Principal News
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome to the final newsletter for 2024.
The last weeks of term 4 are always exciting ones, as we finalise report cards, send home student work and celebrate the great learning that has happened across the semester. Individual student information is also being shared across teachers and teacher aides in preparation for 2025 class groupings.
Teachers, with support from our Head of Department Curriculum, have been busily planning the 2025 units of work and activities. The Administration and Leadership team have been forward planning for 2025 so we are ready to commence the year.
Our school improvement focus for 2025 will be on READING. Staff will engage in professional development throughout the year to increase their skills, knowledge and understanding of how best to teach READING to our students.
We have 14 new enrolments for 2024 and 9 of these are Preps! We have 3 new Year 7 students joining us in Secondary and 2 new students in our Primary sector. We are so excited to be welcoming so many new families to our school.
2025 Staffing
Kate Cloete our HOD-C has taken up a position at Palmview Special School for the rest of this year and all of Term 1 2025. Karen Abt, one of our Secondary teachers will take on the HOD-C role during this time.
We have had 2 new teachers transferred into our school and I extend a very warm welcome to Alicia Hahn from Nursery Road Special school and Linda MacDonald transferring to us from Landsborough State School. We also have Amy Buick working with us next year – Amy has taught at a range of schools in Brisbane and the Territory.
Alicia will join our Early Years sector, and Amy and Linda will join our Secondary sector. All 3 new staff members have visited with us and spent time with their colleagues planning for 2025.
We sadly say farewell to a few staff at the end of this year.
Anne-Maree Clarke has been a teacher aide here at Gympie Special School for over 20 years. We thank Anne-Maree for her dedication to our students: she will be missed! She has seen many changes over her time here with us and is now moving into retirement. We wish her all the best for her future.
Emma McDade, one of fabulous teacher aides who has worked with us for over 11 years has been successful in gaining a transfer to Pine Rivers Special School and we wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Thank you, Emma, for your support to our students over your time here. It has been much appreciated.
Mr Gavin is also hanging up his marker pens and retiring – though he promises to come in and do some days for us when needed. Gavin has been here at the school for the past 5 years and will be greatly missed, as his jokes and ability to super-impose photos have kept us amused!
Congratulations and farewell also, to Janet Ernst who has completed her Teaching degree and is now moving on from working here as a teacher aide and commencing her teaching career in Hervey Bay. Janet has been instrumental in streamlining our library over the past few years, as well as supporting classrooms and students in her teacher aide role. We wish you all the best!
2025 January Student Free Days
This year staff have engaged in many hours of professional learning. Teachers will start 2025 with 3 solid days of professional learning from Wednesday 21st January to Friday 23rd January, in the week before school resumes. We have a packed agenda for these days and anticipate a great year ahead. Teacher aides will join us from the Thursday.
The School Office
The office will be open from Monday 19th January 202 to Friday 23rd January 2025 for you to drop off any stationary packs, equipment or medication.
Medication
Please drop 2025’s medication into the office during the week before school and complete any paperwork required for your child’s medication. Any students on Medication will require new forms completed for 2025.
If your child has medication currently on campus, please collect this prior to Friday 13th December.
Any left-over medication will be taken to a pharmacist for disposal on Monday 16th December, 2024.
Celebrations
We celebrated some wonderful events over the past few weeks and still have our Year 6 Graduation Ceremony to come this Thursday. This semester has seen the school celebrate the great learning taking place in classrooms, students demonstrating pride in their work and staff engaging in professional development activities to support student learning. There have been high levels of positive behaviours demonstrated by students and many have achieved significant personal successes in their learning. We have enjoyed a great PBL Rewards day at our local 10 Pin Bowling.
I am particularly thankful to parents and carers who have sought to share information about their child, visited classrooms, and attended events.
Thank you
I would like to thank students, staff, parents and carers for a wonderful year. Thank you to all of our families for the fantastic support you have given our school this year. The past few years have been continued to be challenging with a great deal of sickness and your support has been invaluable. Without your support, our work would be much harder. We greatly value our partnerships with families and the wider school community. Thank you!
A big thank you to our small, but dedicated P&C who have worked throughout the year to support our school and raise funds to support our school initiatives. The P&C will be renewing their drive in 2025 to seek more members and I would encourage everyone to consider becoming a member and joining in to ensure the best possible outcomes for our students.
NDIS support on Campus
The department is committed to improving outcomes for students with disability by delivering high-quality education supported by reasonable educational adjustments. The department recognises that NDIS supports may contribute to improving a student’s ability to access and participate in education and achieve. In some instances, parents may request that NDIS providers deliver supports included in their child’s NDIS Plans (NDIS supports) at school, during school time. The NDIS providers may be either engaged by the parent or NDIS plan managers.
As Principal, I will consider requests from parents for NDIS providers to access Gympie Special School in 2025, to deliver NDIS supports at school, during school time on a case-by-case basis. If you wish to request this, please collect the paperwork from Jess in our office or request it to be emailed to you. As the school grows though we are longer able to offer a dedicated space to external NDIS providers. These must be re- requested every calendar year.
Report Cards
Report Cards will be emailed at the end of this week. This email comes from OneSchool so please check your junk folder. Please let the office know on Monday if your child’s report card has not been received.
Families will receive a separate email detailing which class your child is in for 2025 and who their teacher and teacher aide will be.
Students have now have received their 2025 Booklists. You can also find these attached to this newsletter, on our Facebook page or email admin@gympiespecs.eq.edu.au to request a copy.
In addition, Nextra at Central Shopping Centre has copies of the booklists.
Please make sure you have purchased ALL items on the booklist and bring this equipment into school on your child’s first day. The school office will be open from Monday 19th January 202 to Friday 23rd January 2025 so you can drop your child’s booklist items off before the first day.
I would like to wish all of our families an enjoyable festive season, and a safe and refreshing summer Holiday break.
I am really looking forward to working with you next year and enjoying a fantastic 2025.
Best wishes
Sarah Lester