Dear Parent and Caregivers,

Welcome back to Term 3 at ESS! After a busy end to Semester One we are back into routine and commencing new units of work for this new semester.  We have a number of new students and families who have joined us at ESS this semester, so we give them a warm welcome and hope that their time with us is positive and memorable. I am sure you will join with me in making our new families feel welcome to our community.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

In week 4 (Tuesday, August 1) we will be holding the Semester Two Parent Teacher Interviews in EPAC from 3:15-7:30pm.  Information will be provided by Mrs O’Malley today re booking the interview slots though our SOBS platform.  The bookings will open tomorrow. 

The focus of these interviews, is again including students in the conversations (3-way conferences), as the research says this is best practice in enabling students to take ownership of their learning.  It is a great opportunity to discuss the Semester One report and to make some goals for Semester Two.  Therefore, we highly encourage students to attend the interviews with their parents and for them not to be left outside while only parents attend.  Please note that the rest of the school and the playgrounds are out of bounds during the interview evening, so students should not be wandering around the school playing whilst parents attend the interviews.

NAIDOC WEEK

In the second week of the school holidays (2-9^th July), Australia celebrated NAIDOC Week which is the National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee.  This year the theme of the week was to ‘For our Elders’. To mark this week our classes participated in some NAIDOC activities throughout last week at school and we hosted the Googabinj incursion on Wednesday in EPAC.  It was wonderful to see our students engage with the performance and the activities available including the colouring in competition which was announced on assembly.

SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES

In case you missed the information in the newsletter at the end of last term, I have included this article again to remind parents around their responsibilities around media and also social media, as I have had concerns raised with me that some parents are taking photographs of others’ children at school events and are posting them on their own social media or are sharing the school Facebook images on other social media accounts. Whilst we have permission to photograph and post most of our students on our school social media account, this does not cover parents saving them from there or reposting them. The DoE guidelines for parents and the community around Social Media can be found here but it is particularly important to point out this section. https://behaviour.education.qld.gov.au/resources-publications/Documents/social-media-and-community-online.pdf

MULTI-PURPOSE ROOF

We are still awaiting the safety certification and council approvals to enable the hand-over of the multi-purpose court.  We are all very excited to get back out there and try it out, as it looks fantastic.  The P and C were notified in the last week of last term that they were successful in the ‘Stronger Communities Grant’ and therefore we were able to get the contractors to go ahead and install the additional $28 000 in lighting to the structure.  This included installing eight LED lights to the space which was completed over the holidays. Thank you to all of our P and C and community who have stayed focussed to see this project through.  It was handed over to me in December of 2020 and has taken until June 2023 for it to come to fruition, through a change in P and C executive members.  So, I think this P and C executive and members should be very proud that they continued the unrelenting focus on this project to finally see it completed.  It certainly is a magnificent structure which Mrs Burrows tells me you can see all the way from the hill at the Grange.

UNDER EIGHTS DAY

In the last week of the term we had a very busy week with lots of end of term events.  Our Under 8’s morning on the last day of term was a wonderful community event, where parents took small groups of students around to the various activities facilitated by the staff.  We were very excited to have the Everton Park Library staff at the event and also our friends for the local Child Care and Kindies join in the fun. We also had our Emergency Services attend in the Fire Brigade and the Queensland Police Service and of course our OSHC Camp Australia ran the very popular face painting activity for us.  All in all, it was a wonderful celebration for our Under 8’s to finish the term.

SLIME RUN FOR CHAPLAINCY

Our Slime Run for Chaplaincy in the last week of term was also a fantastic success with the Chaplaincy Committee raising over $20 000 to fund the shortfall in Chaplaincy wages to ensure we can keep a Chaplin in our School for 2 days per week for the foreseeable future.  It was great to see the students, staff and parent volunteers having a ball sliming the students or being slimed.  At the end of the event we announced the students who had raised the most money-Tristan H (4A)., Liliani P, (Prep C) and Jackson H (Prep A) and who had the privilege of sliming Mrs O’Malley and myself and then the class who raised the most money and won the pizza party, which was 4A.  A massive thank you to everyone who supported this very special fundraising event.

FULL SCHOOL REVIEW

I would like to share a third of the five key affirmations from full school review conducted at the end of Term One. These affirmations are listed in the Executive Summary available on our school website which informs our Quadrennial School Review.

A strong sense of collegiality exists amongst teaching teams.

Teaching staff describe a supportive and engaging work environment in which they work collaboratively with year level colleagues. They speak appreciatively of informal and formal sharing of ideas, resources and advice. Many comment on the team’s shared responsibility for student learning. Additionally, some indicate that constructive feedback from colleagues supports them to improve student outcomes.

Again, this was wonderful to have affirmed for our school staff and is very positive feedback.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal