Wednesday is PHOTO Day   Thursday is SPORTS Day    Friday is REWARDS Day

What a big week we have planned this week!

School Photo Day on Wednesday. Have you ordered your child’s 2023 School Photo? Please ensure your child is dressed in school uniform on Wednesday for our whole School Photo Day.

Thursday is SPORTS DAY! Please feel very welcome to come along for all or part of Thursday to cheer for your child. We would love to see families here at school supporting the day.

This Friday we have our PBL Rewards Day. As a part of this day, in our Morning Session, we have the African Drummer once again visiting our school. Last year the students thoroughly enjoyed the drumming experience and we are excited to offer this again to our students. Early Years and Primary will be at 9am and Secondary and Senior will be at 10am. In the middle session, classes will be enjoying a relaxed movie session with food and some fun activities to celebrate the great behaviour demonstrated this year.

As we near the end of term 2, I sincerely thank all of our parents and caregivers for their support to our school and students over the past 10 weeks. This term has seen a large number of staff and students affected by illness ranging from Covid though to the Flu and Gastro. It has been very challenging, at times, to find relief staff and we have, on numerous occasions, needed to collapse classes to ensure safety and continuity of learning for our students.   These decisions, which often required some quick problem-solving, meant that students were asked to go into different classrooms with different teachers at times. The students have responded so well to these situations, and I am very proud of them.  

Our Deputy Principal, Rachael Pelling, who re-joined us this term, has accepted a position at another state school for the rest of this year. We wish Rachael all the best in her new position and thank her for the hard work and support she has provided here at Gympie Special School. We are currently working on selecting an Acting Deputy Principal for Semester 2, and an announcement will be made once the successful candidate has been notified.

We have had a number of Primary sector students and their families leave the Gympie area for work, housing or family circumstances. This has significantly reduced the number of students in some of the classrooms. Next semester, we will be reconfiguring our primary classes to establish 4 class groups rather than 5. This has resulted in some student and staff movement. Parents of students affected will have received a phone call from me and a confirmation note will be coming home this week.

I wish everyone a healthy and safe Winter break. With so much sickness across our school community at the moment, I am hoping the break provides us all with a chance to recoup, take some vitamins and bring our immune systems back to their peak. Fingers crossed!

Best wishes everyone!

Ms.  Sarah