It was wonderful to return to school last week following my 2 weeks of long service leave. The happy greetings, high fives and smiles were a wonderful way to start my day! A big shout out to our terrific administration team of Rachael and Shellie for stepping up into Acting positions and doing a tremendous job, whilst I was away.

I was also very lucky to be able to attend our District Cross Country on my first day back. It was wonderful seeing our students running on the day and all 7 have been selected to compete in the Wide Bay Trials.

Front Office: Many of you would be aware that Cassandra has returned to her position of Administration Officer at the front counter.  Cassandra is usually the smiling face or voice you first seeing when entering our office. Cassandra was Acting Business Manager during Term 1 and did a fantastic job – Thank you Cassandra!  We have welcomed Cherie Randell as our new Business Manager and she has settled into our school beautifully.

Guidance Officer Week: This week is Guidance Officer Week – a week where we acknowledge the huge contribution Guidance Officers play within our State Schools. We are very fortunate to have Suzanne Weedon as our Guidance Officer and most families will have met and worked with Suzanne at some stage of their student’s enrolment here. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Suzanne for her hard work, calm way of working and the fantastic support she provides to students, families and staff.

International Nurses Day: May 12^th is International Nurses Day and we celebrate the incredible contribution of our State Schools Registered Nurses (SSRN). The department's SSRNs work with state schools to provide training for school staff across a range of health support areas to ensure that staff are confident and competent when providing support to students.

This training is vital for us in our Special School, where we have many students with complex health needs. A huge thank you to all the SSRNs working in our State schools and a special mention to our SSRN, Lisa McDonald who provides us with this essential training and support.

New Primary Class: This term we formed a 5^th Primary class as our school continues to grow. This extra class ensures our staff to student ratio remains high. We welcomed Miss Megan back from leave as the class teacher of P5, as well as 2 new students, Ryan and Mason. A big thank you to families of the students who moved into this newly formed class.

COVID–19 UPDATE:  From 6pm on Thursday 28 April 2022, close contacts who do not have COVID-19 symptoms no longer need to quarantine. Students who are close contacts must notify their school that they are a close contact. For 7 days after becoming a close contact, students over the age of 12 must wear a face mask while outside of their home, including at school, and when outdoors if unable to physically distance. Queensland Health also recommends that children under the age of 12 wear a face mask when it is safe to do so. It is recommended that students undertake a rapid antigen test (RAT) on the first day they leave home, and every second day (e.g. days 2, 4, and 6) until they are no longer a close contact. Close contacts who develop COVID-19 symptoms must not attend school and should isolate until their symptoms resolve. Thank you so much to our families for following Qld Health directives and keeping our school community safe and well.

There are so many great things happening at our school this term.  We have some senior secondary students who are currently studying a Certificate 2 in Kitchen Operations.  The students attend TAFE once a week and have additional time at school to complete the theory component of the course.  Miss Anne-Maree (Term 1) and Miss Chrissie (Term 2) have been supporting our students in their studies.

Cross-Country

I was so proud of our students and their efforts at our recent school cross country!  It was so great to see the enormous smiles as students crossed the finish line, cheered along by their peers.  A big congratulations to the following students who were awarded the age championship medals:

District Cross-Country

As always, we were very proud of our students and the way they represented Gympie Special School at the recent District Cross-Country trials.  Thanks to all of the parents and carers who came along to cheer all of our students along.  A big congratulations to the following student who were awarded district Multi-Class age champion:

Congratulations to the 2022 Gympie Special School district cross-country team, each and everyone of them have been selected to represent Gympie Zone District as multi-class athletes at the up-coming Wide Bay Cross-Country Trials to be held on the 31^st of May at the One Mile Ovals. 

A special mention must go to Ryan!  Ryan ran his 2km event in 11 minutes and 57 seconds, which is extremely close to the state qualifying time of 11 minutes and 30 seconds and wish him and all the other students the very best at the Wide Bay Trials.

Communication

Claire and Simone, our Education Queensland Speech Pathologist have been running pop-up professional development sessions for our staff every fortnight.  The first was on AAC (Alternative Augmentative Communication) and the second was focussed on ALS (Aided Language Stimulation) Boards.  These sessions have been very well attended by Gympie Special School teaching staff and we are looking forward to these sessions continuing each fortnight for the remainder of the term.

Until next time,

Rachael

At the beginning of every year I gather and analyse a variety of data sets around our students’ academic achievement that inform our ‘next steps’ in our whole-school focus. Over the past two years we have focussed on writing, this year we have shifted this focus to reading. We have a strong belief and passion that all of our students are readers, and in the words of Dr David Yoder ‘No student is too anything to be able to read and write’. As a whole-school we will be targeting our professional learnings around the development and teaching of reading.

For many of our learners, reading is a shared experience with a strong focus on the interaction and communication between child and adult. Once a child is interested in pictures and words in a book (or on the wall or screen) focus shifts to naming pictures, letters, words and familiar items. From here we can focus on reading such as sight words, decoding words and reading comprehension. At home you can support your child’s reading development by sharing and talking about a variety of different texts, texts can be books, junk mail, movies, posters, television and even people and conversations. The most important thing to do is, relax and enjoy your time together as you interact and read.

Reading is fun!

At parade recognition is given to students who are demonstrating growth in their skills, it has been awesome to see student’s growth in communication and literacy skills. I have shared some photos that Senior students have been taking at parade.

Yours in education, Shellie.

We are all well and truly settled into the second term and have been busy with our learning. We are reading lots of books and having fun with our letters and sounds.

