Dear Parents and Caregivers,

STRATEGIC DIRECTION

This week after much consultation it was time to submit our Strategic Plan, Annual Implementation Plan and School Budget to the Region for approval. After a meeting with our School Supervisor last week, we went back to refine our Strategic Plan further to ensure we have a sharp and narrow focus of the ‘right’ work for Enoggera State School for the next four years from 2024-2027. The focus of this work will be under the following areas:

Our Annual Implementation Plan unpacks each of these priorities further as our road map for the first year of the Strategic Plan.

DoE READING FRAMEWORK

Last week, Mrs McKenzie, Mrs Boone, Mrs Egerton and myself attended a professional learning day around the new Department of Education Reading Framework. With Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum there are changes to the way reading is to be taught in schools. It was interesting to see the new resources available and to hear about the changes and to have time with our reading leaders to discuss implementation of the changes. Next term we will also send some staff to a similar session for Yr 3-6 to see how the changes will impact the teaching of reading in those year levels also.

As part of this work, they are offering some Zoom sessions for parents to inform parents of how best they can support their students as they are learning to read. I did share a post with the link for a recent session on our school facebook site recently and will continue as further sessions are offered. I encourage parents to join the session to keep themselves informed.

PERFORMING ARTS

It was great to be at the announcement last week of the lead roles and ensemble for the school musical, ‘Giant in the Sky’, happening in August.  It was great to hear that the students had been working hard on learning scripts and songs for their auditions. Mrs Rees and Miss Dunstan have been very creative in double casting the musical to ensure we give as many students as possible the opportunity to be part of this experience. This will ensure we also have a ‘spare’ for each lead role in the case of sickness.

All students who were not cast in lead roles were announced as part of the ensembles with minor acting or group singing and dancing parts. As this is a big commitment between now and the performances, we have asked all families who have been offered lead roles to ensure they are up for the commitment before they return their acceptance of the offer. The teachers are hoping to commence rehearsals this week.

Also, in Arts news the recruitment for the Instrumental Music Band program has been finalised and we are pleased that all students who submitted expressions of interest and went through the suitability testing, have been offered a band instrument to learn which is suited to them. Mrs Rees had to be very careful around this to ensure a balance of instruments for the band. 

We will be holding a parent information session this evening at 5:15pm in EPAC. When the paperwork is submitted, instruments will be distributed for lessons to commence next week.

Our Dance ensembles have also taken a restructuring this year to cater for more students. As Miss Dunstan had over 100 students from Yr 3-6 attend for auditions into the Dance ensembles this year, she has decided to offer an additional two ensembles each week. The Dance ensembles will now be named Blue, Red, Green and Boys Crew. All ensembles will be based on skill and experience so that Miss Dunstan can tailor the choreography to suit the variety of skill levels. She hopes to get this finalised this week so ensembles can commence next week also.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

A reminder that the first opportunity to have a formal meeting with your child’s teacher will be at our parent teacher interviews in week 9 of this term. Your child’s teacher will be able to let you know how your child has settled in and how they have presented thus far on pre-assessments for the term and the Term One summative assessment tasks. 

The interviews for this semester will be held this term on Monday, 18 March 2024 in EPAC between 3:15 and 7:30pm. Bookings can be made via the SOBS program. These interviews go for 10 minutes each and bookings will be open from Friday 1^st March at 6am to Friday 15^th March at 6am. Information regarding the booking process will also be out in the newsletter today.

DOLPHINS RUGBY LEAGUE VISIT

3B were so lucky to receive a visit from some Dolphins Rugby League staff, players and mascots this week. The visitors spoke to the class about doing their best and ensuring they listen to parents and teachers and provided them with a pack of goodies and a poster and bumper sticker.  It was a lovely uplifting visit for the students to have Phinny and Sandy (and some adults) in their room.

NAPLAN

A reminder that this term we will undertake NAPLAN testing for our Yr 3 and 5 students online between March 13 and 25. We ask that you do not make appointments or plan holidays during this time as it is important that all students have the opportunity to participate in this testing program as it provides valuable data to inform their future learning journeys and school improvement strategies. 

The NAPLAN testing takes into account the regular adjustments made for students according to their Personal Learning Plans to ensure that the testing platform is accessible by all students. These adjustments and the window to apply for exemption and withdrawal have now closed as we have undertaken the practice sets and set the portal up accordingly. 

We wish our students all the best for the suite of testing in week 8 and we look forward to the data being returned to the school to guide future learning and supports programs.

LEARNING CURVE WELLBEING PROGRAM

Our Learning Curve focus this week is from the Health and Strengths category and the wellbeing skill builder is ‘Healthy Big 5’.  Students have been working on this topic during their Health lessons this week with Mrs O’Malley and Mrs McKenzie and then this is followed up in class. This focus is about ensuring you are happy and healthy by monitoring your sleep, water intake, healthy food intake, exercise and positive thinking.

ENVIRONMENTAL  SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE

Our Environmental Sustainability Committe for this year had their first meeting at Crema Coffee Garage last week.  Staff members: Jaime Hall, Emma Enoch, Michael Harris, Amy O’Malley and myself welcomed parent Jacob Handy to the committee. We would still love to have more parent input, so if you would like to be on the Environmental Sustainabilty Committee please let me know. Our next meeting will be week 5 of next term on the Thursday morning at 8am at Crema Coffee Garage.

It was a very eventful meeting, as we had many decisions to make and plans to put in place due to Mrs Kent being over at McDowall and unable to lead our program this year.  We started off by looking at our SEMP (School Environmental Management Plan) to recap on our progress and next steps.

We decided to make the Green Vest Volunteers into a leadership position to attract more Yr 5/6 students to lead the many Junior students who love to volunteer. We also decided to break down and roster the tasks including the garden, worms, compost, recycling and Containers for Change to ensure students are offered a balance of all tasks and not just their favourite jobs. 

We also made the decision on the garden naming competition that was conducted at the end of last year.  The group voted and selected ‘The Garden of Greenery’ which was entered by Evie Veit. Evie was presented with a certificate on assembly and this will go on a wooden sign to go up on the wall near the gardens in the coming months. 

We also discussed Clean Up Australia Day and the map of areas created by Miss Enoch. All classes will spend some time after 2^nd break on Friday cleaning up their areas as part of the clean up Australia campaign.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal