22/11/2023

Dear Parent and Caregivers,

PERFORMING ARTS

Wasn’t ‘Arts on Stage’ this year fantastic? Our Performing Arts groups performed brilliantly with a large number of students participating - including new groups which were offered again this year, including Junior Dance. 

The Performing Arts program at ESS is flourishing thanks to our tremendous staff- Miss Georgia Dunstan (Dance/Drama Teacher), Mrs Rebecca Rees (Classroom Music Teacher) and Mrs Ellen Harle (Instrumental Music-Strings Teacher), who have worked co-operatively with the support of the Arts Committee, school staff and their wonderful student Art Captains, who did an outstanding job of hosting the evening. 

We look forward to further expansion next year as we introduce the band program of wind and percussion instruments as part of the DoE Instrumental Music program. We are still waiting to hear who our new teacher for this program will be in 2024, so that we can commence the recruitment for next year's program. We will be sending out some expressions of interest again to families who would like to be in the program for 2024. This program will be offered to students in Year 4/5/6.

On another note, we have heard about the regional staffing of the Strings program here for next year and unfortunately, Mrs Ellen Harle has been relocated to stay within one Instrumental Music cluster of schools, so she will no longer be travelling to ESS next year. We thank her very much for her work here over the past two years and wish her all the best at her other schools.

We have had confirmation that Yvonne Moore, who was here prior to Mrs Harle has been relocated back to ESS for 2024. This is very good news as Yvonne is an excellent Strings teacher. Yvonne knows the program at this school and some of the students, so she will be able to hit the ground running in 2024. As the Instrumental Music program is a regionally funded program, we do not have a say in the staffing of the program, as they move staff around regularly to fill all of the fractions at different schools and make the puzzle fit. Whilst we are always feeding back the need for consistency in our schools sometimes this is not possible.

LEARNING CURVE FORTNIGHTLY FOCUS

Each week as part of our Learning Curve wellbeing program we focus on a category and wellbeing skill builder. This week we are working from the ‘Engagement and Mindfulness’ category and the wellbeing skill builder is around ‘Approaches to Cope’. On assembly and following up during the week we teach students the Why, How and Do for this focus as below:

WHY: For students to learn how to use a range of coping strategies that work for them when they notice they are becoming anxious.

HOW: Different approaches work differently for different people.  You need to try several to discover ones that work for you. Some to try include: brisk exercising, being with nature, sharing with your family, doing breathing exercises, colouring in, mindfulness activities, having a break from social media, playing and having fun with friends or pets.

DO: What is the approach to cope with anxious feelings that works best for you to feel calm again?

This topic is very pertinent at this time of the year for everyone here at school and I am sure at home as well. As the year comes to a close and we complete final assessments and reporting along with all of the other activities and events closing up for the year, we look forward to the new school year and what that holds.

SHORTLISTED SCHOOL CAPTAIN NOMINEES

Over recent weeks our Year 5 students have been undertaking the Student Leadership process for 2024. They have nominated themselves for the leadership positions and have been completing a process to demonstrate they meet the required criteria to be a student leader at ESS. The next part of the process was to look at those students who nominated themselves for School Captain and to shortlists these students.  They will now have the opportunity to give a speech to staff and students on Friday afternoon in EPAC at 2pm before the students in Year 3, 4 and 5 and staff get to vote for the School Captain positions. After that a panel of selected staff meet to finalise all of the Captain positions for 2024. These will be announced at the final Principal’s Assembly in Week 10 on the Monday morning in front of the whole school as we conduct a ceremonial change over of positions from this years Captains to next years. Much congratulations to our 2024 shortlisted School Captain nominees:

Ivy Atkins, Adelyn Blatchford, Rose Denington, Isabella Hall, Mackenzie Hutch, Hannah Ormiston-Smith, Bronte Scholes, Ivy Smith. We wish them all the best with their speeches on Friday afternoon.

We would also like to congratulate Chelsea and Jarvis our 2023 Captains who have done a fantastic job this year in their various roles and have certainly set the bar high for the 2024 leaders. We wish them all the very best in the future as they both have promising leadership careers ahead of them throughout their lives.

CLASS PREFERENCES 2024

Thank you to those parents who completed a class preference form for 2024 for their students. This opportunity has closed now, as we are well underway in working on draft classes and then placing teachers against the classes. Once staffing is finalised in week 9, class placements will go out with the students in the last week of term at the roll up afternoon activity.

Please keep in mind that whilst we take on board the feedback and requests, of course there is no guarantee that all requests can be actioned, as ultimately, we have to make the best placements conducive to teaching and learning for all students. 

2024 ENROLMENTS

After considering our incoming and outgoing enrolments to date we are now looking at predicted enrolments for 2024 at 383 students, which will see us grow again by one class to 16 classes next year. Due to where the numbers are falling for 2024, at this stage we are looking at creating the following classes:

Prep A, Prep B, Prep C

1A, 1B, 1C

2A, 2B + 2C or 2/3A

3A, 3B + 2/3A?

5/6A, 5/6B, 5/6C

Initially, we were hoping to have sufficient numbers to make two Year 5 classes and two Year 6 classes, but recent number predictions will not allow that within our staffing allocations. We are also undecided as to whether we will have three Year 2 classes and two Year 3 classes or two Year 2 classes and two Year 3 classes and a 2/3 composite, as this will be dependent on late enrolments and notifications received up until day 8 next year when final staffing allocations and decisions are made.

In the final newsletter for the year in the last week of school (our roll up day), I will be able to announce which teachers are on which classes to start the new school year. Of course, this is always subject to change up until day 8 of 2024.

2023 YEAR BOOK

A reminder that again this year we are producing a Year Book of the 2023 school year at Enoggera State School. This book is a great memory book of the year and is available to purchase by our families.  It includes class pages and pages on all of our school events and activities throughout the year.  It also includes a special focus on our graduates.

The book is gifted to our graduating students at the graduation ceremony in the last week of school and will also be distributed to families on Thursday 7^th December to families who order and pay for one prior. The cost this year is $30 as it is a little larger than last years book at 90 full colour pages. 

If you wish to purchase the year book please complete the order form attached and hand into the office by this Friday the 24th of November. Payment is due by next  Friday the 1st of December. We only have 62 copies available for purchase this year. Purchasers will receive their copy before the holidays if your form and payment is made this term. A further order can be placed next year for delivery at the start of school next year, if we meet printing quotas for that price. 

GRADUATION

In the last week of school along with the Principal’s Assembly on the Monday morning where we announce the 2024 student Leaders, we are also looking forward to our formal Graduation Ceremony to be held on Thursday morning in EPAC from 9:30am.  At this ceremony all of our graduates will be presented with their graduation packs including the 2023 Year Book and we will reflect on the year just gone and also present some special Year 6 awards in the areas of Academic, LOTE, The Arts, Sports and School Spirit. This is followed by morning tea for the graduates and their families.  Of course, then our graduates will enjoy a private social function in the evening at the Victoria Park Golf Course.  

Also, on that last Thursday, which is break up day, we will do the guard of honour for our leaving Year 6 students. At 2:55pm on that day the whole school gets to farewell our graduates and wish them all the best for the future.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal