Dear Parent and Caregivers,

LEARNING CURVE WELLBEING PROGRAM

The Learning Curve this week is from the ‘Health and Strengths’ category and the wellbeing skill building is ‘Fear of Missing Out’. Students are learning that Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is an addiction where people fear they are missing out on things and is usually related to fear on digital devices. FOMO can interfere with your in-person relationships with people who are present in your lives. Students are learning that it is always better to talk to your friends face to face and to enjoy each other’s company in person rather than focussing too much on what is happening on their devices.

Our students are working on this topic during their Health lessons. This is then being following up with their class teachers as well as using their ESS Learning Curve diaries. The parent article regarding this topic is attached for your information.

FANFARE STRINGS COMPETITION

Next week our Senior and Junior Strings Ensembles will compete at Fanfare at Lawnton State School.  Each school performs in their category and will receive grading and feedback on how they can further improve as an ensemble. This will be the first major performance for our Strings students this year under Miss Kirk, so we are excited to see how they go. A reminder to our Strings families - the performance uniform is the new School Performing Arts polo shirt, long black dress trousers (no jeans, leggings or ¾ pants are acceptable) and black socks with their usual all black school shoes. We wish all the best to the Strings students next week!

209 SOUTH PINE ROAD

The house at 209 South Pine Road has now been removed.  The block has been levelled and gravelled and will become a temporary staff carpark for the next while. A fence and boom gate are being installed for staff access and a path and stairs will be put in giving access from the back of the block to adjoin the EPAC walkway for staff to access the school. The hope is that the temporary staff car park will alleviate the congestion and staff parking in the Church, surrounding streets and at the front of the school. This is the first stage of a three-stage plan to increase the land size of the school which will enable us to increase our green space down the track.

CHAPPY WEEK

This week across Australia is Chaplaincy Week from May 22-May 26. This week is about putting a spotlight on the work of Chaplains and what they do in our schools and communities. This week we show our support of our Chappy Twinkee and the Chaplaincy Program in our school. We will hold a Green Pillar Dress up day for a gold coin donation on Friday, which will go towards Chaplaincy. We also have the Chappy Neon disco, being held in the multi-purpose court on Friday evening from 5-7pm. This is the Chaplaincy major fundraiser for the Local Chaplaincy Committee which funds the shortfall in wages for us to keep a Chaplain in our school 2 days per week. We look forward to as much community support as possible. Our school Chaplain supports our young people in navigating school life and provides a safe, positive influence for our children. Below is some information from Scripture Union who manage the Chaplains in schools around the Chaplain’s role.

PREP OPEN DAY

We will hold another Open Day in Term 3 on July 26 before our Prep Enrolment Interviews run at the end of Term 3 and beginning of Term 4. The Prep Transition and Information sessions in Term 4 will be held on November 1 and 15, which will then be followed by our final roll up afternoon on December 11.

If you know of families who live in our catchment and are hoping to come here next year, please let them know of the next Open Day in Term 3. Families who have made their decision can drop in enrolments forms to the office at any stage to enable us to get them on the system and into the communication channels for next year.

A reminder to parents that if you are requiring factual information about anything at school you should be getting that information direct from the school’s sources such as our newsletter, email, website or school Facebook page. It is not helpful for parents to be taking second hand information from other private parent Facebook groups and then distributing this information as factual. We have had a few misunderstandings recently where parents have taken information from private parent Facebook groups as fact. A reminder to parents that if you are involved with any private ESS parent Facebook groups that you ensure you are following what we teach our students and that is to “be kind and be respectful”. We would expect that parents are modelling this same behaviour on these Facebook groups. Therefore, defaming a staff member or the school on one of these sites is not only unkind but inappropriate. It is always best to go straight to the source. Stacey, Ellie and Tory who form our administration team are only too happy to answer parent requests for information either over the phone, in person or via email.

AEDC

This term our school will participate in the AEDC (Australian Early Development Census) which enables the Australian Government to collect information about early child development and how this impacts on our Prep students as they start school. The census consists of each Prep teacher completing the census tool for each child in their class. The child does not need to be present for the teacher to collect the relevant information on how they are going in five key areas including literacy, numeracy and social skills. Below is the flyer re the census. Letters were sent home to Prep parents last week via email for you to Opt Out. The Opt Out closes tomorrow as our teachers will commence the census tool on Monday.