Dear Parent and Caregivers,

NAPLAN RESULTS

Recently schools received access to our Yr 3 and 5 students’ 2021 NAPLAN online preliminary results, so as a leadership team we are commencing the process of unpacking these results.  NAPLAN test results provide us information on how our students are performing in the areas of literacy and numeracy to support improvements in teaching and learning.  The information also gives schools and systems the ability to measure their students’ achievements against national minimum standards and student performance in other states.

By our next newsletter I will be able to give our school community some generalised feedback about our school’s performance this year as compared to previous years.  Whilst we sat the online test for the first year this year, it will be interesting for our leadership team to determine areas of difference between performance of the paper tests as compared to the online test, which may also inform our future preparation and teaching focusses.

Once final data is released the individual student reports will be sent to the school for distribution to parents of students who sat the online testing this year.

COVID-19

Whilst the threat of COVID-19 is ongoing so close to home we must continue to be reminded of the current restrictions and guidelines for schools:

• Whilst parents and visitors are now allowed on site please be reminded that masks must be worn inside at all times and also outside unless you are socially distanced. Another reminder to parents to not congregate at school gates before or after school and to make use of the supervised Stop, Drop and Go zones at the front and back of the school.
• If you, or a member of your family, is feeling unwell or displaying known symptoms of COVID-19 please get tested, stay home and isolate until you get the results and your symptoms resolve.
• The current School and Early Childhood Service Exclusion Direction states that where the Principal, staff member or Teacher reasonably suspects that a child is unwell the parent is to be notified and the child is to be removed from the school as soon as practicable.

PRINCIPAL VISIT

Last week I was lucky enough to have some visitors to my office to share their latest writing samples with me.  Molly and Lara were very excited to share the work they had been doing around creating new animal characters for their story.  As part of their current English unit of work, they are exploring animal characters and how they reflect human qualities and as part of their assessment for this unit of work the students have to create a literary text which includes an animal character with these human qualities and be able to talk about it.  The girls did a great job with the characters they had created and were very animated in how they were able to talk about their characters and what they were like.  Well done 1A!

PREP ENROLMENT

This week we held the first of our open mornings for the 2022 school year.  I encourage all families who are considering enrolling at our school for 2022 to attend an open morning to hear about our great school and tour the facilities, as individual school tours at alternative times are difficult. The final open morning will be next week on Tuesday, September 7 from 9-10 am commencing in the EPAC on Laurel St, with a general talk about our school and the programs we have on offer by the Principal, Deputy Principal and Head of Department-Curriculum which is followed by a tour and then morning tea outside the tuckshop thanks to our lovely P and C. 

Following that will be the Prep enrolment interviews with a member of the Administration team for those families that want to enrol a Prep student for 2022.  These interviews will be held in the last two weeks of this term between September 6^th and September 17^th and will be able to be booked through the SOBS booking system by each enrolled family at a time that suits them.  At that interview we will collect some information about the child entering Prep and check that all of the enrolment paperwork is in order and provide information around the rest of the enrolment and transition process. We do ask that the enrolling Prep child attends the interview with their parent.

Following the enrolment process then in Term 4 we will hold transition afternoons and information sessions which will focus specifically on preparing the child for Prep and also providing all of the necessary information about the Prep program to the parents.  If you have any questions about the Prep enrolment process for 2022 please call the Administration office.

Till next time,

Anne Robinson
Principal

It is hard to believe that it has almost been 3 weeks since I arrived at Enoggera State School.  I am so grateful for the warm welcome by the school community.  Over the last three weeks, I have been very impressed with so many aspects of the school.  As I have visited classrooms I am delighted by the quality teaching and learning.  When I am walking around the school grounds and on playground duty, I am warmed by the respectfulness and kindness of the students.  At my first assembly, I was overwhelmed by the amazing facility of the EPAC and the confidence of the school leaders who ran the assembly.   Everyday I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of such a friendly and thriving school and I look forward to each new experience that I have here.   

Volleyball Cup

Today our Year 5/6 Volleyball teams will travel to Craigslea State School to participate in the Volleyball cup.  They will attend with Mr Roxburgh, Mr Woodrick, Mrs Jardine and Penny.  I have seen our teams out practising on the oval and we wish them luck in the competition. 

