8 students move up a Curriculum Level!

We are celebrating having 8 students move up a curriculum level in our school. This is a 10% improvement across our school. We are very excited about the improvements in student outcomes we are seeing across the school with communication, literacy and numeracy skills.

Gympie Special Student competing in QLD Team at National Cross-Country Competition in Adelaide

Best wishes to Ryan, one of our Primary students, who has been selected in the Queensland Cross Country Team competing in Adelaide this weekend at the National Cross-Country Championships. We wish Ryan all the best in his race.

Book Week News!

Wow! We have seen some amazing Book Week Door decorations across the school this week. I have been so impressed with the work students and staff have put into making their fantastic door displays. Parents and caregivers are very welcome to attend our Book Fair in the library any day this week from 8.30am to 2.30pm.

On Friday at 9.15am we are holding our Book Week Dress-Up Parade in the Quad. Come along to celebrate Book Week with us.

Education Improvement Branch here next week!

Next week on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday is our school review. Every Queensland state school is reviewed by the Education Improvement Branch (EIB) at least once every four years. The reviews play an important part in how the department supports school improvement. They provide schools with independent feedback, tailored to their context and needs. Principals use the review findings to work with their school community and assistant regional director to develop clear actions to move the school forward.

Reviews are conducted by experienced educators trained in the use of the National School Improvement Tool, a nationally recognised framework for reviewing teaching and learning practices. Reviewers look closely at each school’s performance data and speak with a wide range of staff, students, parents and community members to get an accurate picture of the school.

Feedback from parents and the community is an important part of school reviews, with everyone encouraged to have their say. If you are interested in speaking with a member of the review team, please let our front office know or ring on one of those days next week to speak with a member of the Review Team.

No School next Friday 2^nd September

Next Friday 2^nd September is a Student Free Day. The school will be closed.

Warm regards,

Sarah

It’s hard to believe we are in week 8 already!

Over the last month we have had some more great achievements in the sports arena! In early August we had 21 students participate in the District Sports Carnival. From there 5 students participated in the Regional Sports Carnival last week in Bundaberg! A massive congratulations to Ryan Grant-Stewart who competed in Adelaide on the weekend as a State representative in Cross Country! This would not have been made possible without the amazing support of his family. Well done!!!

PBL News:

This month our focus has been on ‘I am Safe’. Our students have been learning all about being safe when eating their lunch, following class rules and practising safe hand washing and hygiene rules. This last one is particularly important during this cold and flu season!

It has been fabulous to hand out all of the Ardy Certificates on parade each week. Many of our students are powering through to the Silver awards!! Over the next couple of weeks we will be sending out information about our upcoming PBL rewards day in Week 10.

Don’t forget there is a scheduled Pupil Free Day on Friday September the 2^nd. Please be sure to make alternative care arrangements for your child that day.

Have a great month everyone!

Regards,

Chrissie

Last week’s Bookweek was AMAZING! I loved watching classes look through the books on offer and recognise their favourite stories and characters. We were able to add quite a few books into our own school library this week from sales, so thank you to all who supported Bookweek. Friday’s costumes for Bookweek were awesome, and I loved visiting all the classrooms to check out the books they represented on the decorated doors, bringing books to life.

I was very lucky a few weeks back to attend an annual conference in Brisbane and listen to some amazing speakers about different topics relevant to our school. One session in particular was presented by the lovely team at the Reading and Writing centre about the how reading develops and the skills required to learn to read and comprehend. I encourage you to take a look at the resources section of the website, there are short videos that provide information on supporting children learning to read and write.

https://readingwritingcentre.education.qld.gov.au/resources

We are celebrating having 9 students move up a curriculum level this semester. This demonstrates that we are focusing on the right learning, the right way! One of our keys, is to immerse our students in a vocabulary rich environment with lots of spoken and written words and images. Children need to transition from talking and listening to reading and writing, and oral language forms the basis of receptive and expressive communication.

Hello from the Early Years.

So much to tell you!

We have been enjoying our visits to the Gympie town library. We sing songs and listen to stories and best of all, get to go on the bus. On Monday the librarian, Ashleigh, read stories that had been shortlisted for Book Week. Our own Gympie Special School library is decorated for Book Week and has a Book Fair display too. Both classes have visited the library and made a wish list of a book we might like to buy. The Book Fair is on display until Friday and parents can come and have a look, or perhaps send in some money if you would like your child to purchase a book. Our doors are decorated and we have had a lot of fun walking around to look at all the doors and voting on which one we like best. It will be a great day on Friday when we can dress up as a book character!

The Early Years children have been enjoying the playground even more with the arrival of some trucks, excavators and diggers for the sandpit. They’ve also had so much fun playing dinosaurs.

Our sessions in the gym are a great hit and everyone enjoys the climbing, jumping and rolling when they do the obstacle course. Group games is a very happy session. We are learning to take turns and follow the rules when we play “Duck, Duck, Goose”, “Doggie, Doggie Where’s my Bone?” and “What’s the Time Mr Wolf?”

As well as all this fun, we are working hard on our literacy and numeracy. Everyone is learning so much about the letters of the week and listening to all the stories and responding to questions and giving their opinions.

That’s all for now from the Early Years.

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

Wunya (Hello)

Wow time flies when you are having fun, and we certainly have been having fun!

The primary classes have been busy with our book study and character analysis during English. We have looked at fun books such as The Three Little Bush Pigs and Beast in the Bath Tub. We had a visit from Aunt Christine who presented a Gubbi Gubbi Indigenous language sessions. We read and acted out stories such as Bush Tucker Girl and The Lost Spear. These stories included key words written in the Gubbi Gubbi language.

In Science we have been investigating material and properties, taste testing various sweet, salty, spicy, bitter, sour and umami flavours (some yummy and yucky) such as flaming hot Cheetos, wasabi peas, chocolate and salami. We all had fun exploring our book week texts and decorating our doors for book week best dressed door competition.

Secondary 2 has had a brilliant few weeks in the classroom! We have been very busy engaging in a variety of activities and experiences such as setting up our door display for Book Week 2022 and creating our masterpiece for the upcoming Art Auction. Our weekly science experiments have been a highlight, especially the volcano. HPE has also been lots of fun as Miss Monique has taught Secondary 1, 2 and 3 some new social games including Cat and Mouse, Hoop Race, Rob the River and Steal the Bacon.

Secondary 2 transitions well back into the classroom after break times by having 5-10 minutes for a game of Uno, continue working as a team on our big puzzle or listening to Miss Monique model read our Anh Do Weirdo chapter book. The students have been very focussed on our ‘Book’s of the Week’ and responding to these texts by identifying character traits, sharing likes and dislikes, retelling the story and engaging in humorous predictable chart writing lessons. We are looking forward to continuing with our learning and enjoying the remainder of Term 3!

Secondary 4 and 5 continue to work together in many subject areas.

In Science we are investigating solids, liquids and gasses. We took some ice, melted it into water, boiled it into steamy gas then collected the condensation (water) and refroze it again. We couldn’t do this with salt water, but we were able to dissolve the salt into the water and boil the salt water dry in the pan. This left us with salt again. It even tasted the same – very salty, yuck!

In Work Skills we are investigating our own skills and interests as well as exploring the many community organisations that can help us to take our skills and interests further. We will use our knowledge about ourselves to ensure the outcomes of our PATH Plans and SET Plans are relevant to us and our aspirations for the future.

Aunty Christine visited us again to teach us more about the Gubbi Gubbi people and their culture. We tasted the bush tucker foods, bauple (macadamia nuts) and bupu (raspberries). We are practicing some Gubbi Gubbi words relating to the book, “Gubbi Gubbi Bush Tucker Girl”. It is a story passed down to Aunty Christine by her grandmother Maria.

Games involving team skills are what we play for PE and also in the quad each day. We recently received lots of new sports equipment to play these games. We all look forward to our time in the quad where we have the chance to use the equipment to play organised games and team activities.

There are many excursions coming up for S4 and S5 and the year 10 students in S3. Permission slips will be coming home frequently giving parents/carers information about our visits to numerous work skill providers, work sites and TAFE. Please keep a lookout for the permission slips and return them as soon as possible. The excursions are important for the students to gain an understanding of the choices they will have to make regarding their senior schooling programs in years 11 & 12.

Our doors are prepared for Book Week showing illustrations and artwork relating to our favourite books. We also look forward to the Book Fair in the library and hope to find a special book to buy and read at home with Mum and Dad.

Greetings all!

Term 3 is quickly disappearing very fast and the remaining few weeks will be a busy time for our Senior sector.

This week is Book Week at school and we’ve all had fun reading books and choosing designs for our ‘Best Dressed Door Competition’. There’s some strong competition out there and all the students are enjoying the friendly rivalry between classes. This year’s theme is ‘Dreaming with your eyes wide open’.

For our Leisure and Recreation Quest elective, students have just had their first visit out into the community to Lake Alford, the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) and the All Abilities Playground. Students gathered some brochures for venues they would like to attend over this Semester and listened to suggestions from Sharon the VIC volunteer. Students are on a quest to find community-based activities they like and will give them all a rating out of 5 stars. We are planning to have further visits to the cinema, Hope Reins, Goldmine Museum, Woodworks Museum, the library, Gympie Rattler and various other community venues or activities.

The Sport and Recreation Quest elective group are exploring physical activities and sports they enjoy. They’re currently learning all about Soccer, including the rules, positions of players and soccer skills. In Term 4, they are going to focus on personal fitness and attending a gym program.

In other senior electives, students have been learning and developing skills in Performing Arts and Digital Technology. Several students are learning to play ukuleles for the end of year (whole school) production. It sounds like they are having a lot of fun as well as learning to play an instrument and developing design techniques.

Other events approaching at the end of this term that our Senior students are involved in are the annual Art Auction on Friday September 9 and a trip to Brisbane on Thursday September 15 to the ‘Girl from North Country’ musical at Qld Performing Arts Centre - QPAC. Students have created wonderful art pieces for our art theme Australia the barren country and we’re currently preparing other art works for the exhibition and auction.

Four of our students, Cody, Tallon, Georgia and Kaidyen have continued their studies at TAFE doing Kitchen Operations and representing our school amazingly. They have all been working very hard learning chef skills, creating fine foods whilst learning very specific language and cooking techniques.

Good news is that since Gympie flooding and damage to facilities, our excursion to Roadcraft will go ahead in Term 4. Students enrolled in the course will have the opportunity to continue working on their learner driver practice tests and becoming familiar with road rules before they attend on October 24 and 25. Notes coming out next week!

Finally, we have to commend our wonderful Senior students for their ongoing commitment to their learning and excellent behaviour. This year has presented many challenges and all students have continued to follow our Positive Behaviour and Learning (PBL) goals. They are great role models for all other students at Gympie Special School. Congratulations to all Senior students.

Thanks

Senior Secondary team

Halfway through term three, and we can hardly believe it! As was mentioned in the previous newsletter, the Performing Arts Room has quickly evolved into a room filled with dance shoes, costumes, fabric scraps, instruments, heaps and heaps of cardboard and a little bit of chaos. We are having such a good time learning songs, dance routines, and building sets for our upcoming end of year performances.

Here’s a few photos of the students in action:

We are loving the act of creating imaginary worlds, and learning to develop characters within them. The students’ creativity has really shone this term in the Performing Arts Room.

Dates to Remember:

Just a reminder to please have the raffle tickets and money in for the Father's Day Raffle by the 1st September. Unsold tickets please return. Raffle drawn on the 1st September with prizes to be collected that day.

Art Auction: Friday 9th September

Where: Gympie Special School Performing Arts Room

Time: 6pm Live Auction begins at 7pm with items donated by Gympie districts artists.

Free P & C sausage sizzle available from 6:45 pm.

Helpers needed. Please contact the School Office.