Principal Pen
Dear Parent and Caregivers,
It certainly is a busy time at present at ESS. With final assessment and reporting underway and end of year events on the horizon, such as swimming carnivals, Volunteer Morning Tea, student leader speeches and voting, roll up afternoon, break up days etc, it is most important we stay in routine as much as possible as we come into these last two weeks of the school year. We will be endeavouring to keep students in their usual routine at school and keep them learning and revising right into the last week of term before we finish up for a well-deserved summer holiday.
ARTS ON STAGE
Last Friday night we were entertained with all of our outstanding extra-curricular Arts activities, including the choirs, recorder band, string ensembles, dance troupe and our amazing Wakakirri group. It was wonderful to see a packed house enjoying the quality of the items as they performed the culmination of a year’s hard work. Of course, we cannot run these programs with out the dedication and commitment of our amazing and talented Arts staff as they work incredibly hard with our students to get them to this standard. They have been well-supported by the rest of the staff as we all work together to showcase the talents of our students. We especially thank Mrs Wilcox and Ms Hopper as this is their last Arts on Stage with us, as we bid them farewell at the end of the year and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.
BUILDING UPDATE
Well this fortnight I have some good news and some bad news to share. The good news is that there will be no disruption to the car park or stop drop and go zone on Sth Pine Rd before the end of the year, as there has been a delay so the final works on this project will happen after we have finished for the year. However, there may be some impact on those families using the YMCA OSHC service in the first week of the holidays.
Consequently, the bad news is that the building will not be handed over to us before we break up for the holidays. We were anticipating a December 8 practical completion and handover, but just this week at our last meeting it was revealed that this would now not be possible, due to further delays in the arrival of required materials. Our furniture still arrives on the 30th November and this will be allowed to go into the building, but that is all. This will mean some changes in plans for our roll up afternoon and our clean up and move day on the last day of term and will mean we cannot move teaching resources or set up the new rooms before the holidays as this will need to happen in the Student Free Day week commencing 16th January.
REMEMBRANCE DAY
On 11/11 at 11am we commemorated Remembrance Day with a lovely message about the importance of the day over the PA from Mrs Burrows, whilst I laid a wreath with the School Captains and the Defence students laid poppies which were created by Prep C. It was a lovely opportunity to show our respects in a low key but ever so respectful way.
PRINCIPAL’S ASSEMBLY (at 9am)
On Monday December 5, we will hold our Semester Two Principal’s Assembly to close out the 2023 school year. At this assembly we present awards under our Three Pillars for Academic Effort, Demonstrating School Pride and Demonstrating Positive Behaviours to each class. We will also be announcing the 2023 Student Leaders and be conducting an official changeover. We look forward to as many parents as possible joining us for this final gathering of the whole school for this year.
EXCURSIONS
Our excursions and camps for this term are all complete now with our final excursion this week with our Yr 2 students attending the Samford Historical Museum, as part of their History unit of work this term. From all reports they had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits on display and the planned activities.
ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING
A reminder that our final student reports for Semester Two will go home via email on Thursday December 8. These emails come from One School so please make sure this email does not go into your junk mail. We have been working hard this semester to ensure there is more consistency in the reports across the school and therefore have introduced some more consistent processes for comments on the reports. This just means that all reports across the school should have a similar look and approach to them.
When the report arrives it is a great opportunity to spend some time unpacking it with your children as they reflect on the school year. It is important to make this a positive but reflective exercise and that together you can set some goals for improvement for the following year. This will give your children something to work towards and look forward to with the new school year just around the corner.
FULL SCHOOL REVIEW
As 2023 is the final year of our 2020-2023 Strategic Plan, 2023 will be the year of our Quadrennial School Review where we take information and feedback from all stakeholders to assist in developing the strategic plan for the school for the next 4 years, 2024-2027. As part of that process our school will undertake a Full School Review from the EIB Education Improvement Board to feed into that process. We have been notified that our review will be very early in the school year commencing on March 28, just after the completion of NAPLAN for the year. Early in the new year I will provide all stakeholders with more information about this review and how they may be involved in it. The link below will take you to a fact sheet for parents and community members.
https://schoolreviews.education.qld.gov.au/review/Documents/parent_community-factsheet.pdf
PREP TRANSITION
We have now completed our Prep Transition program for this year. The final stage of the process will be sending out a letter to all Prep families in the last week of school explaining who their teacher is and what class they will be in next year as well as some helpful tips and reminders for the first day of school. A reminder that if you have a Prep student to enrol for next year or you know of any moving into the area please reach out to them to enrol before the holidays.
YEAR BOOK
This year our school took on the creation of our first whole school year book in partnership with our school photographers, MSP. The year book features a comprehensive record of the school year at Enoggera State School including a feature on each class, specialist subject area, extra-curricular activity and event as well as a special feature on our graduating students. We will be gifting a copy of the year book to our graduating Yr 6 students at the Graduation Ceremony on Thursday, December 8, but will also have them for sale for other families to purchase. We hope to continue the tradition of creating a year book each year moving forward. We have 100 of the books being delivered next week and so the first 60 families that order will receive their copy before the holidays. A further order will be placed after that for delivery at the start of school next year. The order form is attached below requiring it to be returned to school and payment to be made by next Friday, December 2.
VOLUNTEERS MORNING TEA
On Monday morning 28/11 at 10:30am in the Staff room in E Block we will thank our volunteers for their unwavering support this school year. If you have volunteered this year, whether that has been for the P and C, Tuckshop, Swimming, Excursions or in the classroom, please RSVP to the office, as we would love to have a cuppa with you to say thank you for your support.
Till next time,
Mrs Anne Robinson
Principal