Dear Parents/Caregivers

I hope that our Enoggera families have fared well with the extreme weather event over the weekend, and have managed to remain safe and dry. With more severe weather forecast, we will remain vigilant with monitoring the weather and government directions. We certainly look forward to getting back into our normal school routines in the very near future, and apologise for the inconvenience to families.

Infrastructure
Unfortunately, due to the weather, our contractors for the new building have been delayed in setting up the compound to start work. This is due to them not being able to get the temporary fencing, but I am sure as things settle across Brisbane, they will be able to get started in the next week or so. We will keep you updated on the progress of the building as we receive updates.

COVID Reminders
A reminder that the current restrictions in schools will be wound back from Monday March 7, where we will see assemblies, events and gatherings resume. We welcome all parents back onto the site again,  following the COVID safe guidelines and social distancing. 

Our Prep students will stay at school for the full school day until 3pm, but we will continue with the current arrangements where they are lining up in the morning as per the rest of the school.  We usually work towards this later in the term, but as we have already implemented this arrangement and they are doing so well, we will continue as it reduces congestion on verandahs and stairways.

We will reduce the supervision on the walk-in gates in the mornings, but will continue to monitor the "Stop Drop and Go" on South Pine Road and offer supervision under D Block.  The same rules will continue in the mornings, and that is that only students with parents will be seated under E Block and all other students are to sit quietly under D Block where staff supervision is provided.  As per usual there should not be students and parents waiting in other areas before school.

Thank you for your understanding, as we continue to work together during this difficult and unprecedented time.

School Assemblies
We have decided since we have missed our face to face assemblies all term thus far,  to change the weeks for the remainder of the term.  So we will have face to face assemblies on Monday afternoons in EPAC starting on Monday 7 March and concluding for the term on Monday 21 March at 2:15pm.  This will allow important information to be presented to the students re the Colour Run, school expectations and other activities.  We will continue to invite parents of students who are receiving awards.

New Staff
We have a number of new staff this year who have joined the team at ESS.  Today I profile three of our new staff who have joined us this year. Mrs Harris who is teaching 4B, comes to us from Cairns. Mrs Egerton who is teaching Prep B, comes to us from Mackay and Miss Miceli, who is our Inclusion teacher, and comes to us from Crestmead State School in Logan. All of these ladies are very experienced educators, and we welcome them to ESS.  We look forward to profiling our other new staff in further newsletters.

Parent Teacher Interviews
We have moved the Parent Teacher Interviews back to week 10 on March 29, due to a clash with the P&C AGM on the 22^nd March.  The interviews will be able to take place face to face in EPAC from 3:15-7:35 on this evening, and bookings will be available through SOBS for a 10 minute targeted conversation with your child’s teacher. It would be great for parents to bring their child to the interview, so that they can be involved in the conversation about their learning. This is moving toward a three-way conferencing model which is considered best practice for these interactions. Of course, students that attend will need to be fully supervised by their parents in EPAC, and not riding and playing around the school.

Assistant Regional Director Visit
Amongst everything this week, we also hosted a visit from our Assistant Regional Director, Mr Rob Van Den Heuvel.  He spent time with me discussing our strategic plans and budgets for the year,  and also visited two classrooms to look at our Learning Wall initiative.  Learning Walls are displays in classrooms, to help students understand the unit expectations and also include a "Bump It Up" component, which help students to understand what is needed to bump up their assessment to an A or B grading.  This initiative will help us with our priority to move more capable students into achieving A and B grades in English for the semester,  as per our ‘like schools’. It was lovely when we visited 1A and 1B to look at their great Learning Walls, and for Mr Van Den Heuvel to sit with students and discuss the current English unit, the Learning Wall and how it is helping them with their learning. The picture below is Mr Van Den Heuvel talking with Sydney from 1A.

 

Outside School Hours Care Service
Our school Outside School Hours Care service is currently at the end of its current agreement with YMCA.  At the recent P&C Association meeting the P&C was given the option to take on the service as part of their portfolio,  but at the meeting declined the offer to run the service. Therefore, it will now go up for tender through the DoE procurement process.  This process will likely take 3 months to implement and the successful tender will be decided by a panel including myself as the Chair, the Deputy Principal and/or Business Manager and a representative from the P&C Association.

Student Council and School Leader Investiture Ceremony
I am pleased to announce that due to the restrictions easing next week, and assemblies and gatherings being able to resume,  that we have set a date for the 2022 Student Leader Investiture Ceremony for student leaders who are being invested into Captains and Student Council positions.  The ceremony will take place in EPAC as a special assembly for Yr 3-6 classes and parents of student leaders being invited.  The ceremony will commence at 2pm on March 14.  Special invitations will be sent home to parents of students being invested into their new roles. 

Kind Regards

Anne Robinson
Principal

Deputy Principal Pen
What a challenging start to the year it has been!  Who would have ever predicted that we would have yet more school closures in Term One due to flooding after the pandemic closure!  Hopefully, things will now return to normal and we can continue with our learning for the remainder of this term.   The students are to be commended for their resilience and flexibility as they take each of these challenges in their stride, and return to school enthusiastic to be in their classrooms and learning. 

Facebook
Our school has a very active Facebook page with daily posts to keep our school community informed of what is happening in our school.  Our events are posted throughout the term to allow parents time to be prepared for the term ahead.  We encourage all of our parents to follow our page so you can enjoy the wonderful experiences our school has to offer.  The more you interact with the page by liking and commenting on posts, the more our page will appear in your newsfeed.  A reminder that Facebook is not the best platform to ask questions that you need immediate or urgent replies to as we don’t always see questions in the comment sections of a post.   This is best done by emailing the teacher/admin or calling the office.  Facebook is also not a site for posting complaints or negative comments about staff or school processes.  If you have some constructive feedback for the school or an issue that you would like to raise, we would respectfully ask that you make an appointment to speak with the Principal to discuss your concerns.   Any inappropriate comments will be removed from the platform.

A friendly reminder to parents that to ensure the Stop, Drop and Go Zone at South Pine Road (in the car park) is successful, it is essential that drivers proceed all the way to the last gate where a staff member is waiting to open the gate for students. Parents are unable to leave their vehicles in this area to walk their students into under the buildings as it causes congestion to the flow of traffic and becomes a safety issue. Please do not drop your students at the first gate either as this causes cars to have to go around your vehicle and again causes issues with the traffic flow.  This gate is now locked at drop off time.  Thanks for your support with our safe drop-off. Stop, Drop and Go

The expectation is the same for Laurel St Stop, Drop and Go.  Please do not park in this zone and leave your vehicle as it doesn’t allow for the traffic to flow.  It is important to continually move your car to the front of the zone to allow cars to move in behind you.   Our staff are working hard to ensure the safety of our students as they leave the school grounds and we appreciate your support with this by following our pick-up and drop-off processes.

Bullying No Way!

The National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence is coming up on Friday 18^th March.  In recognition of this day, School Performance Tours have been booked to perform their show, “Let’s STAMP Out Bullying”. This show is for all students across our school and will be held on Friday 18^th March at 9am in the EPAC.  Students have already brought permission notes home for parents to sign and return.   The cost of the show is $5.00 per student and payment is due by March 11.   In support of the anti-bullying message, our students are permitted to wear an orange t-shirt to school on Friday 18 March.  Our school proudly supports the National Day of Action Against Bullying and Violence.

Easter Bonnet Parade!
Save the date!  Prep and Year 1 students will be participating in their Easter Bonnet Parade on the last day of school Friday 1^st April at 9am in the EPAC. More details will be provided in upcoming newsletters!

Behaviour Focus
Next Week on Assembly, our behaviour focus will be around the Pillar of Learning.  To be a responsible learner, it is important that our students listen to and act on teacher feedback.  Our students are currently working on their assessment writing tasks and part of the writing cycle is for students to draft, revise and edit their work based on explicit teacher feedback. This ensures that students are challenging themselves to improve in their skills and are reaching their learning goals.   Please take a moment to have a conversation with your children about their writing task and discuss the importance of feedback to improving their skills and outcomes.  Messages coming from both teachers and parents have the most impact!

Parent Teacher Interviews
With the easing of restrictions around Covid – 19 Parent Teacher Interviews will be conducted in a face to face format on Tuesday March 29 from 3:15 – 7:40pm in the EPAC.  Interviews will be 10 minutes in duration and are designed to provide an overview on how your child is progressing globally with learning.  With timelines being very tight we ask that you are punctual and arrive 5 minutes prior to your interview as a late arrival will reduce the time available to speak with your child’s class teacher.  Bookings with class teachers can be made via the URL https://eq.sobs.com.au/pt3/parent.php?schoolid=70109

The booking system will open on Friday 11^th March at 4:00pm and close on Friday 25^th March at 4:00pm.

Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Update
In line with Our School’s Strategic Direction for 2022 teaching staff are engaging in professional learning communities for one hour every week to focus on school identified areas of improvement.  The PLC’s offer teachers the opportunity to develop collective capacity in Australian Curriculum, the teaching of writing and Learning Walls, differentiation and moderation.  The PLC’s are built around three ideas:

1. A focus on learning and commitment - to ensuring that every student is receiving quality teaching and learning and achieving their best outcomes
2. A collaborative culture and collective responsibility – a shared understanding and vision to identify and meet goals
3. Results Orientation – using information to reflect, refine and respond to student needs.

Well, the fun and games of 2022 continues.  Recent weather events are having an impact to not only many people who have had personal or business impacts of flooding but also there will be flow on effects to our sporting fields.  There are many sports which are scheduled to trial over the next few weeks, what will continue and what will need to be postponed, moved and rescheduled will remain to be seen.  We will continue to forward any information regarding these to you as soon as we have it.  Please be patient as the staff involved work through the logistics required, this will an ongoing challenge in the short term. If you do have 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.  

District/Met North Swimming Carnival:
As we advised in the previous newsletter the District Swimming Carnival for 2022 was cancelled however, last Wednesday 25^th, three students competed in a modified Met North Swimming Carnival.  They all represented ESS amazingly well.  Congratulations, to Zac C, Tallulah L, Avery P.

Class Swimming:
Thank you to all of our parents, carers and student for their patience and understanding as we navigated the weather conditions last week for swimming.  Please make sure you send your student with their gear on their designated day unless we notify you first.  We will always consider a number of factors when deciding whether or not we will be swimming.  We will swim during rain if it is safe to do so which is why it is so important to always send their gear.  Reminders of when your students are swimming. 

• Wednesdays – Prep A, 1B, 4A, 5/6A, 5/6B, 5/6C
• Thursdays – Prep B, Prep C, 1A, 2A, 4B
• Fridays – 2B, 3A, 3B

If there are any parents able to help out with classes from Prep to year 2 – please let us know – we could still use some additional support.  If your student is in Prep or year 1 and you can help  – email Mrs Prill (details below) or Year 2 email Mrs Jardine (details below). We can then work through the necessary details with you.

Students Unable to Swim due to illness – if your child is unable to swim on any particular week, please send a note to school with your child or email their respective HPE teacher.

Email contacts:

• Mrs Jardine at jjard16@eq.edu.au or
•  Mrs Prill at tkfar0@eq.edu.au 

Kilometre Club:
Our plan was to start our before school running this week – however, the ovals are likely to be very wet for the next few days. Weather and ground conditions permitting – students from Year 3 to Year 6 are welcome to come down to the oval between 8.15 and 8.45am on a Wednesday and Friday Mornings to do some running training with Mrs Jardine. (We will make a decision on Friday the 4^th depending on how things dry out over the next few days).

Unfortunately, our space will be confined due to the expected start of construction of our new building, so Preps to year 2’s will need to remain in the supervised area under the building.

Students are to remain in their normal waiting place under the buildings until collected by Mrs Jardine.

