We are well and truly into the swing of things at Gympie Special School this year with teaching and learning our strong focus. For our Prep students our focus is on starting school strongly, with a great transition form home, ECDP and/ or Day Care into the more formalised setting of the Classroom. It has been wonderful to watch how well our Prep students have settled into their new routines. We continue to build on the foundations laid in the Early Years through our Years 3 to 6 classes, building on knowledge, expanding communication and developing further literacy and numeracy skills. In our High school sectors, both Secondary and Senior continue to develop and strengthen students’ skills and knowledge with a focus on future pathways. We are working on getting our students ready for the future and for some of our young people this means work experiences or further learning. We want to ensure that every student has a future pathway.

2023 Next Step Year 12 Completers Survey

In the coming weeks the Queensland Government conducts a post-school destination survey of the previous year’s Year 12 students. All our students who completed Year 12 last year will soon receive an invitation to do the Next Step survey. The short five-minute survey asks graduates about the study and work they have been doing since finishing school. The results from the survey help our school improve our senior programs and prepare students for work and further study.

We ask parents, siblings and friends to encourage our graduates to complete the survey. If their contact details have changed, please assist survey interviewers with their updated details or forward the survey to their new address so they can participate. Graduates may receive an invitation by mail, email or phone. The survey can be completed online or by phone. For more information about Next Step, visit www.qld.gov.au/nextstep.

Annual Implementation Plan

Last year, we had our four- yearly School Review. The report from the Review (which is available on our website), highlights suggestions for continual improvement for our school. From this report, we document our four-year strategic plan for 2023 -2026. From our four-year strategic plan, we make decisions around the actions which will drive our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). The AIP outlines the improvement targets, timelines and responsibilities for these actions and how our school budget will support this work. 

The 2023 AIP strengthens agreed practices across our school through building a shared understanding of the priorities, actions and strategies within our explicit improvement agenda. To ensure this we will be:

• Identifying, strengthening and documenting whole school approaches and processes to communication, reading and writing, pedagogy, new staff induction, professional learning, collegial engagement.
• focussed on improving staff data literacy and capability to ensure all curriculum decisions are informed by student data. This will ensure we implement targeted intensive interventions to provide individualised differentiated teaching and learning.
• Refining and embedding our student services approach to support our individual student case management.
• aligning our curriculum to the new version 9 Australian Curriculum - this year we are focussing on English and Mathematics.
• strengthening and building further partnerships with external organisations
• developing a multi-layered approach to staff and student well-being.

Welcome to Week 7! Be sure to take a moment to check your child’s term calendar for any upcoming events.

PBL News:

As Term 1 has progressed we have continued to focus on “How to do School”. As a PBL school we believe that clearly teaching expectations, practicing and positively acknowledging behaviour is the key to seeing the behaviour we expect.

In the next couple of weeks, we will be focusing on:

• I am respectful when I communicate in a kind way
• I am a learner when I try my best and have a go

Be sure to keep an eye out for information coming home in the next couple of weeks about our PBL rewards day on the last day of term.

Administration of Medication News:

At the start of 2023 we implemented new processes on how we receive, store and record medication for all students requiring medication administration at school. This updated paperwork aligns with the EQ Policies and Procedures.

The important points to remember:

• All medication (including Emergency medication such as Asthma puffers and Midazolam) must be signed in via the Administration by a parent or carer.
• A Consent to Administer medication form is completed. There is also a Parent Fact Sheet outlining frequently asked questions and summarising our EQ policies.
• Our administration staff will check that the pharmacy label clearly identifies the student name, name of the medication, dosage, and practitioner. This applies to all prescribed and over-the-counter medication.
• Our administration staff complete all of the paperwork and then notify the class team. The class team will then store the medication in a locked safe in proximity to their classroom. Each time medication is administered they record the details and sign-off.
• All of our staff administering medication have completed specialised training in this area.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any queries.

Regards,

Chrissie

This year we have begun implementing a Structured Synthetic Phonics Approach to improve our whole-school approach to teaching literacy, and to align with the latest research about how reading and writing develops. The program we are using is called PLD, short for Promoting Literacy Development. The program supports teachers to systematically teach the skills of reading and writing.

Two of the initial skills needed before reading and writing develop are:

• Phonological awareness which is the ability to think about, reflect on and manipulate the sounds of spoken language
• Phonemic awareness the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds within spoken words.

You can watch some videos about these skills here: https://readingwritingcentre.education.qld.gov.au/resources/videos

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been impressed by many of our students who have excitedly shared with me how they can identify the initial sounds they hear in words, how many syllables they can hear in words and identifying the sounds that individual letters make.

This is a great journey for our whole-school, and I am so excited to be apart of it.

Early Years students and staff thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to Riding for the Disabled in Week 6. Even our new Prep students, having not done horse riding before, were very brave getting on the horses and enjoyed their ride and found confidence along the trail. All students followed the school rules during our excursion both on the bus and at RDA. They were all Safe, Respectful, Learners.  

We continue to do our English Unit and are enjoying rhyming texts and nursery rhymes. The students love listening to stories, doing the actions for nursery rhymes and expressing their learning through art and craft.

Our Early Years classes have been combining for group games in the afternoon. The students have joined in games including: Duck, Duck, Goose, Doggy, Doggy Where’s Your Bone and What’s the time Mr Wolf. Students are gaining experience of taking turns, waiting, following directions and using their communication skills.

Thank you

Early Years Team

Cassie, Kelsey, Lynne, Kate, Trista, Maya

P1 are working hard in the classroom and around the school. Last week we welcomed Jagger back to support Akira. He is a beautiful Labrador who works so well with Akira. Everyone has loved having him in the classroom and around the school. Remember you can say hi to Jagger but not pat him, especially when he has his jacket on.

In English we have had lots of fun reading stories and poems. We love “going on a rhyme hunt” (It’s just like going on a bear hunt!) and are getting very good at identifying rhyming words and making pairs of our own rhyming words. We’ve written some silly sentences that rhymed and had lots of giggles and laughs!

In Maths we’ve made patterned bracelets and made patterns with paint, blocks, noises, Lego and so much more. Some of us are able to work out what comes next in the pattern and how they know this. We know the difference between things that happen at night and things that happen during the day.

In science we’ve been for walks around the school looking at lots of different things. We’ve taken pictures of all the different types of soil we can find, we found plain dirt, garden soil, sand and even rocks used as a garden edging. We made a map of the things we can find in our playground.

We are having lots of fun learning great things in P1.

P2 has continued working hard in the classroom, used to our set daily routines and applying their social skills in and out of classroom. Our learning sessions are broken up by fun movement breaks dancing to music, relaxing exercises, ball skill improvement and constructive playtime.

During literacy sessions we are exploring the world of phonics and using that knowledge to daily PLD activities. Our weekly shared reading is focussing on rhyming books. The students are doing well in hunting for the rhyming pairs. We are also looking at the “why, where, who and when” questions and trying our best to answer that during formal desk work activities. Our own library is growing steadily with the books we write each week. They use their various communications systems while ‘writing’ their individual sentences during our predictable chart writing sessions.

The students have explored patterns in and outside of the classroom and have become masters at identifying and creating their own simple AB patterns, some even managed more complexed patterns.  

In Science we are exploring what is Beneath our Feet while looking at and digging up some soil on the schoolgrounds. We had fun making a collage of collected material of stuff ‘beneath our feet’.

In Health we are learning more about being ‘Sun Safe’, exploring healthy eating and living habits.

While the term is quickly coming to an end, we are focussed on having fun by learning.

Term 1 in P3 has continued to involve lots of wonderful energy and engagement in the classroom as well as progressing with our individual learning goals and celebrating new achievements. The students have been really loving our book of the week and are working hard at answering comprehension questions and identifying characters, setting and recalling events. The students are becoming rhyming superstars and are responding well to listening for rhyme and generating their own rhyming words. In Science, we have continued to look at natural resources where we have collected things and taken photos around our school. Maths has been a great opportunity to connect with real world routines and sequencing daily events. We discussed steps for how we would buy a pet from the pet shop using the words first, next, then and last. Now, we are creating a fish bowl through creative craft and will attach our ideas and steps underneath. To break up our learning sessions, we actively participate in lots of fun movement breaks and challenges including jumping far distances on the mat, moving our body to music through dance, interacting with our yoga dice and playing social games with our peers. Lastly, independent writing has been valuable in the sense of learning how to write for different purposes eg. writing an invitation because our book of the week involved a dinosaur party! The end of term is fast approaching and we’re excited to keep going with our hard work and amazing efforts!

In P4 we have been having an exciting time learning about making healthy choices to keep our bodies safe. One healthy choice is to make sure we are dressed in sun safe clothes. We tie dyed some bucket hats, in our sport house colours, that cover our ears and necks. We also did some bright rainbow socks for fun. We then had to make Mr Andrew wear clothes to protect him from the sun. Here is our “unsafe” Mr Andrew and our “Sun safe” Mr Andrew.

In Mathematics we have been sorting things into groups by colours so we can make patterns with.  Eli loved sorting out things by colour.

In English we have been great rhyme detectives finding rhyming words in our shared reading and different humorous poems. Our favourite poem is one where all the body parts of someone goes missing except the hand writing the note.

Well, we are already growing. We welcome Ryan to our class. He is already contributing to our class by setting up, joining group work, and working independently. Andrea who works with us one day per week has already proved to be an integral part of our team. Kerri and Deb are working together for the first time, and this is proving to be a solid partnership.

We have been focusing on Zones of Regulation to help us (staff included) recognise our feelings and emotions to self-regulate and respond appropriately. We are using the ‘Inside Out,’ characters to help us to understand what this looks and feels like.

Our English unit is proving to be a lot of fun with Evie showing us her sense of humour. Mason is using his ALS board to show rhyming words and characters in the text. All the students enjoy the lesson more when we involve our buzzers to point out the rhyming words during our ‘quiz-like’ readings.

We are lucky to have Declan, Tyson and Shyanne, our year 8 students, to help the year 7 students to understand the expectations in the classroom in secondary school where we promote more independence. The year 7 students are learning to look after resources and put them away independently with guidance from their older peers.

I did not realize we had a class full of Maths whizzes! During Maths, the students work independently when they understand a new concept, and they photograph their own work. We include several Maths games weekly and I am happy to say we have a class that enjoys working in groups and helping each other.

Swimming is proving to be a highlight of the week with students joining a swim coach, Coach Tim, and Mr Dale at the pool. I have already noticed a progression with all students increasing their abilities to kick, float and use their arms. Evie is swimming the length of the pool.

Hayley is helping us to stay on track with verbal reminders and Declan and Shyanne have Friday checklists to setup class for the following Monday. At this rate, Kerri and I will be out of a job! It is fantastic to see the growth of each student, especially as they develop opinions and independence.

That’s it for now,

Declan, Tyson, Shyanne, Ryan, Mason, Evie, Hayley, Kerri, Andrea and Deb.

S2 has been very busy making a model of a small town with a dormant volcano. Charlie said Imbil has a lookout, so the decision was made to call our model Imbil and the Imbil Lookout became a dormant volcano. Yesterday, the volcano went off and we could see the destruction to the environment around our model of Imbil.

The shops were under the lava, Yabba Creek filled with lava and we helped the kangaroos to hop away. Thankfully we can report that the little house marked “Charlie’s House” was safe. At the end of the day, Miss Cann let us watch “The Floor is Lava” on the television to celebrate our volcano eruption.

We have some pictures of our model of Imbil and the volcano eruption. It was a fun and exciting way to learn about volcanos.

We have welcomed some exciting activities into our classrooms over the past few weeks! Our HIC students have enjoyed mixing cornflour, colours and water to use when learning their letters and sounds or alternately have formed the letters using playdough. More recently, in Science we have been examining the effects of earthquakes, using hard boiled eggs as models of the Earth, cutting and crushing the shell to show what happens when the Earth is put under force. We have built volcanoes out of sand and combined, white vinegar, food colouring and baking soda in a hole made into the volcano shape….then watched it erupt! This week we made different volcanoes, using an empty plastic bottle and built the wet clay mountain around it. We planted trees and placed animals in the area too. Once the clay dries out, we will cause eruptions and observe how the natural environment is effected by the lava flows and subsequent rainfall. Meanwhile, we continue with our goals in maths, with many of us making great gains in our patterning with shapes, everyday objects and number patterning. Some of us are even using our knowledge of number patterns to solve problems. Every Friday morning our classes are meeting the physical challenges of swimming. We enjoy our bus ride with Mr Wayne and are listening carefully to our swimming instructor. We are always happy, hungry and a little tired on our return to school!

Warm regards

Tegan, Libby, Kelly, Jasmine, Darren, Henry, Zane, Tahlia, Tommy, Braydan, Ray, Savannah, Marcus, Gorgia, Jed and Peter.

Greetings all

Term 1 is quickly disappearing very fast and the remaining few weeks will be a busy time for our Senior sector.

Today we are going on excursion to Caloundra to see the performance ‘Lovely Day’. This is the first outing for our students for 2023 and is directly linked to student QCIA goals and certificate. Our Senior students rotate subjects and programs with different staff and class groups depending on the individual goals being learnt.

Volunteering

Students have learnt and discussed what it means to be a volunteer. We have been looking at locations that we can attend and volunteer our time and learn new skills whilst helping others in the community. Through the Healthy Options unit, we have been exploring The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating to help inform our decision making over healthy and unhealthy food choices. The students have participated in a tasting session with a range of foods from each section of the guide. This had interesting results!!

Life and Living

This week we have been discussing our daily routines. The students worked together to create a poster about their routines throughout the day.  The students will be engaging in practical skills and routines required for independent living, this will include hygiene practices, accessing local transport options and accessing community organisations such dentists, doctors, hairdressers and the local library.

Let’s Get Physical

Students have been exploring the benefits of being physically active and sharing their preferred activities. During weeks 4 to 7, students have been introduced to Yoga in a basic yoga session including simple poses and stretches. This has been quite popular with many of the students looking forward to their session on either a Tuesday or Wednesday. (See photos below) In coming weeks leading to the end of term, students will change to a different activity exploring gym equipment in the community.

Well-Being

Students have begun exploring different emotions and feelings, how do they feel and look at different ways to manage these or strategies that can be used. We will look further into the ‘Zones of Regulation’ that is a program to assist student how to manage their emotions. We acknowledge through Well-being that all emotions are important and relevant to how we feel and situations we are in. the important thing is that we understand how we can manage these and keep ourselves in a place of wellbeing.

Artistic Exploration

Our students have been exploring a variety of mediums in art each week to develop and promote their artistic abilities. Our excursion to the Events Centre, Caloundra was a success, students really enjoyed experiencing 50 years of music in the making. Our students were model citizens and should be very proud of how they represented the school. We even got to meet in person Alisha Todd, one of the lead singers who originally went to Gympie High school.

Active Citizenship

Students have been involved in the creating and upkeep of the school’s parade presentation including, editing and uploading new information as well as capturing the rest of the school following the school rules. Students have also engaged in rules in the community and what it might look like and sound like to be a responsible citizen at our school and the wider community.

PBL Production Crew:

This is a new and exciting subject. Our students will be involved in creating video’s, posters and other digital products to promote the school wide rules and systems. It is a wonderful opportunity for our students to role model and capture the great things that students are engaging in our school community.

Thanks

Kate, Deb C, Liz, Gavin, Michelle, Chrissie and Anne-Marie

Our students have been focusing on using our core words during learning time and play. The core words for Weeks 5-6 were: Do/Don’t, Say/Tell. Here are some photos of students and teachers using the core words in different contexts across the day.

The core words for the remaining four weeks of term are:

Week 7 Know/knew

Week 8 Now

Week 9 With

Week 10 Feel

Helpful hint:

As you talk to your child, you can point to the visual as you say it. For example: “I can see you feel sad”. As you say the core word ‘feel’ point to the visual.

If your child doesn’t have a communication device at home and you would like to practise these words at home, please contact your teacher and they can request a copy from the communication team. 

Hi All,

So far this semester in HPE, students have had a look at different types of foods. Focusing on ‘sometimes’ and ‘always foods’ as well as safe ways to engage in different activities and how to work as a team.

In health, students primary focus has been on foods that we can always eat, and foods that can be eaten as a treat. Students have enjoyed engaging with interactive activities as well as pretend foods to help identify which foods are which.

Students have engaged in play-based learning, using different objects to create safe obstacle courses that involved students climbing over, crawling under and focusing on their balance. Students also participated in some balancing yoga type activities. Students also used team work to build cubby houses using gym mat equipment.

In the senior school, students have continued to develop their skills in the pool. With the instructors very impressed with the way that the students have engaged in their lessons. The students in recent weeks have been focusing on ways to save a person in danger without diving in. Students have had to come up with a variety of different ideas to save someone who might be in danger.

That’s all for now.

Mr Dale

Students are learning about data collection and data representation.  They have been making Pictographs, Bar Graphs, and Pie Charts.  Data collected for our activities included “Who is the biggest selling musical artist of all time?” (Beatles if you are wondering). “What is the biggest selling video game of all time?” (Tetris – I know right! Who knew?).  And, what colours are Mr Andrew’s personal Hot Wheels car collection. They have also explored concepts related to data collection including ‘Prediction’ and counting with Tally marks.  Next week we’ll finding out what the most popular car colours are – good to know if you want to be a bit different from the mainstream.  Don’t be surprised if your students start moving around the house counting things and recording how often things happen.

Andrew Stokes – Technology Specialist Teacher.