Welcome everyone to our first Newsletter for 2023.

How wonderful to start the school year with all of our staff and students here and no disruptions to our school calendar! I would like to extend a big Gympie Special School welcome to all of our new families this year. We welcomed 7 new Early Years students, and several new students across Senior School and Secondary. We have had some student movement over the past few weeks, with some new students arriving and existing students moving away. We will be finalising our staffing over the next week, now that our 2023 allocation has been announced.

We’ve had a great start to the year, with many Student of the Week awards and a couple of ARDY awards already being presented on Parade. Well done, students! Check out our Facebook posts for each week’s behaviour expectation and the Rule of the Week.

Thank you to those parents/ caregivers who sent in all items on the booklists, so their students had their equipment, and were ready to learn. We really appreciate having all equipment supplied for your child. If you haven’t yet sent everything on your students list in yet, please do so as quickly as possible.

An important focus for our school is student communication and the opportunity for all students to have a voice. We started this year with some fantastic professional development for staff, including a full day of PODD training with Helen Tainsh, an experienced Speech Language Pathologist who specialises in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). PODD is one of the key communication devices we regularly model and engage with our students throughout the school. A large number of our staff are very well versed in using PODD and for them, this was a fantastic opportunity to refresh and refine their skills. For new staff this was a great opportunity to learn new skills and be ready to chat with their students from the first day. Staff thoroughly engaged in the workshop with Helen and came away with clear understandings and renewed commitment to using AAC throughout the day with our students. We have ordered new PODDs for each staff member across the school, more personalised to our school and context and are eagerly waiting for their delivery. Have you noticed the new PODD straps our staff are now wearing?

It was exciting to welcome a Chappy back to our school! Chappy Rachel has joined our team this year and has already begun to make a difference, engaging students with her friendly approach.  Girls Club is up and running, with 2 of our awesome teacher aides and Rachel, making sure the program is interesting and full of variety.  If you would like to meet with Rachel at any stage throughout the year, please just let us know and we will help organise a meeting. We are hoping to hold a parent/ caregiver morning or afternoon tea later this term for parents meet Rachel. Keep an eye out for your invitation over the next couple of weeks.

We have a new wheelchair pathway down to the Gympie High School oval! Workers have been onsite over the past few weeks, constructing a wheelchair accessible pathway down to the high school oval which we can use for sports, playtimes for our older students and activities requiring more space. A huge thank you to the High School for letting us share this space.

Our teaching staff have been very busy meeting with parents to plan curriculum needs for each student, as well as sending home parent consent forms, referring students to our speech language pathologists, occupational therapist or our physiotherapist. It’s a busy time of the school year as we set things in place to support our students in the best possible ways. Please keep your eyes out for notes, providing information and/or requiring your signature. 

Best wishes for a fabulous term of learning,

Sarah