STOP, DROP and GO 

A reminder to parents that the success of the STOP, DROP and GO areas  both at the front of the school and on Laurel Street, are dependent on parents not parking and getting out of their vehicles.  Students will be directed by the staff on duty to move to the front two waiting cars allowing the following cars to move to the front of the line to pick up their children keeping the traffic moving relatively quickly.   This avoids safety issues with cars further back in the line attempting to pull out into the traffic.   Students are being encouraged to move quickly to the STOP, DROP and GO areas after school to ensure they are there waiting for when their parents to arrive.   Parents can help by clearly displaying their family name on their visor so the supervising staff member can call for the student to go to the car.   We thank you for your attention to this process to improve the efficiency of this service.

BEFORE SCHOOL 

Before school processes are in place for our students who are permitted to wait under D Block before school and are supervised by staff.   Parents are asked to wait with their children under E Block if they choose to come onto the school grounds when there are no restrictions in place.   Other students can also sit under E Block as well but this is not a play space but only a sitting area.  Students wanting to play handball or games are not permitted to play under E Block at all.  Students can play handball under D Block and on the pathways to the Library.  Students are also permitted to skip and play games on the softfall area. The forts are out of bounds before school for play. 

Tina Burrows
Deputy Principal

Dear Parents,

Hasn’t term 3 just flown by, its already week 8 and we only have 2 weeks to go until the September break.

This term we have an extremely busy covering learning material in our four Key Learning Areas of English, Maths, Science and HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences);

The Term 3 English unit has students writing a letter to themselves 30 to 50 years into the future. To assist, we have watched some historical recounts of a Australian TV show called, “My Place”. As we watched the snippets of video, it was really interesting to look at how schooling, society and technology has changed over similar periods of time in our wonderful country. The letter to the future will highlight our thoughts and feelings on school and home life, social and free time activities and how we use technology today. Some of the more interesting questions students are asking themselves in the future are about; robot teachers, phones that have 50 or more cameras, and the end of pandemics and climate change. 

Maths this term we have focused on money and financial mathematics, number and place value, locations and transformations, patterns and algebra and units of measurement.

Students have been busy working out percentage discounts (lookout mid-year specials!!!), plotting points on a Cartesian plane, strategies for double digit multiplication, adding and subtracting a range of fractions, as well as interactive math problem solving activities all term long.

In Science students have been explored how sudden geological changes and extreme weather events can affect Earth’s surface. They have been considering the effects of events such as earthquakes and volcanoes on Earth’s surface and how communities are affected by these events. They have gathered, recorded and interpreted data relating to weather and weather events. Students will have also constructed representations of cyclones and evaluate community and personal decisions related to preparation for natural disasters. They will have investigated how predictions regarding the course of tropical cyclones can be improved by gathering data.

In HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) the students have been looking at Australia (and its neighbours) in a diverse world. We are focusing our attention on locating places on the map by using Latitude and Longitude reference points (don’t throw away your Google Maps just yet!). Analysing a wide range data to find trends, similarities and differences and ways we can compare human and environmental characteristics of various locations in Australia and Asia.

School camp is only a few weeks away and we are all looking forward to it. Mudjimba Apex camp will be so much fun! Our bunk buddies have been organised and our activity groups are all set. We've got our “what to bring list” so let's just hope we don't forget anything!

With every passing week we are getting a little closer to the end of our primary school journey. While we sometimes feel a little sad, our teachers are doing a great job in getting us ready for our transition to high school life.

Please don’t forget to read the newsletter to keep up-to-date with important events. Below are some key events coming up in the following few weeks;

• Volleyball Cup (Thursday 2^nd September)
• Parent Teacher interviews (7^th September)
• Year 6 Camp; Week 10 (15-17^th September)

Finally, thank you for your ongoing support, please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or queries your may have throughout the remainder of the term.

Darren Roxburgh and Andrew Woodrick
Year 6 Teachers

Wakakirri

Bully Zero Live Webinar (Wakakirri National Award Recipients)

Thank you Wakakirri and Bully Zero Victoria for organising a Live Webinar for our students. The webinar, SafetyNet, focussed on being safe online and complimented learning in the areas of Digital Technologies and the ICT General Capabilities. It was a great session for our students. The content included:

• What is cyberbullying? When an individual or group uses technology to repeatedly and intentionally hurt or harm a person or group (Bully Zero).
• Staying safe and healthy – removing blue light before bed, limiting screen time, asking permission before posting others’ images and being mindful.
• Where to go for help.

Of particular interest was social media. Around 50% of students indicated that they were using some form of social media platform including Snapchat, Instagram and/or TikTok. Students were asked to rethink their usage as account holders should be 13 years or older.

Just a reminder that our Wakakirri Live Performance is now on Monday 18^th October.

Chookas team
Melissa Wilcox and the Waka team

As we race towards the end of Term, there are a number of events currently in the planning in the world of sport. 

As always if you have any questions relating to sport, please email me at jjard16@eq.edu.au and I will endeavour to answer them or find out the answers from the relevant group.  

City District Cricket Team

Congratulations to Adam Noon for his selection in the City District Cricket Team.  All the best at the upcoming Regional Trials to be held on 8^th and 9^th

September.

Volleyball Cup

Volleyball Cup is to be held on Thursday 2^nd at Craigslea State High School.  We have 7 teams registered for this event. Teams will be accompanied by Mr Roxburgh, Mr Woodrick, Mrs Jardine and Mrs Fitzpatrick.  All the best to those teams. 

Gala Sports – Term 4

Year 5 and 6 Students will be participating in Gala Sports in Term 4.  This involved full days of sport at various venues around Brisbane on the first three Fridays of Term 4. Our chosen sports are Touch and T20 (Cricket). Permission Forms have been sent home and Q Parents will be updated with invoices in the coming days. Please ensure permission forms are returned to your students class teacher by Friday 17^th September and payments are made by that time. 

District Sport Trials – Term 3:

District team sports trials for the year have almost all been completed. Cricket is the last remaining trial, with the Girls Cricket Trials on Thursday 9^th September.  All the best to students participating in those trial.

Swimming – Term 4

Reminder that school swimming will recommence in Term 4, more details on timetabling to follow in the coming weeks. Students will need the same equipment they had for Term 1.

• Swimmers
• Sunshirt
• Swimming Cap
• Towel
• Goggles (if they wish to wear them)

Please make sure you are naming all equipment and school uniforms to support returning of lost items.

Key Dates – this term.

• Primary Schools Volleyball Cup – Thursday 2^nd September

MUSIC NEWS

2022 Strings Recruitment

We are nearing the final stages of our selection for first round offers for the 2022 Strings program. Year 2 students who submitted their Expression of Interest form will be considered for the first round offers. Once the list is finalised offers will be sent out.

Choir and Recorder performances

Our next performances for Senior and Junior Choir and Recorder Ensemble will be our 150th Family Fun Day on Saturday 9th October. Further information will be provided in the coming weeks. 

Mariel Hopper
Specialist Music Teacher
mxhop2@eq.edu.au

What a wonderful success BOOK WEEK was. Listed below are the Children’s Book Council of Australia BOOK OF THE YEAR Winners. 

BOOK OF THE YEAR: Younger Readers

Aster’s Good, Right Things by Kate Gordon

BOOK OF THE YEAR: Early Childhood

No! Never! by Libby Hawthorn and Lisa Hathorn-Jarman (illus. by Mel Pearce)

PICTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR

How to Make a Bird by Matt Ottley (illus. by Meg McKinlay)

EVE POWNALL AWARD

Dry to Dry: Seasons of Kakadu by Pamela Freeman (illus. Liz Anelli)

CBCA AWARD FOR NEW ILLUSTRATOR

This Small Blue Dot by Zeno Sworder

We have all of these books in the school library and I’m sure they are going to be very popular.

We also enjoyed daily activities in the library at lunchtime. Monday saw us making Oil Pastel night drawings from “THERE’S NO SUCH THING” and emotion seed pods from “NO! NEVER!”, Tuesday had us embracing scratch art hands to celebrate our families with “WHO’S YOUR REAL MUM?”, Wednesday was sock puppets to get rid of our “WORRY MONSTERS”, Thursday was realising that an “ANEMONE is not our enemy” and Friday we created our own ELLIE’S DRAGON’s” eye, to watch over us.

Congratulations to our prize Winners for highest class borrowers are PrepA Luke, PrepB Lottie, Curtis, Abeer, Starla, Prep/1 Elka J, Year 1 Willow V, Year1/2 Modamsuvee, Year 2A Isla C, Year 2B Dakoda, Year 3A Ethan M, Year 3B, Year 4A Penny R, Year 4/5 Sai K, Year 5A Heidi F, Year 6A Ellia S, Year 6B Matilda C.

PREMIER’S READING CHALLENGE

The Premier’s Reading Challenge has now finished and all completed forms need to be returned by the end of this week. You can either return them to your classroom teacher or directly to the library. If they are received after the 2^nd September they will not be able to be submitted.

Thank you to everyone who embraced the CHALLENGE to read.

OVERDUE BOOKS

We still have a fair few overdue books from the first half of the year. If your child has overdue books could you please help them look for them and return to the library as soon as possible.  Happy Reading  

Shannon Green
ESS Library