16 August 2017

Newsletter Articles

From the Principal

Our school review — an opportunity to have your say

Our school will be welcoming 3 reviewers to our school from Tuesday 5 September to Thursday 7 September to complete our School Review.

The Department of Education and Training regularly reviews Queensland state schools to ensure they’re delivering quality education to students. The reviews are conducted by the departments School Improvement Unit.

The reviews do not rate or compare schools, but provide teachers and other staff with independent feedback to help them continue to improve learning outcomes for students.

All schools have a review at least every four years. Key findings from the review will be made available to parents and the community on the school’s website.

The review team would like to hear from our school community and I encourage anyone who is interested to have their say. Your feedback is important and will help us continue to deliver a great education for students.

Feedback can be provided to the review team by phone or in person. All feedback is confidential.

Please contact the school office if you are interested in speaking to a reviewer. Alternatively, you can register your interest by emailing SIUMB@det.qld.gov.au.

School Opinion Survey

Just a reminder for every family to complete the Parent Opinion Survey to ensure the results will be representative of the overall opinions held at our school. The survey closes 25 August.

Get Set for Prep

Get Set for Prep was created and implemented at Worongary State School to support the transition for students into Prep. It has continued to grow and develop over the past four years. Get Set for Prep will begin Thursday 19 October and will run for 5 weeks. The children will participate in activities that are designed and run by Prep teachers. During this time, teachers will also be individually assessing students for Prep readiness to help provide extra information to the 2018 Prep teachers.

Our local Early Childhood Education Centres will again be invited to bring their Kindy classes along to the sessions. If your child currently attends a local ECEC, ask them if they attend Get Set for Prep as part of their Transition Program.

Year 6 Camp

Our Year 6 students and Teachers had an amazing time last week attending camp at Tyalgum Ridge. Students returned on Friday talking about all of their adventures including swimming, high ropes, walks and their talent show. It was fantastic to see so many Worongary students push themselves past their comfort zones and get to know each other in a completely different setting. A huge thank you to our staff for giving up their time to ensure our students could enjoy this event and build lifelong memories.

School Disco

A reminder that our term 3 school disco will be taking place on Friday 25 August. Prep – year 2 from 4:00pm - 5:30pm and years 3 – 6 5:45pm – 7:15pm. The theme is “Pyjamas”.

A reminder that students need to wear enclosed shoes and slippers are not suitable footwear. Parents are required to collect students from the hall, using the rear steps, immediately after their child’s session.

Behaviour

Term Three Focus:

Taking Pride in Our School
Behaving appropriately
Looking after school property
Looking after the school/Classroom environment

Positive Behaviour for Learning Week 6 & 7 Term 3

Second Step Weeks 6 & 7

Regards Kerry White, Acting Principal

Learning Vine Awards

Finance

STUDENT RESOURCE SCHEME 2017

The due date for SRS payments this year was Friday 16 June. Thank you to those families who have paid the SRS in full for their children. We have a number of parents who have not adhered to their commitment as per the signed SRS Participation Agreement. For the remainder of this year any student with outstanding SRS fees will not be eligible to attend excursions, camps and payable school activities including Inter-School Sport.

On Monday 14 August, students with unpaid SRS fees will have their access to the scheme suspended until full payment has been made as per Section 29 of the Participation Agreement.

Regards, Charmaine Johnson, Business Manager

Curriculum Corner

Last week I introduced my focus around Numeracy for this Semester.

Remember …….

Here is another opportunity for developing mathematical thinking, which adults and children can enjoy together.

In the garden

Children love getting dirty and playing in the garden. Parents can harness this enthusiasm and develop math skills at the same time. Spatial awareness is used when adding plants to the garden. Estimating the positions so the plants are evenly spaced is something we all do - why not give this job to your child?

How far apart should the trees be? And how deep the holes?

Estimating skills are also used when digging the hole for the plant. Determining how deep it needs to be is often calculated through guess and check, an identified problem-solving strategy.

Children with understandings of multiplication or repeated addition could use an array to plan the positioning of carrots in the veggie patch. With parental supervision, older children can apply their knowledge of ratios when making liquid fertiliser - one-part plant food to three parts water. So ……

An array are items (such as objects, numbers, etc.) arranged in rows and columns.

How many arrays can you find around your home?
In your neighbourhood? At the shops?

Happy hunting!

There will be some more ideas in my next article.

Kind Regards Leslie Ward, Head of Curriculum

Behaviour

Our Behaviour focus at school is Speaking Nicely. As adults we know the importance of managing our behaviours and speaking correctly to others. To encourage our children to develop these skills we can

1. Set expectations for our children
2. Be consistent and always follow through
3. Keep calm. While it is human nature to get upset, do your best to keep a calm tone when enforcing your rules with your child. You can stick to what you say without yelling. Enforcing rules without yelling, teaches your child that it is possible to stay calm and still get things accomplished even when you are frustrated or things aren’t going your way. This is a great example to set for your child.

4. Take an interest when your child tells you something about their thoughts, feelings, ideas, or just about their day. Children are often excited to tell their parents/carers something (e.g.“Guess what my teacher said in class today?” “I think I know what I want to be when I grow up.”)

5. Acknowledge when your child puts forth good effort. People like to hear when they did something right and this includes children.
6. Listen to your child’s side of the story. Say “good morning,” and “goodnight,” (or some variation of those) and “I love you” every day — we all get busy, but this is an important one. Feeling loved, wanted, noticed, and acknowledged by our parents, is one of the best things for our self-esteem.

Yelling, swearing, and/or calling your children names can take a toll on their behaviour and mental health. Make a point to keep your anger in check and remember that how you talk to your children matters.

Harsh verbal discipline includes shouting, screaming, swearing, and/or name-calling. By some estimates, nearly half of parents speak severely to their kids. They sometimes do so out of desperation, especially when they’re frustrated and/or angry—or they simply feel that nothing else is working.

So what’s the end result? Parents/carers could get what they “want,” but it might only be for the short-term. Even worse, kids’ mental health and self-esteem could suffer. Children who are exposed to shouting and swearing tend to develop poor behaviour. Kids and teens on the receiving end of yelling, cursing, and name-calling tend to be more physically aggressive too. And they could struggle socially.

Discipline is about teaching kids to manage their behaviour and letting them know you’re worried when they make a bad choice. It's also about keeping them safe. Discipline isn’t about winning battles or calling your children humiliating names. Also, even if you don’t get the results you hoped for initially, know that you are doing your part to use positive strategies to help your child.

Kind Regards Kaia Clarke, Behaviour

Resource Centre

Regards, Jann Connor, Teacher/Librarian

Music Corner

Instrumental Music News - Band

The Concert Band is competing in the Gold Coast Eisteddfod on Thursday 24 August at the Gold Coast Arts Centre at 6pm.

All Band students please make sure you are at rehearsal next Wednesday morning at 7:45am and please return your permission forms to the office or Mrs Hapi as soon as possible. Keep practicing hard and help make the Concert Band the best it can be!

Regards Bonnie Hapi, Music & Arts

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

Could all parents/caregivers please complete and return the Religious Instruction consent forms that were sent home to families in early July. We still have many outstanding. Please click on the link below to access a new form otherwise your student may collect one from the office.

Year 3 Hunting History

Learning about the past was exactly what the year 3 students enjoyed at their Hunting History incursion. The ’turn of the century’ dress up activity was a clear favourite of the event, with the old fashioned typewriter and games coming in a close second. It was great to see all students engaged during the 90 minute interactive, multi-sensory program.

Woolworths Earn and Learn

Woolworths Earn and Learn is on again from 26 July to 19 September.

