Dear Parent and Caregivers,

DAY 8

As I am sure you are aware, Day 8 of the new school year is a very important day, as this is the day that the school’s funding for the year is calculated on our enrolment numbers and student needs for the year.  I am very happy to say that our Day 8 numbers were 352 enrolments which has ensured we can maintain our current 15 class structure, staffing and processes we had predicted and strategically planned for the year.  We expect with our new building and increased capacity of 4 classrooms that our enrolment capacity will increase to 400 students, which should future proof us for the next few years. We will still maintain our tight enrolment management processes of accepting in-catchment enrolments and only limited out-of-catchment enrolments, where space allows.

NEW MISSION and VISION

Last year we did a lot of work with our staff to update the schools Mission statement and  Vision for the future to ensure we are all on the one page and working together toward the same goals.  With change in staff over recent years it was important work for our staff to all be on the same page.  You will see these around the school and on our email tags as we roll out this new work.  We have been working closely with the High Performing Teams (HPT) program and company around this work to refine our structures and processes within our school also, to ensure they align with HPT and our school Mission and Vision.

MULTI-PURPOSE ROOF

It is very exciting to announce that we have completed all of the requirements and the letter of acceptance was sent to the winning tenderer this week.  We will be meeting with them shortly to discuss when the project can start.

PARENT INFORMATION SESSIONS and PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

Recently, we held our annual Parent Information Sessions where parents attended the classrooms to meet with the teachers to hear about the new school year and the routines and expectations for their child’s class.  We thank the parents who were able to put time aside to attend and stay informed of what is happening in their child’s classroom.  If you were unable to attend our teachers will have sent home a copy of the information and handouts to you.  I would encourage you to keep the communication with your child’s teacher open to ensure positive outcomes for your children.  

The next opportunity to meet formally with your child’s teacher will be at the first round of Parent Teacher Interviews for this semester, which will be held this term on Tuesday, 21/3/23 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.  These interviews go for 15 minutes each and will be an opportunity for our teachers to report to you on how your child has settled into the new school year and how they are progressing with their learning in readiness for Semester One assessments.

STUDENT LEADER INVESTITURE CEREMONY

It was lovely to see our 2023 leaders receive their badges of office and undertake their leadership oaths at our recent Student Leader Investiture Ceremony. We are looking forward to working closely with our new team to progress our wonderful school this year.  Already they have come to their first meeting full of great ideas and with some funding behind them, due to the great work of last year’s Student Council.  They are currently working on their year plan to be presented to the P and C shortly.  The plan will map out their fundraising and plans for the year to ensure they do not clash with the P and C events.

The legacy project from our 2022 student council was a buddy bench and a cool water bubbler.  Since we already have some cool water bubblers at the new building they have decided to move ahead with the buddy bench.  Chappy Sarah has kindly offered to donate us a parting gift of a second buddy bench, so that we can have one for the Junior grades and one for the Senior grades.  We are looking at quotes now and positioning options for the benches to go in as soon as possible.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

Next week I will be attending the GRIP Student Leadership Conference at Chandler Stadium with our Captains. We attended this conference last year and our captains took away some great leadership learnings to assist them with their roles throughout the year.  More information about the program can be found at:

https://www.gripleadership.com.au/

OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS CARE

Camp Australia are preparing to take over on the April 3, the first day of the Easter School Holiday program with their popular Rocketeers program. Below is the partnership announcement and there is further information in this newsletter around registering for Camp Australia and also booking in for the Easter Holidays.

FULL SCHOOL REVIEW

A reminder that as 2023 is the final year of our 2020-2023 Strategic Plan, this 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 commencing on March 28, just after the completion of NAPLAN for the year. We are currently in the process of planning for the three reviewers to be in our school for the three days from 28-30^th March.  As part of the review the reviewers will be speaking with most staff, students, our educational partners and also P and C, School Council and parents and community members. 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

COMMITTEES

It is great to see all of our extra-curricular clubs and activities back up and running with an array of activities for students to participate in at break times.  Our environmental sustainability club (Sustainability Stars) have been very busy getting the worm farms, recycling and gardens functioning.  They were very pleased to see some planting done before the holidays has produced some large rockmelons, as per the picture below.  These have been donated to the tuckshop to use in the fruit salad. Well done to Mrs Kent and these students for the great work they do in our school. They are very proud to be wearing their green vests when working around the school.

Our Pink Vest leaders are also doing an excellent job supporting staff with supervision at break times by setting up activities and supporting students to play nicely with each other.  They are also very proud of the pink vests. Mrs Burrows has been so busy timetabling and training them that she has enlisted the support of Ms Kerr to assist with their support and management.

NAPLAN

This term we will undertake NAPLAN testing for our Yr 3 and 5 students online between March 15 and 27.  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.  Mrs O’Malley has added some information to this newsletter and also sent out an email to the Yr 3 and 5 parents about NAPLAN and the coming Parent Information session next Monday at 4pm in the school library.  If you have concerns about your child participating in NAPLAN please make an appointment through the office to discuss this with me.

SPORT REPRESENTATION

Well done to the eleven students who recently represented out school at the City District Swimming Carnival and especially to the two students who have been selected to move forward to the next stage and represent City District at the Metropolitan Regional Swimming Championships.  Congratulations to Layla and Sienna Grice for their selection.

We have also had many students attending trials for a range of Winter sports and wish these students all the best at the trials.  A reminder that Mr Woodrick is now our HPE Teacher and is managing the Sports programs and is also our representative at the City District Meetings. If you have any questions around representative sport please contact Mr Woodrick.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal