Dear Parents and Carers,

This term seems to be flying by and we still have several very exciting events happening in this second half on our term. Sports Day planning is well under way and Coach Tim has been very impressed with our student’s enthusiasm and participation in his training sessions every week. Sports Day is on Friday 11^th June and all students are encouraged to attend and participate.  Our Senior classes will shortly send home an order form for the Sport’s Day Sausage Sizzle. Make sure you don’t miss out and get your orders in promptly.

We have 2 Sports Houses this year – Red and Blue, but as our school grows slightly bigger every year, we think it is time to make a third house for 2022. We are hoping to do some community and school consultation next Semester to discuss forming this third Sports House and renaming our Sports Houses. We will be asking families to think about the names and the colours of our new Sports Houses and support us making these decisions as a school community. 

In week 9 on Friday 18^th June, we are having our first Whole School PBL Rewards Day! This is very exciting and the PBL team has been very busy planning and organising the 4 hour event. We have booked a petting zoo, face painting and an inflatable obstacle course for the day as well as organising many other fantastic activities to celebrate the wonderful behaviour our students have demonstrated this year.

This week our dedicated staff have engaged in professional development with literacy and communication consultant Jane Farrell visiting our classrooms and supporting our staff to deliver differentiated learning, focussed on our students’ goals. Teachers had a twilight PD with Jane on Thursday afternoon and really appreciated the learning they were able to take away to put into action in their rooms with their individual students. We really are moving forward, learning together. 

Our students and staff will be very focussed over the next few weeks on gathering evidence and information to share in our report cards which will come home at the end of this term. There are plenty of things to celebrate in our students report cards- things we can check and measure and give a rating to. Some things though, are difficult to measure but are obvious within a busy, engaged classroom.

When I walk into classrooms I can see evidence of all the great work students are engaged in, as there is something about a classroom when you walk in that lets you know straight away that the students and adults in the room are happy to be spending day after day learning together. The rapport that teachers and teacher aides at Gympie Special School have with our students is most certainly an important factor in our great classrooms. Our wonderful staff are constantly creating conditions encouraging learning and working to ensure the very best learning for each student. This means we can see things like higher motivation, increased mutual respect, enhanced communication and student’s sense of pride in their achievements. As always, we are excited to share the work that is happening across classrooms and as reporting draws closer, we look forward to celebrating student achievements with you. 

Our wonderful P&C is starting Tuesday Tuckshop in partnership with Gympie West Store. Order forms for Tuesday 8^th June will come home early next week – don’t miss out and make sure you send your order back by Friday 4^th June. 

Moving forward, learning together,

This term we’re enjoying all the activity around preparing for sports day. Our sessions with Coach Tim are so much fun and it’s great getting out in the beautiful autumn weather. So far we’ve practised running in lanes, hurdles, high jump and javelin throwing. We’ll be really prepared when sports day arrives.

We’ve had a visit from Jane Farrell, the literacy consultant. Jane came into the room and joined in our literacy session on Thursday morning. She read our book of the week, ‘Go Home Flash’. We answered questions about the story and showed her how clever we are using the PODD. It was good to get some new ideas from her for our literacy sessions.

On Wednesday afternoon Miss Libby’s Junior Secondary students come to our room to read to us. We look forward to this and are now reading to them as well.

We are also having a lot of fun finding shapes and patterns all around us in our maths and playing games with shapes. We made pizzas using cut out shapes, pasting them onto a paper plate.

Once again, a busy, happy term.

That’s all for now.

Lynne, Jordan, Jodi and the children of Early Years 2.

Junior Secondary 2 News

The senior secondary students and staff did an amazing job setting up a beautiful display for the Mother’s Day stall and it was a delight to see the joy the students in JS2 experienced choosing their gifts.  Each child took great care in selecting items they thought their mums and nans would really like and took great pride in their purchases. 

Our focus in HPE has been on playing safely, taking turns, following rules, including others and exploring the many different ways we can move.  In preparation for the upcoming school Sports Day,  we are practicing athletics and games skills every Tuesday with Coach Tim.  We have begun training in high jump, sprints, ball games, and shot put. 

Developing communication skills is extremely important in our classroom.  We show respect by taking the time to listen to others and interest in what they have to say – it’s wonderful hearing the students engaging with staff and communicating more effectively with each other.  The last two weeks our PBL (Positive Behaviours for Learning) lessons covered taking turns/sharing, and listening to others.  Student’s efforts at applying positive behaviours are recognised and acknowledged by staff.  A huge congratulations to Savannah for achieving her Ardy Bronze Award.  There are a few students hot on her heels for this award!  Well done JS2.

Miss Libby, Miss Sue, Miss Michelle.

The JS3 students have been busy focusing on their core word of the week and linking it to the book of the week and to our PODD books. This week our core word is “see.” Students have had fun finding the picture representation on wall charts and in their books. The story of the week is Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? We have found a song version of the story that is great fun and gets everyone moving and one or two singing along.

Athletics lessons with Coach Tim are great as all students are enthusiastically participating and learn new skills and challenge themselves. This week we practised high jump and shot put, with javelin using nerf javelins being the new skill taught. There were some mighty throws and all students followed the safety instructions when throwing and collecting their javelins.

Speaking of safety, the class has been focusing on our movement around the school particularly at break times. We are getting much better with walking in a line as a class and trying really hard not to run to be first on the play equipment. Taking turns and sharing on the swings has improved and on return to class students are settled as they come in as a group.