Dear Parents and Caregivers,

STAFFING

Unfortunately, Stacey Talbot our Administration Officer will be finishing up on Friday as she is moving back to Qld Health in a part time capacity. We thank Stacey for her work here over the past 14 months as she has been a real asset to our school and will be sadly missed by staff and students alike. We wish her all the best back at Qld Health. We have a new Temporary A02 commencing in the role from next week and her name is Dal Begeda and she comes to us from Indooroopilly SHS where she has held many administration roles over the years. Dal will doing some shadowing of Stacey on Thursday and Friday this week to learn our processes here.

We also had our new Wellbeing Officer commence this week to replace Twinkee, the previous Chaplain. Alisha Pearson comes to us from the Jabiru provider and she is employed at multiple schools as a Wellbeing Officer. She will recommence breaky club and the Friday radio show in the coming weeks as she finds her feet. At the P&C meeting we will need to look at how we cover the shortfall in wages from the Federal Government grant, in lieu of not having the Local Chaplaincy Committee to look after this fundraising.

I am also pleased to report that Reynaldo Delatorre will be continuing on as our School’s Officer following the recent recruitment process. Congratulations Reynaldo!

PARENT INFORMATION SESSIONS and PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

It was great to see so many families attend the Parent Information Sessions held last Tuesday. Most groups had great attendance at both sessions with parents engaged and asking questions about the year ahead. If you were unable to attend, the teachers will send out any information provided at the session.  A reminder that if you wish to meet with the teacher individually about your child, please make an appointment through the office or by emailing the class teacher directly. 

Our first round of formal Parent Teacher Interviews for this year will be held this term in week 10 on Tuesday, 1/4/25 in EPAC between 3:15 and 7:15pm. More information will go out in the coming weeks about using the SOBS program to book your interview spots.

STUDENT LEADER INVESTITURE CEREMONY

Last week we had the pleasure of inducting our 2025 Captains and Student Council representatives into their roles for the year. It was great to have Federal MP for Brisbane, Trevor Evans attend the ceremony in lieu of Tim Mander, our State MP for Everton and our local BCC Councillor Andrew Wines, who were otherwise engaged on the day and provided their apologies.  Thank you to the parents who attended the ceremony and joined the leaders for some afternoon tea afterwards.  Thank you to Mrs Burrows who organised the ceremony. And lastly, congratulations to the new leaders as we look forward to working with them this year: 

• School Captains- Zoe Want and Miranda Aguirre
• School Vice-Captain and Student Council Chairperson- Charlotte McDonald
• House Captains- Waratah: Harry Howard and Hamish Dow, Banksia: Matias Cabrera and Harry Peart
• Arts Captains- Ella Brauer and Sienna Grice
• Class Student Council Representatives- 3A-Rosie L, 3B-Evie G, 3C-Maddie V, 4A-Sophie D, 4B-Natalia J, 5/6A-John K, 5/6B-Angus B, 5/6C-Ameliya A.

STUDENT COUNCIL PURCHASES

Last year our very industrious Student Council raised a massive $16,000 across the year and ran out of time to make their decisions around spending it at the end of the year. The first order of business for our new Student Council was to finalise the decisions from last year and move to make the purchases.  They decided to purchase another table tennis table, sunscreen for each classroom, turn the bubbler trough into a cold-water station and replace the broken basketball backboard on the multi-purpose court. What a great addition to the school these items will be for our students to enjoy. 

The new Student Council have kicked off their own fundraising for the year with their first activity which was the wellbeing activity on Valentine’s Day where they sold paper hearts to the student to send kind messages to others. They raised $270 from this activity. They are already in discussions with their classes as to what they would like to aim for this year as their legacy items.

CSI (COLLABORATIVE SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT)

Next week on Wednesday morning we will have a group of Principals from other schools along with our School Supervisor visiting our school to view our work around transitioning our teaching of reading to the new V9 Australian Curriculum processes.  They will meet with myself to hear about our journey and plans and then will be visiting some classrooms, before providing feedback to the leadership team.  This CSI process occurs throughout the year as a way of Principal’s visiting other schools to improve the practices at their school and learn from other schools.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal