Dear Parent and Caregivers,

Welcome to week 6 of term one. It is wonderful to see everyone settled in and enjoying their learning and our extra-curricular activities are now all up and running, with students trying out new clubs and activities. We are so lucky at Enoggera that our staff value these extra-curricular programs and appreciate that they devote their time to these activities, outside their rostered hours of duty.

YEAR THREE PERSUASIVE WRITERS

I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of students from class 3A recently who wanted to share their persuasive writing with me. They were trying to persuade me that Yr 3 should be allowed to use the new sandpit as research states that it would have a positive impact on their socialisation, problem solving and creativity which would assist them with their school work. They presented some really well-structured pieces of writing and were very passionate about the cause. They also shared their planning and their beautiful drawings. Well done 3A!

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS' Day (March 8)

Next Wednesday March 8th is International Women’s Day. We will be celebrating this special day at ESS by holding an event in the EPAC for our Yr 4/5/6 girls and their Mums/female caregivers. We will have a guest speaker, Sian Brownlow, who is the mum of one of our ESS families. She will be presenting around STEM careers for girls and encouraging more girls to go into these careers on offer. We look forward to seeing as many Mums/female caregivers as possible at this event as we celebrate with a morning tea after the presentation.

This week we have had the start-up meeting with the company who won the tender for building the roof over the multi-purpose court. The winning tender was from MODCON Constructions. We are told the construction will start by the start of Term 2 and will likely take 10 weeks pending rain delays. 

It is also good news that they will be doing the works from the front of the school and South Pine Road entrance so that our ovals will not be used in the construction at all, so we will not be losing our green space again. We will however, lose use of the court for Term 2 but after that, it will be a much more usable space moving forward.

The front of the school and South Pine Road access will be disrupted for the lift for this new build, we have been advised this will be only for a week - we will keep our community informed of these changes as there will be some impact on South Pine Rd parking and our off-road car park bays.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

A reminder that 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 the 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 how your child has settled into the new school year and how they are progressing with their learning in readiness for Semester One assessments.

CHAPLAINCY

We are very sad that our long standing Chappy, Sarah Petchell, is moving on to be a Chaplain in the Army. She has been a part of this community for over six years and will be sadly missed. She has done a wonderful job in creating a profile for Chaplaincy here which is demonstrated by the value and faith our community places on her and the Chaplaincy program. We wish Chappy all the best in her new role but are excited that she will continue to be involved with our school through the Local Chaplaincy Committee as the Chair for the rest of this year.  She will also be a great support to our new Chaplain who has been recruited, but we are just awaiting for the announcement.  Once announced, we hope she will be able to start as soon as possible so that we do not have a long pause in the service.

At the recent LCC meeting we voted Chappy Sarah in as the 2023 Chair, Melanie Russell to continue as the Secretary and we are still recruiting a Treasurer.  Jess Pinkerton will stay on as the Church representative.  They look forward to working closely with the school and the P and C and Student Council to continue to build the profile and understanding of the Chaplaincy service and also to fundraise for the wages gap we have to maintain a Chaplain in our school for two days per week.

STUDENT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the GRIP Student Leaders Conference at Chandler with our Captains. It was a wonderful day with our leaders having the opportunity to learn about their roles and how to lead and also having an opportunity to meet with leaders from other schools. It was a fun and action-packed day with plenty of activity, dancing and interaction. Our leaders participated fully and some of them even got to participate on the big stage in front of the whole auditorium.

OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS CARE

A reminder that Camp Australia will be taking over our OSHC from the first day of the Easter vacation on April 3rd with their Holiday program called Rocketeers.  Families who use the service for before or after school care will need to enrol with Camp Australia for care for Term 2 and also for the holiday 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.

There is more information in this newsletter about the programs on offer and how to enrol through their online portal. We are looking forward to partnering with Camp Australia to continue to offer excellent outside school hours care to our students and them becoming part of our school community, as YMCA have done for many years before them, which we are extremely grateful for.

Camp Australia will be holding a Parent Information session on 14/3 in our library where they will explain their processes and this will also be an opportunity for parents to ask questions about the new service.

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

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 recent Parent Information session held.  If you have concerns about your child participating in NAPLAN please make an appointment through the office to discuss this with me.

Till next time,

Mrs Anne Robinson

Principal