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 30^th 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 16^th 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.

Year Book Ordering Form

Year Book Ordering Form 140.56 KB

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

School Captain Speeches

This Friday our shortlisted School Captain nominees will be presenting their speeches to the Year 4, 5 and 6 cohort.  Speeches will be held in the EPAC at 2pm.  Students and staff will vote on the two students they would like to be our 2023 School Captains.  Next Tuesday, a panel of staff will meet to finalise all the 2023 Captains and these will be announced at the Principal’s Awards Assembly on Monday 5^th December. I wish all of the nominees the best of luck!

UPCOMING EVENTS

Swimming Carnivals

Next week, the students will participate in the school Swimming Carnivals.

Wednesday 30^th November – Senior Swimming Carnival – Year 3 to 6 (9am – 3pm)

Thursday 1^st December – Junior Swimming Carnival – Prep to Year 2 (9:00am to 1:00pm)

Free Swim

During Week 10, classes will enjoy a 1 hour free swim session to celebrate the conclusion of swimming lessons and the end of the school year.  Your child’s class teacher will communicate which day your child will need to bring their swimming gear to school. Usual parent helpers are still required to ensure safety of all students during swimming.

Roll Up Afternoon

On Wednesday 7^th December from 2:00pm to 3:00pm, students will be invited to visit their classroom for 2023.  During the afternoon, they will get to meet their new class teacher and their new classmates.  If they have a new teacher for 2023 that is unable to attend Roll Up Afternoon, one of our support staff or departing teachers will fill in for the new teacher.   The incoming teacher will be invited to send a short video or PowerPoint or video to introduce themselves and students will complete some activities to get to know their new teacher and classmates.  As the new building is not ready for handover some classes will not be in their new classrooms for Roll Up Afternoon.

Year 6 Graduation

Thursday 8^th December at 9:30am – Year 6 students will attend their final ESS assembly to celebrate their graduation from Primary School.  Students will receive special awards and their graduation certificates in a special 90 minute assembly in the EPAC.  Year 4 and 5 students and teachers will also be attending this assembly to farewell our Year 6 cohort.  Graduation morning tea will be served for Year 6 students and their families after the ceremony.  We look forward to seeing you there.  I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Year 6 students throughout the year, and I wish them the best for their transition to high school and continued success in their learning.

Class Celebration Day

Thursday 8^th December is CLASS CELEBRATION DAY!  To celebrate, there will be a pizza party organised by the school.  More details regarding ordering will be sent home soon.  Class Teachers will provide details about any other organisation for their class parties and activities for Class Celebration Day.

Clean Up Day

Friday 9^th December is Clean Up Day.  Classes will be moving to new classrooms where possible.  Students who are attending are required to be in full school uniform.  Classes will be collapsed across year levels depending on number of students in attendance to allow teachers time to pack up, move and finalise end of year jobs.

Pillar Practice

Our Pillar Practice for Week 8 and 9 is focussed on the Safety and Relationships Pillars.  Students are thinking about personal space bubbles and how we may not feel safe if others don’t respect our bubble.  When in the red zone, we may physically lash out and forget about people’s bubbles.  By reflecting on our reactions when we are calm, students can verbalise other strategies such as walking away, getting a drink of water and counting to ten, to avoid invading someone’s bubble!  This is a variation to the traditional mantra of ‘keep hands and feet to yourself’. 

Last week, we went on an excursion to Nudgee Beach to learn about beach/mangrove habitats & how to care for special places.

We drew what we predicted we might see, touch, smell & hear. We went for a nature walk, made sand sculptures, pumped for yabbies & explored using sieves & magnifying glasses.

Back at the centre we sorted creatures into beach/mangroves/ocean, dramatised the effect of tides with puppets, encountered creatures in touch tanks & moved like crabs through texture troughs & tunnels.

It was such a fantastic day!

Thank you to all our helpers,

Mrs Egerton, Miss Enoch, and Mrs Nelson. 

Arts on Stage

What a fantastic community turn out to celebrate the performing arts students at our annual Arts on Stage! The students did a marvellous job to showcase the wonderful extra-curricular and co-curricular arts programs at ESS. Sofia and Keily, the Arts Captains, were fabulous at playing the hosts for the evening and providing the vignettes to introduce each work.

As teachers, we are extremely grateful to the wonderful P&C members for organising the tickets and the BBQ in support of the night. In addition, we had a large number of additional teachers and teacher aides who provided supervision, without whom the show simply couldn’t run. Thank you to the amazing Paul for the photographs and to Keily’s grandpa, Michael Mace, for joining us and delivering the Acknowledgment of Country. We had around 120 participating students from Prep to Year 6 and we couldn’t be prouder of their efforts and the community engagement around the event!

Arts on Stage was a lovely way to wrap up 2022. Thank you, Mrs Harle for joining us and guiding the Instrumental Strings students so well. You will be seeing her next year! However, for Ms Hopper and Mrs Wilcox, we bid farewell. A very special thanks from the wonderful Ms Hopper to all her amazing Choir and Recorder kids for their excellent work at Arts on Stage and over the years. Your enthusiasm, commitment and laughter will be missed! From Mrs Wilcox, thank you to the incredible students and community members for all the support and fun over the years in establishing the Senior Dance Ensemble, Drama Enrichment and Wakakirri programs at ESS, it’s been a blast! Having co-designed the EPAC, we will forever be a part of the performing arts at ESS!  

From all of us, best wishes, keep singing and dancing, thanks for the memories and have a Merry Christmas.

Melissa Wilcox, Ms Hopper and Mrs Harle

Swimming Carnivals.

Our school swimming carnivals are scheduled for Week 9 – Wednesday 30^th November and Thursday 1^st December.

Programs have already been emailed home to families this week. 

Prep to Year 2 – Thursday 1^st December – 9am to approx. 1pm

Year 3 to Year 6 – Wednesday 30^th November – 9am to 3pm

Please make sure that your students have all their gear on those days.  In addition – sunscreen, hats and water bottles.

Choir and Recorder

Thanks to all the students involved in the Senior and Junior Choirs and Recorder this year. You have been such a joy to rehearse and perform with and your commitment is impressive. Congratulations on your performances at Arts on Stage, you were amazing. Rehearsals are now over for the year. 

Arts on Stage

Congratulations to our amazing Arts Department and our sensational students for an entertaining evening last Friday. We have been so lucky to have the dedication of Mrs Wilcox and Mrs Hopper for the last few years and they will be greatly missed.

Well done to our wonderful events team for their hard work in the lead up and on the night. Thank you to our 7 volunteers who made the evening run as smoothly as possible.

Special mention to Brad Shipway- Real Estate Agent, for our beautiful event tickets- it all felt very glamours, Coles and Woolworths Brookside for your generous contribution.

Tuckshop

Volunteer opportunities for TERM 1- 2023 in the Tuck Inn are now available via the link below.

The tuckshop roster has weeks 2 to 6 listed for specific “Year Levels”, where we are seeking volunteers, whose children are in that year, e.g., Prep; Year 1; Year 2; etc.

Don’t be put off if the dates don’t suit, if you are available to volunteer on specific dates please sign up as we do not want to miss out on your help!

volunteersignup.org/4TLJQ

Home baking volunteer opportunities will be out shortly after some yummy recipe testing takes place over the holidays. If you have a failsafe recipe or any suggestions, please get in touch.

Online Ordering

Please be aware the cut-off time for tuckshop is 8.15am through the Qkr App on tuckshop days.  No orders will be accepted any other way. If you have forgotten to order lunch for your child, please ensure you make alternative arrangements.

After this time orders that are freshly made on the day will not be refunded ie hot food, fruit salads etc. All packet food and frozen treats will be held over to the next tuckshop day.

Uniform Shop

Uniform Shop is open every Friday morning during the 2022 term from 8.00 – 9.00 am. You can purchase from the shop or pre-order uniform items via the QKR! App and pick up from the shop on the following Friday. If you are unable to pick the items up, they will be provided to the office to distribute to your child.

New opening day in 2023 – Tuesday Mornings 8.00-9.00am

School holiday hours are below. Please ensure to take note of the online ordering options for collection.

Key Dates

P&C Executives

The Enoggera State School P & C meets every 4^th Tuesday of the month – next meeting is 24 January 2023

Keep up to date on all things P&C via our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/EnoggeraSSPandC