District Sport Trials:
Term 1 & 2 are particularly busy with City District Team Sport Trials. Depending on the sport, students born 2012, 2011 & 2010 may be able to trial for City District Teams and ultimately commence a Representative Pathway.  This is an optional extra-curricular activity for students. It involves costs to parents in terms of trial fees, most trials are during the day with transport the responsibility of the parents. If students are selected in a City District Team there will be additional costs including, uniforms, team levies, possibly some travel to larger venues around the city. There will also be additional training sessions. Parents and Students need to be fully aware of the commitment that will be needed if they consider trialling.  

As a general guide, the student should be participating in club sport or tournaments of the particular sport for in excess of one year/full season.  Forms will be distributed by the HPE teacher if they are eligible to participate in trials. They will need to be completed by parents, signed off by the Principal and taken to the trial by the student, trail payments will need to be made via the City District School Shoponline all prior to the trial. School nominations will be submitted by the HPE teacher for those students who have been provided with forms. If your student does not wish to trial please, let me know ASAP after you have received forms and I will withdraw the school nomination.

For some sports a trial will be held at school to select those attending trials as our nomination numbers are limited. Students who have expressed an interest will be advised of trials when they arise, which will typically be during a lunch break or short period of class time. These trials will be supported by Education Queensland Staff who have experience in the nominated sports.  

Please remember this is an opportunity at REPRESENTATIVE SPORT not an opportunity to try something new. 

The upper school classes have all discussed with me the sports in which they participate outside of school and their interest in potentially participating in representative trials and their experience playing their sports, which helps in considering whether it is timely for them to be nominated or whether they should be waiting for another year.   

Some additional information about the District is available on the City District Sports Page connected to the Metropolitan North Website. Feel free to check in on this site.    https://metnorthschoolsport.eq.edu.au/district-sport/our-districts/city

Key Dates – this term.

• Enoggera Cross Country – Wednesday 30^th

Christian Religious Instruction (CRI or RI) is available at Enoggera State School will start back in week 7 this year with more stories from the Bible that teach about God’s love.  Mrs Shanks will take grade 5 and 6, Mrs Witheyman will be back to take year 3 and 4 and, once again, Mrs Maloney will look after year 1 and 2.  We will miss Jess in the classroom, but she will be helping in the background.

RI at ESS is currently run under a ‘single arrangement religious instruction program’ in partnership with Emmanuel Uniting Church, led by trained volunteers, and follows all Department of Education (DoE) Guidelines. All the volunteers have blue cards and receive training in RI and Child Safe practices yearly. The workbook-based curriculum called CEP Connect is also reviewed and approved by the Education Department and samples of the student and instructor books can be viewed via the links below.

Year 1-2 student book            Year 1-2 instructor book

Year 3-4 student book            Year 3-4 Instructor book

Year 5-6 student book            Year 5-6 Instructor book

All students in Year 1 to Year 6 are welcome to join RI for the weekly, half-hour classes where the life values of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that we learn from God’s Word, strengthen the children’s resilience and their care for others. 

Each year the curriculum covers some stories from the Old and New Testament and give an understanding of how God looks after his people and wants all people to love Him, and how Jesus was the one whose life on Earth showed us what God’s love is like.

If your children are not yet participating in RI classes, and you would like them to take part in this learning experience, please email the school office to give your permission for them to join. If you are unsure, you can check with your child’s teacher or the school office.

We are looking forward to spending some great RI learning times with the students again this year.

L-R: Mrs Lulu Shanks (yr 5&6), Mrs Jess Pinkerton (Coordinator), Mrs Anne Maloney (yr 1&2) and Mrs Maureen Witheyman (yr 3&4).

Hello Enoggera State School Community and Defence Families!

It has been a fun filled few weeks at Defence Kids HQ and I have enjoyed getting to know everyone better. We have been making lots of chatterboxes and yesterday we made some origami paper boats and tested how many toy bears they could carry before sinking. Origami is tricky and everyone who came along made their very own boat! It was great fun and I was so proud of everyone for giving it a go.

I have sent home surveys with all of the students so I can get to know your families better. Please complete it and email me adell37@eq.edu.au or send it back to the office for me to collect.

Defence Kids HQ is located in D block art room!
Don’t forget to come along to Defence Kids HQ at lunch on Thursday and Friday.

GAYTHORNE RSL ANZAC DAY WRITING COMPETITION
Attention ALL students in Grade 4, 5, and 6!
Gaythorne RSL are running a writing competition with a first prize of $300!

Topic: What does Anzac Day mean to me?

The writing is to share your feelings about ANZAC day, the history of this day and feelings about your own families’ stories of wartime. This is a great opportunity for us to learn more about the significance of ANZAC day and the history of our defence force.

Parents can email me adell37@eq.edu.au for entry forms and guidelines.
*SUBMISSIONS CLOSE THURSDAY 17 MARCH*

UPCOMING EVENTS AND OTHER NEWS
Welcome to Brisbane ADF families event
Monash Centre Gallipoli Barracks
Sunday 13 March 2022 - 10am to 1PM

Brisbane 2022 Welcome Event is an event for all ADF members and families. There will be military displays, a petting zoo, face painting and a rock wall! Come along for a fun filled day for the whole family. Register online by 10 March 2022: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/an-adf-families-event-welcome-to-brisbane-tickets-204892146927?aff=erelexpmlt

Australian Military and Veteran Families Study is seeking to understand family experiences of military life to learn how to improve families transition from service. If you are interested, you can find the study here: https://aifs.gov.au/projects/australian-military-and-veteran-families-study

Signing off,

Amy Della-Torre
Defence School Mentor – Thursday and Friday
adell37@eq.edu.au

Key Dates
Follow Enoggera P & C on Facebook to keep up to date on planned events, activities, Tuckshop menu and Uniform Shop.  It is the best way to stay informed on all the latest happenings! https://www.facebook.com/EnoggeraSSPandC

Mother’s Day High Tea – Saturday, 7 May
Tickets can now be purchased from QKR! App. A great opportunity for Mums / Caregivers and Grandmothers to meet others and old friends to catch up.  Why not get a table of class friends together! Limited number of tickets available so be quick.

Annual General Meeting
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) is scheduled for Tuesday, 22 March, this includes electing the Executive positions. The P & C is actively seeking candidates for the President, Vice President and Secretary positions.

The AGM is the only meeting where members can join without attending the meeting by submitting a membership form. Please complete the members form before 22 March and either provide to the School Office, a P & C Executive or email to pandc@enoggerass.eq.edu.au

If you are a leader and passionate about growing our school community please apply for the Committee position you are interested in.  Please download and complete the forms found on the school website (https://enoggerass.eq.edu.au/our-community/pandc ). If you are interested or have any questions please contact the P & C (pandc@enoggerass.eq.edu.au).

Unfortunately we have had to postpone launching fundraising for the School Colour Fun Run, to be held on 1 April.  Hopefully we can launch it at the next assembly and students will bring home a letter and sponsorship forms that will explain everything.  In the meantime if you would like to know more about the Colour Run please watch this video - 

https://youtu.be/bLdbFh7n9xU

Containers for Change
Start to bring your containers back and drop them in the Containers for Change (purple) bins scattered around the school!  Alternatively you can visit the depot, deposit your containers and contribute to the ESS scheme, our school scheme ID is C10051863

P&C Executives

The Enoggera State School P & C meets every 4^th Tuesday of the month – next meeting is AGM 22 March 2022

Good morning Enoggera SS

I would like to invite your school to join me for Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday the 6th March.

If you can please advertise this amongst your school community I would appreciate it (I have attached a photo you can use).

Please see below information and link to register. 

Date:   Sunday 6th March 2021

Time:   8am – 9am

Venue: Teralba Park, Osborne Road end- Mitchelton. Look for my Marquee and signs!

Register here: https://www.timmander.com.au/cleanupaustraliaday

I would like to encourage everyone to come down and get involved. 

A FREE BREAKFAST WILL BE PROVIDED AFTER THE CLEAN UP.

 If you have any difficulty with registration, please do not hesitate to just turn up and bring whoever you like!

For assistance, contact my office via phone on 3535 1100.

 I hope to see you there.