We participated in the school Anzac Day Service and made a wreath in class to lay during the service. We enjoyed listening to the man who came from the RSL to tell us about the story of Anzac Day.

Our plants are growing well and all the rain has meant we haven’t had to do much watering. The little plants are very happy though. We are looking forward to our excursion to Bunnings this term to consolidate our learning about what plants need to grow.

Wednesday is our favourite day when we get to do two fun things. Going on the bus and horse riding. We have our favourite horses and look forward to seeing the lovely volunteers at RDA each week.

Until next time, goodbye from Early years.

Cassie, Deb, Lynne, Kate and all the children.

We’ve had an exciting start to Term 2 in the Primary Sector. We thoroughly enjoyed Cross Country. It was fabulous to see all the students participating at their level. Congratulations to those who won their race and those students who went to district Cross Country Trials. We have some fast runners here in the primary sector of Gympie Special School.

Welcome back to Miss Megan who has now joined us in Primary with a new class.

We are enjoying looking at packaging in English and identifying what we can see and what might be inside the packaging. We are loving reading the weekly stories and also writing our own.

In Maths we are having a great time learning about how to use money to go shopping. It is great fun buying things in our class shops. Learning about fractions including whole and parts of a whole is interesting and entertaining. Lots of things come in wholes and also in equal parts!

We are busy growing plants in Science. It’s amazing to see how much plants change and grow each day. We are learning the difference between a root and a leaf and where on a plant you find each part.

In HPE we are having fun with our skipping and jumping games. It’s exciting to watch videos on YouTube and see what some people can do with a skipping rope. There are some talented people out there and it is fun to try and jump like them.

Jennie, Tricia, Maya, Trista, Bree, Erin, Emma, Dale, Naomi, Karen, Megan, and Renee

We are continuing to look at advertising in literacy this term, including how products are presented. In S1, S2 and S3 we have looked at the images and language that is used on a range of products. We have been reviewing advertisements for popular brands that the students have chosen. The students have enjoyed discussing what they like or dislike about different advertisements and how they appeal to a target audience. As class groups we have created an advertisement for our own brand and products. It was a fantastic collaboration of minds!

Science for S4 and S5 this term has involved the students continuing on with their unit on fungi and will be looking at the lifecycle of a mushroom. We have been lucky enough to have purchased a new digital microscope that students can look at through the interactive T.V. The students have enjoyed studying the different parts of a mushroom including the spores (seeds) in the mushroom’s fins. We are all looking forward to finally being able to see the tiny spores under the digital microscope once they have fallen from the mushroom’s fins. S4 and S5 have purchased a mushroom farm kit and have set it up to start to grow. At the moment the mycelium (roots) of the mushroom farm are beginning to develop.

Until next time,

Deb J, Judith, Kate, Sharon, Dana, Libby, Michelle, Tegan, Kelsey, Janet, Cann and Kerri.

It’s been a great start to the term for the year 11 and 12 students. Having a series of short weeks thanks to the public holidays has been managed well by the students. The effort and desire to complete set tasks and achieve learning goals has been commendable. Most of our year 12 students chose to stay in and complete work rather than sit outside and chat during recent rainy breaks.

We have also been powering along outside the classroom with the cross-country event held in week one. Everyone enjoyed the morning with some amazing performances from senior students. Well done to Cody (District Age Champion) and Geoffrey (School Age Champion) on their qualification for the District Cross Country events. 

In English, the students are continuing their work on their group presentations about obsessions. This project has moved into the presenting stage with groups beginning to deliver their presentations to their peers and teachers.

In maths we have been tidying up our budgeting and money skills, and students have begun exploring fractions. All students are trying their best and working hard on their learning tasks.

Car washing has been slowed somewhat by the rain which is a shame as there are some really muddy 4 wheeled car wash challenges parked in the staff car park. Hospitality and Daily Living Skills continue with students enjoying these activities.

Our small group of TAFE students continue to meet the challenges of learning on a different campus and are doing a wonderful job with their studies.

Thank you. The senior teaching team.

This term we are looking at celebrations and historical sites in and around Gympie. 

Celebrations

We examined all the different celebrations including birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, Christmas, ANZAC Day, Weddings and another special events family celebrate.  Each student will be asked to bring a photo or item from a celebration they enjoy with their family.

Historical Sites

Students are learning about historical places in and around Gympie. They will be researching their chosen important historical place in Gympie. We have looked at some placed during class time that include; The Mary Valley Rattler, Dickabram Bridge, Gold Mining and Historical Museum, Wordworks Museum, Bones Museum, War Memorial, Mary Street, Gympie Normanby Hill Remembrance Park and the Gympie Muster particularly the Webb brothers original Muster.  Students will be completing their own research on a place of their choice.

Until next time,

Debbie Kitchin

The students seem to be really enjoying the fruit salad making component of the ‘Food and Fibre - Grow Grow Grow’ technologies unit.  They all looked very professional in their hair nets and aprons while cutting up the fruit and eating the finished product. Hopefully the students can tell you that the fruit all comes from farms where farmers plant, water and care for their crops to get the best yields.  The produce is then transported to the shops where we can purchase it to eat.  To stimulate discussion the students have watched numerous videos of various farms and farming practices from around the world. Students were shown how the produce is harvested and processed and then brought to the shops to be sold.  They had lots of great questions and they all engaged well with the technology lessons. Most lessons also included a hands-on activity that helped reinforced the main content of each lesson.