Dear Parent and Caregivers,

LEARNING CURVE

This week our Learning Curve program is from the ‘Relationships and Empathy’ Wellbeing element. The wellbeing skill builder is ‘Copying Each Other’ in Prep to Year 2 and ‘Mirror Copying’ in Years 3-6. The P-2 lessons are about how we as humans naturally learn by copying how others feel and act. We do most of our learning by watching somebody else first. For example, when a coach shows you how to do a sports movement it helps you to know what to do because your brain learns about it and can then copy it.

For the Yr 3-6 students the focus is about how the mirror neurons in our brain copy how other people feel and act. For example, if we are around angry or unhappy people our brain will mirror that and you will become angry and unhappy too. So, the challenge for us is to always be a positive person and to project positive emotions that will spread happy feelings.

These concepts were introduced on assembly this week and are being taught in the Health lessons with Miss Dunstan and followed up in classrooms. Our Yr 3-6 students continue to track their progress in their Learning Curve diaries. The parent newsletter is attached below.

Primary_wk10_Parent_Newsletter_Article_2025.pdf

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Thank you to our wonderful teachers who gave their time last night to conduct our Semester One Parent Teacher interview's. Thank you also to the parents who were able to attend as it was wonderful to see and feel the positive vibe in the EPAC once again, as teachers, students and parents focussed on the learning conversations and how our students can continue to improve this semester.   

Thank you also to Mrs Burrows (flight attendant extraordinaire) who stepped up to coordinate the evening in Mrs O’Malley’s absence. She did a great job keeping the proceedings ticking along on schedule. We look forward to our students taking on their feedback to continue to work hard for the grades they are aiming for this semester and our teachers and parents supporting them with their Semester One learning goals.

ANNUAL IMPLEMENTATION PLAN (AIP) PRIORITIES FOR 2025

Our AIP for 2025 has now been endorsed by the School Council and also by our School Supervisor ready for sharing and publishing. The AIP will go up on the school website this week as part of the required publishing of the plan. The priorities for our AIP come directly from our Strategic Plan 2024-2027 and the actions to implement those strategies are just adjusted slightly each year in the AIP based on progress and any changing needs. 

Below is a snapshot of the priorities from our Strategic Plan in our AIP this year.  For more details around the actions below each priority, please view the full plan in detail attached below and available on the website.

ESS_AnnualImpPlan_2025.pdf

INFRASTRUCTURE

Over the coming school holidays as usual there will be works undertaken at our school. The front of our school will get a new facelift and increased security with our pool fence along the stop drop and go being replaced with the new 8 foot high DoE security fencing that you may have seen at other schools. This is a start in getting new fencing around the whole school perimeter. We are still trying to get on the fencing program for this to happen, but it is a start at least.

The rest of the works around the B and C block refurbishment program will also be completed with the new classroom doors, autext operable walls between classrooms and noticeboards going in as well as paint touch ups and some other minor repairs.

We also have some stormwater work being done down the side of the school site between C Block, the pool and the church fence to allow water to get away better and not pool around the water tanks.  In addition to this there is some work also being done on the multi-purpose court to ascertain and correct an issue with the ridge caps and sheeting which has been allowing water to get in and pool on the court in heavy weather.

A reminder that over the holidays if you see any suspicious activity at the school you should report this to School Watch at 131788 as below.

2026 PREP ENROLMENTS

We will be commencing our 2026 Prep enrolment process with our first Open Morning of the year next term on May 2 from 9-11am. The morning is for all prospective ESS families and will commence with a presentation in EPAC with a Q&A at the end, then a tour of the school facilities. Families wishing to enrol a Prep student for 2026 can collect an enrolment pack from the Administration office and return the completed enrolment form at any time. At this stage we are accepting enrolments for in-catchment families only. If you are out-of-catchment and wishing to enrol for 2026 you can complete a waiting list form and we will be in touch later in the year as enrolments for 2026 are firmed up and we determine if there are any spaces remaining.

P&C AGM

Last week after the March General Meeting, the Annual General Meeting was held to elect the new P&C Executive for 2025. I thank the current outgoing executive for their tireless work for the P&C and school and particularly for the legacy they have left the school with the erection of the multi-purpose court roof and lights. Debbie Brauer has stepped down as Treasurer after 4 years in the role and Jess Wall stepped down as Secretary after 1 year in the role. We thank them whole-heartedly for the work they have done and the difference they have made to the students of this school.

The newly elected Executive moving forward for 2025 are:

President – Mel Russell

Vice-President- Xavier Carah

Treasurer- Shane Evans

Secretary- Rita Carrick

We wish our new executive team all the best and I look forward to working closely with them over the coming year.  It is great to see some members of the executive continuing on and also some new faces joining the P and C as members and executive for this year.

TEACHING OF READING V9

Following on from the V9 Reading information in the past two newsletters with links to the parent handout and also the recorded parent twilight PD session (links below again), this fortnight I would like to share some of the changes and work around the assessment of reading that will be gradually introduced with the changes.

https://mediasite.eq.edu.au/mediasite/Play/d5a99b04712b44758dc85854bde46a3c1d

https://det-school.eq.edu.au/assets/reading/documents/reading-parent-brochure.pdf

Moving forward with v9 Australian Curriculum Reading will continue to be explicitly taught and assessed as part of the curriculum with Reading assessment tasks developed as part of the curriculum.  These tasks will provide the A-E Reading assessment data which goes towards a students’ grade in English on the report card each semester and will provide consistency of assessment within and across schools. 

In addition to this, there will be a variety of other ways that our teachers will track and monitor students’ skills and progress aligned to the evidenced base ‘Simple View of Reading’ and ‘Scarborough’s Reading Rope’ components.   This semester we will be using the following methods, but this will change and morph as we move further towards the full implementation of the V 9 Reading within the AC.

As we progress further into our action plan toward full implementation of all elements for 2026 we will continue to share more specific information about how you can support your child to read at home and about the changes to the way we are teaching reading at school. Currently our students are still participating in three reading groups per week where they are focused on levelled texts at their level or decodables and the conversations around these texts (dialogic reading) to develop decoding, comprehension and fluency skills. We are also continuing to send home readers (decodables or predictable texts as they are ready) and library books for students to read at home. We ask that parents continue to read and discuss these texts with their children to develop their decoding skills, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency. In addition to this, students are also participating in explicit teaching of the reading components in class as part of their English units of work using texts from these units.

STUDENT COUNCIL PURCHASES

Our Student Council have spent the money raised from last year with the provision of sunscreen to every classroom, the new basketball backboard on the multi-court, a new table tennis table to be installed this week, plus they have also selected a new water-cooling system and the artwork for it at their meeting this week after evaluating the quotes and pros and cons of each system quoted. They are very excited to see the system below being installed. The new system will be installed under D Block and replacing one of the old bubbler troughs there. The system will include 3 bubblers and 3 bottle fillers. The artwork students have chosen for the bubblers is a Luke Penrith Aboriginal Artist Collaboration called ‘Connection’ which depicts a story of connection and harmony. This artwork captures where freshwater rivers meeting the salty sea. This symbolises the interconnectedness of life and the vital role water plays in our communities.

RECONCILIATION ACTION PLAN

At our recent School Council meeting the School Council expressed an interest in creating a Reconciliation Action Plan for our school. To develop this plan we first of all need to create a working party of interested community members, parents and staff to work together on this project. If you are interested in being part of this group please email principal@enoggerass.eq.edu.au It is envisaged that this group would need to meet a few times over coming months either face to face or on TEAMS to identify what strategies we already have in place toward the path to reconciliation and to plan and document our next steps moving forward.

EASTER BREAK

After a busy Term One we wish all of our families a lovely relaxing Easter break and we look forward to seeing everyone back for Term two on Tuesday April 22. Even though that is a very short 3 day week it will be action packed with the rescheduled cross country event on the Wednesday and our ANZAC Ceremony on the Thursday morning.

Happy Holidays!

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal