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Good afternoon Gympie Special School families and friends.
Learning Walks and Talks
The leadership team have had the privilege of conducting ongoing Learning Walks and Talks this term, where we informally check in with specific students regarding their learning goals and check their learning progress. These sessions have highlighted the enthusiasm of our students regarding their learning and how important setting a learning goals is. We have observed some fantastic skill and knowledge progression over this term and look forward to continuing the Learning Walks and Talks next term.
Term 4 Calendars and Learning Newsletters
The Parent/Carer Term 4 Calendar will be sent home to families towards the end of next week. Please keep an eye out for these in the communication folder.
Book Week
In week 7, we celebrated book week at Gympie Special School. Every classroom decorated their classroom door using the theme “New Worlds, Old Worlds, Other Worlds”. Every student in the school had the opportunity to vote for their favourite door and Senior Secondary 3, with their amazing Egyptian door were the winners.
Our library was beautifully decorated and featured a pyramid, dinosaurs, pirate ship, treasures and even a spaceship. Many thanks to Miss Janet and our creative library team for the countless hours devoted to making our library a wonderful, imaginative space for our students to visit during book week.
The Book week Parade
On Friday the 27th of August students dressed up as their favourite book characters. Each student had the opportunity to say or show us which book they came from. Some students came from comic books, some from fiction books and some from non-fiction books. Congratulations to the following students, who all received a $10 voucher to spend at the book fair for being the best dressed boy or girl in their sector.
Mia – The Gruffalo
Ashton – Dinosaur (Never ask a Dinosaur to Dinner)
Baxter – Alien
Matilda – Green Alien
Oscar – Paddington Bear
Savannah – Room on the Broom
Ashley – Harry Potter
Cody K – Narrator
Kind regards,
Sarah and Rachael
Hi everyone,
Last Monday students from years 7 to 10 had the wonderful opportunity to engage with a variety of hands-on Science activities to celebrate Science week. The crew from Vibes Wellbeing Centre kindly transported all the equipment to our school so that all of Junior Secondary and Year 10 students could participate. Students tested the PH level of everyday household foods and different soils. They made mixed solutions to make goop and kinetic sand. The all-time favourite activity was the 3D pictures and Virtual Reality goggles with students, and staff too?! We are looking forward to connecting further with Vibes Wellbeing Centre.
Communication is the giving and receiving of messages and language is the ‘code’ or the way the messages are shared. Expressive language is the ability to express your wants, needs and ideas and receptive language is the ability to understand language. I have seen some exceptional use and development of communication and language skills across our school Sectors. Issac in early years used his expressive language spontaneously to greet his teacher when she entered the room. Akira in Primary took my hand to a toy she wanted and used her expressive language to look at the dog and back to me asking for it. Alex in Junior Secondary remained engaged in a Science week activity for over 10 minutes, listening to and following instruction to hold, mix and add to his goop mixture, using his receptive language skills. Henry used the PODD book to express his want to visit the library and see the pirate ship display for Bookfair.
Communication is key to feeling connected.
Miss Shellie
Early Years Sector News
Term 3 is rushing toward the end and each day is filled with learning and fun. No wonder the days go so quickly! We continue to practise ‘how to do school’ and have been concentrating on moving from one place to another. We’ve been particularly practising coming in from the playground after each break as we do love being outside and it’s sometimes difficult to finish playing. With lots of support from everyone and some visuals in the form of Aided Language Displays and explicit teaching, we are getting very good at this.
Early years 2 and 3 are preparing for their day out next week. After horse riding we’ll be going to the All Abilities park at Lake Alford for a sausage sizzle and play in the beautiful spring weather. It’ll be a lovely way to use our turn taking and sharing skills in another setting.
All classes in Early Years are really enjoying Coach Tim and we look forward to our soccer session each week. We’re developing better ball skills and he makes us laugh!
As well as all the fun, we’re working hard on our Literacy, Maths and other subject areas. We’ve been enjoying the rhymes in our books and finding rhyming words.
We thoroughly enjoyed dressing up for Book Week as our favourite book character and had a lot of fun at the parade last Friday. Getting the artwork done for the door competition was a lot of fun too.
All in all-A GREAT TERM so far!
Warm regards,
Megan, Lynne, Jennie, Jas, Janet, Jordan, Jodi and Deb.
WOW hasn’t time flown by. I can’t believe it’s the end of the term already. What a busy term we have had.
In English we have looked at the books the muddled-up farm, where the pigs go moo and the sheep go quack, I want to be a movie star and listened, watched and danced to the old Broadway musical song” singing in the rain” and identified all the rhyming words we could hear.
In Maths, we have looked at positional and location words and are looking forward to an excursion to roadcraft to help us practice using words to describe our location.
For book week, Primary 1 looked at the book aliens love undies, Primary 2 looked at a non-fiction book about Harley Davidsons and Primary 3 looked at the book Shark in the loo. We also welcomed Mr Curtis from the Town library to read a few 2021 book of the year winners. We loved the book Collin Cockroach visits Caloundra by Sunny coast author Chris Mckimmie.
Kind regards,
GSS Arts Room News
Nearing the end of term 3 and their music assessments, the students are now more proficient at performing their songs by singing into a microphone, playing percussion instruments and moving their bodies to music. Some students have also started writing songs.
Wow, what a busy few weeks we’ve had. We welcome a new student to our class and look forward to getting to know them. During Science Week, we had a visit from Vibes Wellbeing Centre to help our students to engage in a range of science experiences. Students tested soil to see what it contained, we found the ph levels interesting. We also made slime from three simple ingredients in the colour of the students’ choice. Another station showcased augmented reality where we could hover a tablet over a 2D picture that became a 3D object, my favourite! The outstanding highlight for JS1 students was the virtual reality goggles that allowed students to view sharks from a cage underwater or reach out to giant elephants and other African animals, even though we were in the school gym.
We celebrated Book Week with many discussions around our favourite titles. On Friday of Book Week, we came dressed as our favourite characters and visited the library that showcased, ‘Old worlds, new worlds and other worlds.’ We decorated our door with an Aboriginal theme for old worlds and the students for new worlds. The students came up with a range of ideas for other worlds including drones and Minecraft.
We continue to learn our core words and where they are located to communicate in several ways. I am hoping we can all remember them to help our ability to communicate.
With Ms Libby’s help, we often have an adapted game of basketball in the quad during first break where students bounce the ball through the goals instead of shooting hoops. The students that participate are improving their skill to bounce the ball when moving and are becoming more accurate when passing the ball. I think I may be getting better too.
This term seems to have flown and very soon we will on holidays.
Keep safe,
JS1 students, Darren, Dana, and Deb.
Junior Secondary 2 News
We have had a very eventful last few weeks with Science Week and Book Week activities highlighting our learning experiences. We would like to thank Vibes Wellbeing Centre for bringing together the latest in interactive technologies, virtual reality and augmented reality in a fun and hands on way. We all thought the beating heart was pretty gruesome and liked the 3D image of the Eiffel Tower, which we recognised from recent texts we had read. We also liked the agricultural science section where we tested soil types for acidity. Our favourite Sci-Art was mixing and colouring our own slime! We really did enjoy all activities provided.
Prior to Book Week we have all been writing rhyming poetry, often in response to our reading that week, such as, “Room on the Broom.” We also had some of our own choice Independent Writing titles, including a wonderful poem on The Olympics and a very detailed book review on “The Diary of Anne Frank.” We are very proud of our own and each other’s efforts!
We continue to have our HPE lessons with Coach Tim on Tuesdays and follow up with a sector lesson, practicing our soccer and basketball skills on Friday afternoons. This is a lovely way to finish our busy weeks.
Warm regards,
Libby, Michelle, Chris, and Kate.
HASS - Learning World News
Miss A
Senior School News
Welcome to our families,
The Senior Sector has been a hive of activity this term. The Year 10’s began some new electives this semester, Kitchen Skills and Market Gardening. The students are enjoying a taste of Senior Schooling as they prepare for next year. Some pictures have been included showing the students achieving great things in the Home Economics Room and School Gardens.
Most year 10 students have completed their P.A.T.H. meetings. It was so great planning a direction for each individual student and their families. The students have reflected on their P.A.T.H. meeting experience, saying it was a positive and personally fulfilling meeting that made them feel comfortable about their future direction.
To those families of Year 10 students who have had to reschedule your student’s P.A.T.H. meeting; please contact Rachael as soon as possible to set up a time and date.
The Year 11 and 12 students are engaging in work experience every Thursday. The connections they are building between our school and the greater Gympie community are strong and positive. At school the Year 11 class did an amazing job of decorating their door Egyptian Style for the Book Week Classroom Door Decorating Competition. All students in the school voted and Miss Liz’s Year 11 class won. It was such a close race as every class made an amazing effort decoration their doors.
The Year 12 students are very busy preparing for their graduation dinner. The colours and theme have been chosen and decorations and décor is being made to dress up the room and make their Graduation Night a spectacular event. Each student is preparing their own PowerPoint presentation for the evening. It is such fun looking through the archives for pictures of our graduating students in their early school years. We are all looking forward to an amazing graduation event for 2021.
Best wishes
Kate, Cann, Liz, Alison, Sharon, Bree, Emma, Andrea, Chrissy, Judith and Kate C.
Technologies
Students have been enjoying Technology this semester. Early Years are exploring the apps on the iPads and helping to make a class ‘Alphabet’ book that they can share with the other classes.
Primary are exploring Microsoft Word. They are choosing a subject or favourite celebrity, searching the internet for images and information, then using their new skills on ‘Word’ to produce a poster that they can then email to staff or peers of their choosing.
Junior Secondary have also explored Word and are now moving on to Microsoft Publisher. Next term we move on to data collection and storage and the students can use their publishing skills while learning to represent their data in creative and engaging ways.
Andrew Stokes
Design and Digital Technology Specialist Teacher
P & C News
TUESDAY TUCKSHOP!
The P &C, in partnership with Gympie West Store will continue to run Tuesday tuckshop in Term 4. Please fill in your order forms and return them to school each Friday.
Bunnings Sausage Sizzle: 30th October
Duck Race : 23rd October
CENT SALE: Our Cent Sale is on Saturday 6th of November. If you have any new or unused items you can donate as prizes for our cent sale, please send them in anytime, every little bit helps.
Kind regards,
Juanita Sempowicz P&C President
P&C Meeting
Tuesday, 19th October at 5:30pm in the staffroom
All welcome!
Dear Parents and Carers,
It has been exciting to welcome 3 new students to our school this term. Layton has started in Early Years with Miss Lynne’s class, Mason started this week with Mr Dale in Primary, and next week we welcome Ruby to one of our Senior Secondary classes. A huge welcome to our new students and their families as they join the Gympie Special School community. As I mentioned in our last newsletter, we are getting regular enrolment queries at the moment. It is a testament to the hard work and gains the school has made with communication, literacy, numeracy and behaviour over the past few years that we have so much interest from families.
After walking around our school over the past few weeks, I have been impressed with the overall behaviour and engagement of our students. As a staff, we have been focussing on transitioning as part of our Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) around the school and we will continue to focus on how our students transition for the rest of this term. We have made some changes in how we pack up at the end of a play time, how students move from one area to another and how we stop doing one activity before moving to another. I have been impressed with how quickly most of our students are adjusting to these small changes to make our school a safer place.
Thank you so much to those families who have started sending in some donations for our CENT SALE on Saturday 6th November. If you have any suitable donations, please drop these into our office. We need approximately 200 prizes for the Cent Sale to be a success. Children’s toys, household items, grocery items, decorative items, Gift vouchers – any new and unused items will be welcomed as donations. If any businesses would like to donate a prize, please let us know.
I will be on sick leave from Thursday 26th August to Monday 13th September as I require some surgery. Rachael Pelling will be Acting Principal and Shellie Pursey will be Acting Deputy Principal during this time.
Last week we received the sad news that one of our students had passed away. On Monday, some of our staff were able to join Harris’ family in celebrating his life and farewelling him at his funeral. Our thoughts and prayers go to his family. If any of our students require any support and someone to talk to, please do not hesitate to let us know so we can organise this.
Moving forward, learning together,
Sarah Lester - Principal
Parade every Monday at 2pm
Week 10
Tuesday 14th September
5:30 - P & C Meeting in the staffroom
Week 10
Friday 17th September
Last day of Term 3.
Week 1 - Term 4
School resumes Tuesday 5th October
Week 5 - Term 4
Saturday 6th November - Cent Sale!
Week 8 - Term 4
Wednesday 17th November - Year 12 Graduation
Hello Parents and Carers,
We have settled very well into the new routines of Term 3 and every one is happy and trying hard to produce their best work.
We have been focused on rhyming words in English and reading some great rhyming stories. There are one or two champion rhyme detectors in the class who listen carefully and pick the rhyming words. They sometimes manage it before I have even finished saying them.
Last week we invited the JS2 class over for a session of Science based Art activity. The focus was on day and night with students working together to produce some amazing works of art. It was wonderful to hear students being supportive and making positive comments about each other’s work.
Until next time, all the best
Gavin, Naomi and Dana.