If our school community sticks together and earns Woolworths Earn & Learn stickers, we can redeem these stickers for our choice of educational resources. We can choose our resources from Science, Sports, Mathematics, English and Arts & Crafts.

Earn and Learn stickers need to be stuck on to the Stickers Sheets available from Woolworths or can be downloaded from the link below:

Our collection box will be in the school admin office. $10 of shopping earns 1 sticker. The more we earn, the more we learn.

Excursions

P&C News

Change for Change

Change for change is a fundraiser that started on Monday 14 August and finishes on Friday 8 September. Money boxes have been placed in each classroom and the children are encouraged to bring in any loose change that might be lying around. There will be 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize to the classes that raise the most money. This is fundraiser is going towards installing Air Conditioning to our school.

Father’s Day Stall

Father’s Day Stall will be held in the P&C room on Wednesday 30 August with extras being sold Thursday 31 August. Gifts will be priced from $1:00 - $10:00.

Boxes are now in the classrooms for donations and we look forward to seeing some fantastic gifts that can be sold and given to our amazing Dads, Grandads and Carers.

For those of you able to spare an appreciated hour or two to help on the stall days, please feel free to come and see us up in the P&C room.

Regards P&C

Tuckshop & Uniform

Opening Hours

Monday-Friday: 8:30am-2:00pm
Closed: Entire last day of each Term

Friendly Reminders

I would like to remind you all of a few important things:

• There are no EFTPOS facilities in the Tuckshop. We accept cash only over the counter. Online Ordering is available as an alternative to cash. Cut off time is 9:00am each day.
• NO CREDIT: As per P&C Qld regulations, we are unable to provide credit to anyone and thank you in advance for not asking, as refusal may offend. We are however able to accept payments in advance, to hold on account, in preparation for those days that just won’t run smoothly.
• NO LUNCH: If for some reason you realise that your child has no lunch at school e.g. forgotten to order online/child left lunch at home then you have the option to either bring your child some lunch or arrange for a family member to do so. If neither of these options are feasible, your child will be sent to the school admin office who will contact you to arrange for a basic emergency lunch to be provided to your child. Please do not call the Tuckshop directly.
• As a Tuckshop servicing a school of over 700 students, we are very busy in the – some mornings we are especially busy serving children from our breakfast menu. If you choose to order tuckshop manually, it would be very helpful if children could put orders in the tuckshop baskets in their classrooms rather than dropping them off to the Tuckshop before class, as many have been doing lately.

Online Ordering

Key things to note about online ordering are:

• Online ordering is great for busy parents. Orders can be placed online at your convenience.
• The cut off time for Tuckshop Online Ordering each day is 9:00am so if your mornings are busy try ordering in advance the night or even the week or month before.
• Please be sure to update your child/children’s class for each new school year. The account profiles for Tuckshop and Uniform shop are not linked, so must be updated separately.

Uniform Shop News

Opening Hours

Monday: 8:00am-9:00am
Wednesday: 2:15pm-3:15pm
Friday: 8:00am-9:00am
Direct Dial number: 5502 4409

Winter Stock

We currently still have winter items available in most sizes but stock levels are starting to get low. We recommend getting in quick, before the next cold snap, as we will not be ordering more for this season.

Online Ordering

Key things to note about online ordering are:

• Online ordering is great for busy parents. Orders can be placed online at your convenience.
• Any orders placed online will be processed on the next uniform shop day (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) and a yellow note will be sent to your child’s classroom via the Tuckshop basket so they know when to collect it from the Tuckshop. Please let your child/ren know to keep an eye out for the yellow note. Also, please be aware that due to the Uniform Shop hours being in the afternoon on Wednesdays, orders processed on this day can be expected to reach your children on the following Thursday.
• Please be sure to update your child/children’s class for each new school year. The account profiles for Tuckshop and Uniform shop are not linked, so must be updated separately.

Regards Michelle Lee, Canteen and Uniform Convenor

Community Notices

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