2nd at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica.  The program, which includes scriptural readings, sacred music and liturgical prayers, has been co-ordinated by the Liturgy Committee and the Music Department. 

Students from Grades 7 to 12 will deliver the readings and prayers.  The Advent music will be presented by the High School Choirs, band and various classes.

The Free The Children & Me to We Experience

Sacred Heart School students, Hannah Bekkers, Caroline Surrette and Jade MacDonald were given the wonderful honour of attending the special dinner last night with Marc Kielburger in advance of WE Day today.  They also had the privilege of presenting the cheque for $5,000 as a result of the fundraising Sacred Heart School has done over the past year for a well in Kenya.  To add to the excitement, they met three of the speakers for We Day!

Sacred Heart School Participates in We Day today!!!

Sacred Heart School of Halifax are huge supporters of 

"Free the Children" and today is We Day!!!

We have 38 eligible students participating in We Day today at the Metro Centre and many, many more who are volunteering in some capacity and others are there with their parents!  The excitement this morning, as they gathered in our Study Hall prior to their 8:00 a.m. departure, was palpable!

You can't buy a ticket to We Day—you earn it through service. Through the year-long We Act program, schools and groups take on one local and one global action and report back to Free The Children to earn their way to We Day.  

Here is the Metro Centre when they arrived around 8:30 this morning.

Three Sacred Heart Elementary students also had the opportunity to attend with Mrs. Ferguson!

CASHA AMASC Reflection Event Report

Sarah Cassidy reported on the November 24th CASHA AMASC Reflection Event

"We had a lovely afternoon on Sunday, November 24^th at the Sacred Heart girls' library for our CASHA AMASC reflection event.

Sister Donna Dolan prepared a wonderful reflection using the AMASC study guide. Click here for the handout.

There were 7 RSCJs and 11 Alumnae in attendance. Sister Donna Dolan created a mindful atmosphere with prayer, poetry, peace and pondering. There were very positive comments made concerning the content and the experience.  One alumna who was moved by the afternoon, has decided to attend the AMASC World Congress and has offered to be involved in upcoming activities.  Look for more details in Primes in January.

A Sacred Heart Goal... "A social awareness which impels to action"

This morning our grade 8B class went to the Saint Mary's Cathedral Basilica to assemble Christmas gifts for seniors who go to their drop in.  The gifts included Christmas cards made by them in class.

Rory and Mattea continue to be Debating Champions!

We are pleased to report that Nova Scotia won the 9th Oxford Cup debating tournament, held in Vancouver this weekend. Rory Flynn and Mattea Roach of Sacred Heart defeated 43 other teams from across Canada to win the tournament.

Nova Scotia was well represented at the Oxford Cup with strong performances by Grace McNutt and Ainslie Pierrynowski and Ashna Asim and Elzbieta Wawer of Sydney Academy.

As the winning team, Rory and Mattea qualify to represent Canada at Oxford University in March. (Last year, the girls attended the under fifteen English tournament at Cambridge University, where they finished 1st and 2nd individually.)

The second place Oxford Cup team was from Saskatchewan. The third place team was from Ontario. Both teams also qualify to go to Oxford.

The 2014 tournament will be held in Montreal at Selwyn House School, likely the same weekend in November.

2013 and been a very good one for Sacred Heart debaters.

It opened with Sabrina Secord and Anya Friesen winning the Dalhousie Atlantics.  It was followed by Rory and Mattea winning the Queen’s University High School tournament, Rory, Anya and Catherine Burke winning the junior high provincials, Rory and Mattea placing 1st and 2nd individually at Cambridge, Rory and Anya winning the junior high nationals, Rory and Mattea winning McGill and of course now, the Oxford Cup.  In the meanwhile Mattea’s team beat Rory’s team to win the finals in Germany.  (The girls were separated so that Rory would have an opportunity to experience what it was like debating against Mattea).

Our teams made it to the break rounds in 5 events we did not win—the Senior High provincials, the Donahoe Cup, the National Championships, the Impromptus and the Dalhousie BP tournament. We cannot win every tournament, of course—judging expectations vary from one part of the country to another, our best debaters are sometimes tied up with other activities and our teams are not perfect.  However, we won as many events as every other school in the country put together, and it is not reasonable to expect more than that.  

Well done, all.  In the meanwhile we have qualified to have three teams attend the senior nationals next year, and we have great expectations for 2014.

My thanks to our other coaches (Andrew Aven Gillis, Sebastian Young, Andrew Mayo, Kathryn Bjornson, Rory Flynn, Meghan Carlson and Clarissa Brisseau) and to the parents who do so much (billeting, judging, organizing) to make our program successful.

A Collection...

Below are a collection of recent happenings at Sacred Heart.

Florence is a student at Saint Mary’s University and a parishioner at Saint Mary’s Cathedral Basilica.  She is originally from Rwanda, but she and her family had to flee Rwanda and go to a refugee camp due to the genocide in 1994.  From Rwanda, Florence eventually made it to Halifax.  The parishioners of the Basilica are sponsoring Florence’s family in order for her widowed mother and two younger siblings to come to Canada as well.  The Global Citizens club invited Florence to come to speak to the girls’ high school and to tell her story.  The Global Citizens introduced their activity to support the sponsorship of Florence’s family.  Monday, November 25, will be “Lend a Hand Day.”  

The Sacred Heart School of Halifax Global Citizens Club wasted no time in responding to the Philippines aid effort.  A PowerPoint presentation at morning Assembly this week provided news clips and commentary of the typhoon’s devastation of many regions of the Philippines, awakening the need to donate to the cause.  So, a bake sale was organized as well as a colour day (non-uniform clothes) was declared and everyone joined in the spirit of giving.  As a result of this combined effort, the total raised was $2,530.00.  The funds were sent to CHALICE where the Canadian Government will match them...so just over $5,000.  We are grateful to the whole Sacred Heart community in helping to raise these needed dollars.

“I now know what it is like to learn!”

Braydon Cox, grade 5, Sacred Heart School of Halifax, as said to his parents two months after starting grade 5 at Sacred Heart.

Thank you to everyone for a very successful Christmas Fair!

The Sacred Heart School of Halifax would like to thank all our parents, students, staff and alumnae/i who helped make our Saturday Christmas Fair extremely successful and fun!  The Parents' Guild under the direction of Mrs. Jody MacDonald and her amazing team of volunteers made the Fair one of the most successful.  It takes many hands to help build community and that was certainly in evidence leading up to the Fair and during the Fair.

Thank you to the public for attending our annual Fair!

A snapshot of some of the activities during the Fair...