Hello Parents and Carers,

Welcome to our second newsletter for Term 4.

Successful Learners

Excitement is building as our Year 12 students prepare to graduate. The Graduation Evening on Wednesday 13^th November, held at Gunabul Homestead, and the final Graduation Ceremony on their last day of school, Friday 15^th November sees the culmination of 13 years of schooling for this group of 6 graduates. It is both an exciting and slightly daunting time for most graduating students as they prepare for their futures outside of school.

I was able to go to the Swimming Pool recently to support some of our early years students as they engaged in their swimming lessons/ water awareness. I saw many happy, excited faces and lots of splashing and kicking. 

Engaged Partners

Thank you to those families who were able to attend Chappy Naomi’s Morning Tea this week. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to meet some parents/carers in an informal setting, enjoying some of Chappy Naomi’s home baked muffins with a cuppa.

We will aim to hold another Morning Tea in a few weeks’ time and would love more families to come and support each other with a discussion about NDIS. Some families would like to have a chat about how their plans are going and share ideas and concerns in an informal setting of a cuppa and a bit of cake. If you are interested - watch out for our Facebook post in the next week or so. Chappy Naomi will also send home an invitation. We will hold this morning tea on Thursday 28^th November after drop off time.

If you have any suggestions for parent get-togethers for the future – especially next year in 2020, please let me know or let Chappy Naomi know, as we would like to support our families as best we can.

Empowered Workforce

Teaching staff will be busy moderating student work next week to ensure consistency around reporting. Teacher will begin writing reports shortly.

We recently celebrated World Teacher’s day at school with our wonderful Teacher Aides providing a terrific morning tea for the teaching staff. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all teachers on staff for their commitment and hard work. It is a privilege to work with staff who are so caring and focussed on ensuring great outcomes for our students. 

Moving forward, learning together

These last two weeks have been exciting for our students in Early Years and Primary, as they have been participating in swimming lessons at the Gympie Aquatic Centre.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of the amazing parents that have supported us with this program over the last few weeks.

Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) 

Our lessons promoting Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) this fortnight are around treating others how we would like to be treated,  reporting problems to adults and not being part of bullying behaviour.

It is World Kindness Day next Wednesday (13^th November). Staff and students will be talking about “Be the I in Kind”

The PBL team continues to meet every fortnight to identify aspects of PBL that can be enhanced across our school.

Next week we will be sending three members of our PBL team to undertake some training around PBL implementation in our school. We are looking forward to hearing about their learning.

This will be the last newsletter for the Year 12 students graduating next week!  It has been my privilege to have worked with these students over the last four years ago.  They continue to make me proud of how far they have come and how much they have grown as people. I wish them the best for their futures. The seniors finished their last assessment recently and are working on a collaborative project until the end of the year. 

Junior Secondary students have begun their assessment task for Civics, choosing an Australian value to investigate. 

Students in the middle years also have begun their assessment, looking at mapping a familiar place. The Early year classes are doing a similar assessment, with lots of hands-on activities. All students have been very engaged and produced some quality work. 

Well done everyone.

Senior Secondary

To experience first-hand how sustainability is practiced in our local community we toured three facilities.  At St. Vincent de Paul we saw how donated items are sorted to be sold to the public.  At HELP Enterprises we saw the process involved in recycling paper and cardboard.  At Re-Turn It we saw how various containers are sorted, as well as the new equipment that will be used when the facility relocates to the bigger shed next door. The students showed interest in the processes involved. They followed all instructions given and listened to the people conducting the tours. They asked relevant questions, but, most impressive was the amount of information they processed and retained.

On Wednesday the 6th of November Senior Secondary students set up and ran a mini market to sell the handicrafts, cakes and seedlings they had made this semester.

It was such a great experience having family members, staff and students tour the market stalls and see all the hard work the students had put in to make the goods for sale.

Lego Club News

Lego Club has a new regular recruit Ms Karen.  

The students are becoming more creative with each passing week. Many of the students are using their imagination to create pools with spas, a variety of trees and Ms Karen even made a bunch of flowers for World Teachers’ Day.

Build, create and make!

Regards, Deb, Karen and the Lego technicians.

EY2 news

Well it’s at the end of week 5 already, which means we are half way through the term. Our boys have been very busy being assessed ready for reporting. During HPE, students have been using props to follow directions when participating in musical movement activities. Science, we have been caring for a tomato plant and growing seeds. The students have been making daily observations to see if there living plant has been growing. Swimming has also been a favourite, we have been practising water safety skills, kicking and floating techniques. We have looked at the letters, q, p, v and u this term and students have been engaged in creating their own stories using photo of themselves.

Until next time, EY2 students and staff.

Early Years 3 News

Term 4 is always a busy term with lots to finish and the excitement of the end of the year approaching.

Everyone in EY3 is working hard during their balanced literacy sessions and enjoying the books of the week. We especially liked “Click, Clack Moo. Cows That Type.” It was very funny and it reinforced the way we write messages to each other, as we do each day in our morning message. We are continuing to develop our independent writing skills and enjoy making a choice for the picture we will write about each time.

Music and Movement is always a lot of fun and we love to take turns to use the props. Ringing the bell is very popular!

Swimming began in week 4 and I thank the parents and Paul who have kindly volunteered to come and assist. Thanks also to our bus driver Jeff. We are very appreciative of your time. The children are enjoying the sessions very much.

We have had some changes in our room with staff and we welcome Donna who is now our teaching assistant on Thursday and Friday.

From Early Years 3.

What a great start to term 4.

The students have been busy this first half of the term, learning about the weather and what can occur during different weather events such as drought and floods. The students did an experiment with some Cress. Using three different weather events. Drought – no water was added, Flood – water was added every day and Normal Rainfall – water was added as needed. They enjoyed watching the cress change. The students are also making a weather book by using predicable chart writing to explain the weather events we are learning.

We have joined with JP2 to learn about health. In class we have been talking about being safe and unsafe. The students have gotten to use the parachute outside to learn about directions, when it is safe and unsafe to move about under the parachute and cooperation with their peers.

The most exciting item of term is we have started swimming at Gympie pool. The students have enjoyed the freedom that the water gives them to move about on the pool noodles and floating on their backs. 

This term we welcome Mr Tony to our classroom Mondays and Thursdays. The students have managed very well with the changes and everyone has settled back into school routine after the September holidays.

We are excited about what we will learn in the second half of this term.

JP1 staff and students.

Salutations, 

Last fortnight Primary 2 students were treated to a book entitled ‘Growing up at Uluru.’ The book was about the Elders of Uluru, the Pitjantjatjara Anangu people, teaching young indigenous children about traditional culture, finding bush tucker, reading animal prints in the sand and sharing creation stories about Uluru. Our shared reading book coincided with the ban on people climbing Uluru as the Anangu people believe Uluru is of cultural and religious significance and explains stories of Creation.

Last week Primary 2 students were learning everything there is to know about crocodiles as part of their Literacy program. We have been using our voices and PODD to respond to lots of questions about these predatory reptiles. This week we are using our PODDS to learn everything about emus. Do you know why the emu crossed the road?   A.  To prove he wasn’t a chicken.

This week Primary 2 students had their first swimming lesson at the Gympie Pool. There has been a buzz of excitement last week and the week before. Our Morning Message has been dominated with swimming stories accompanied by plenty of arm moving gestures. Miss Suzie is our swim teacher and has been teaching us to use noodles to move forwards and backwards in the water and float on our backs.  I was very pleased how our students behaved safely, listened to instruction and used their good manners at the pool.

In Mathematics Primary 2 students discuss and record familiar events and activities occurring within each calendar month. Students use calendars to indicate daily weather and important school dates. We are becoming familiar with time language of months, weeks and days. We are also using a weekly class calendar to plan our school week by  recording familiar school events that have a very high likability factor. No doubt, you can already guess the most popular event on Monday  …..SWIMMING!!!     

In Science, Primary 2 students continue to identify the impact of weather changes on themselves. Primary 2 students were challenged to make good choices about appropriate clothing for wet weather. We used PODD to locate articles of clothing that would be a sensible choice for wet weather.                              

After that it was time to experience wet weather. Miss Jenny stood on the bridge of the play fort using a watering can to simulate a heavy downpour of rain. There were lots of laughs and guess what?...... We all made sensible choices and stayed dry.

 Last Friday the students came to school wearing red to show their support for ‘Day for Daniel.’ We wached a video, talked about protective strategies, did some role playing and completed class tasks about the 3 R’s. RECOGNISE- Are you safe, REACT- What can you do, Report- Who can you tell? Many thanks to Miss Deb for collegial support in organising the Keeping Safe resources.

This semester for HPE, Primary 1 and 2  students have been engaging in a varietry of social games. Students are learning that social games can be fun and safe when: rules are followed, participants listen and respond to commands,  boundaries are identified and equipment is used appropriately. This week we have been throwing frisbees and playing parachute games.

Until next time. We will continue to have plenty of laughs and fun with learning … Stay safe.

Mr Michael, Miss Jenny, and Primary 2 students.

Howdy to Everyone,

The students in JS1 entered as young students and have become a wondrous group of teenagers. We continue with our usual balanced literacy and have assessment tasks well underway or completed. The year has gone way too fast for my liking.

We welcome the addition of Ms Bree to our class on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ms Bree has quickly developed positive relationships with our class and is already an important member of our classroom. Fortunately, we still have Mr Darren on Monday, Thursday and Friday.

In English we continue to explore countries including Japan, Canada and Italy. We now have passports and are getting passport stamps to show the countries we have explored. Our PowerPoints include the airlines of the particular country, aeroplane food and interesting features of each country. All the students have created their own trip to a country of their choice to demonstrate their knowledge. In addition, we continue to alternate our book of the week with imaginative and informative texts. Last week we read, ‘Wave the flag, blow the whistle.’ During reading, one student gladly whistles for me as I have never been able to whistle. Our co-written book focused on the different train stations on the Gympie to Roma Street line.

In Science we will create action plans to help us in the event of the natural phenomena we have covered. The students engaged well with topics like floods, storms and bushfires as they can relate to them. During maths the students have increased their knowledge of money and number. We have played shops and continue to engage in a range of maths activities and develop new strategies to remember our work.

We look forward to relaying more news next time,

JS1 students, Mr Darren, Ms Bree and Ms Deb.

We have had a very busy and challenging year. I know that although we are beginning to tire, we are also excited to complete our learning to the best of our ability.  Most JS3 students have completed the planning for their English assessment and there are some very funny and interesting stories being developed in our classroom.

We have also been learning about weather events and the Earth’s resources, in our Science unit. We have created some very interesting power point presentations while learning some new skills around using the power point application. We think our presentations are simply stunning!

It is at about this time of the year that we begin thinking about what next year might look like.  For some junior secondary students, transition to the Senior School is just around the corner.  For others, next year will be another opportunity to engage with the junior secondary curriculum to continue to hone their literacy and numeracy skills, in preparation for the hands on senior curriculum they will engage with in the future. I know that each student in JS3 will continue working hard to produce the very best learning they can. 

Wishing you all the best in learning, Miss Sharon, Miss Bree, Miss Andrea, Mr Tony & Mr Darren.