Barkly Highway State School - Term 3 Week 8

Principal's Welcome

Welcome to Week 8!

OUR EARLY YEARS

This week we finalised our preparation for our involvement in the National Quality Standards (NQS) Pilot – an Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) project, as it moves into Phase 3 on Monday and Tuesday of Week 9, with a NQS Self-assessment review which will be led by Sally Rosario (Lead Senior Education Officer, Early Childhood and Education Improvement).

The review aims to consolidate the early years strengths and improvements identified by the school, and align these to our current school Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). After the process, an NQS Self-assessment review report will be provided to the school in the weeks following the review.

At this week’s staff meeting Bec Cremona and Leah Wilcox, as a follow-up to their participation at the P-2 Pilot workshops in Townsville during Term 2, have presented and led the completion of a survey to raise awareness of what is being done well at Barkly Highway State School, through the NQS lens.

The review will commence with a staff briefing to introduce the team, followed by interviews with Lesley Pechhiar (Assistant Regional Director) and early years staff. The reviewers will walk through the early years (P-2) learning environments, talking informally with students and observe learning environments, interactions and artefacts of teaching and learning.

A timetabled schedule for staff including but not limited to teachers (P-2), teacher aides, HODs, specialist teachers and other support staff will occur, then community partners (external organisations including, but not limited to, ECEC, P&C, P external OSCH, support agencies and specialists). Interviews scheduled maybe via telephone calls. Informal parent/family discussion could take place at the school gate or via scheduled telephone calls. If you are approached, please share your knowledge and experiences as this will inform our school’s next steps to improve what we already do.

We look forward to receiving the review report in the next few weeks to share with you.

Deputy's Report

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS AND ASSESSMENTS FOR SCHOOLS (ICAS)

The children have completed the ICAS Spelling, English, Science and Mathematics Assessments. See the table below for the proposed date of the ICAS Writing assessment for our students in Years 3 - 6 (Writing Year 4 – 6 online) whose parents have paid for them to participate in these assessments.

PARENT-TEACHER-STUDENT MEETINGS

Our classroom teachers are preparing for Parent-Teacher-Student Meetings to be held before the end of this term. Our class teachers will be contacting you to invite you and your child along to a meeting. Have you returned your slip to your teacher or replied to your child’s class teacher via the class communication app indicating your meeting preference? These meetings are a great opportunity to view your child’s work this term and discuss with our teachers how your child is progressing with their learning.

BEFORE AND AFTER SCHOOL EXPECTATIONS

As outlined in our Parent Information Booklet, students at Barkly Highway State School are instructed after release from classrooms, to make their way home, leaving the school grounds immediately if they are going home independently OR moving to the gate where they are being collected, sitting quietly as no play is to occur in the school grounds at this time. (School play areas, Prep and the front fort have signs stating that they are out of bounds before and after school and parents are asked to support the school expectations in monitoring your children and how they move out of the school grounds).

Students are released from class at 2:30pm, however, a number of students are continuously waiting for longer periods of time after 2:30. We respectfully inform our school community, if you are unable to collect students at 2:30pm, the PCYC run an after-school care program which can be accessed so your children are safely supervised until you are able to collect them.

Safe entry and exit of the school grounds

We are teaching our students through our Positive Behaviours for Learning approach to be responsible when entering and exiting the school grounds by walking safely to pick up areas. Our students can leave or enter the school grounds by walking in or out of the pedestrian gates located at the Stop Drop N Go area on Urquhart Street, on Buka Street near the pedestrian crossing and on Bougainville Street. There have been a few instances of unsafe behaviour where students have been jumping the fences. Parents and caregivers, we ask for your support in speaking to your children about entering and leaving the school grounds safely by walking in and out of the gates provided. We have also noticed students entering and exiting the school through the staff carpark gates. We ask for your support in speaking to your children about staying out of the staff carparks and instead entering and exiting the school safely by walking through the pedestrian gates.

Thank you for supporting the school expectations by monitoring your children as they enter and exit the school and speaking with them about walking in and out of the school grounds safely.

Chaplain News

Who is the BHSS Chaplain? 
 
Hi, if you haven’t met me or heard about me yet, I’d like to introduce myself. My name, which I am known by the students is “Chappy Sue” and “Chappy” by my colleagues. I have been at Barkly for 12 months this August. Prior to my position at Barkly in 2020, I was Acting School Chaplain at Julia Creek State School for 12 months. I live in Cloncurry and am on site at Barkly school Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays. I have completed and hold a “Certificate IV in Chaplaincy & Pastoral Care”. My time at Barkly has been both satisfying and rewarding.

I’d like to share what chaplains do in their role:

• Provide social, emotional & spiritual support to school communities, students, families and staff.
• Role modelling and mentoring.
• Education support.
• Programmes – Brekky Club
• Extracurricular Activities
  

Brekky Club

At Barkly, Chaplaincy provides a free breakfast programme to the school students twice a week on Wednesday & Fridays. We believe Brekky Club is important to help students get off to a good start to their learning day. We would like to thank our donors, Victory Life Church and Brumby’s  Bakery for their regular contributions which help make breakfast club possible.

Brekky Menu

• Toast & spreads
• Milo & milk
• Waffles & pancakes
• Hasbrowns
• Seasonal fruit
  All Are Welcome!

First play lunch

Activities, games and crafts are offered to students on the days I am on-site. We started this in Term 3 and we are getting good attendance. The students have enjoyed rock painting, crafts, activities and games.

School Camp

A highlight, in week 3 of term 3, was when I had the privilege of going on the Year 5 school camp to Maggie Island. I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed everything about it. The facilitators were terrific and offered the students lots of activities like snorkelling and abseiling and oh my, there was never a shortage of food and it was both nutritious and delicious. Wildlife was all around, just need to spot them, like a koala up a gumtree.

It was a great encouragement and delight to see so many parents, family members and carers attending the cross country and book fair events recently to support their child/ren. We enjoyed the detective crime scene in Week 7 where Mrs Kropp was missing and students had to follow clues and decode the maths riddle to find out where Mrs Kropp was hidden. What a brilliant idea Miss Samios and team, thank you and much fun was had by the whole school in solving the mystery.

SU Chaplaincy are looking for school chaplains to fill some vacancies in Mount Isa and Camooweal. If you or anyone you know might be interested in applying please contact myself or see below for further details. I appreciate being given the opportunity to be part of your school community and look forward to catching up with you sometime.
Have a great day!

WHOLE SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY REPORT

We had a fantastic day of running and great competition at our whole school cross country on Friday 20 August. Well done to all students who participated on the day. Congratulations to Bowen for being the winning cross country house and also another big congratulations to the respective age champions.

FINAL RESULTS
BOWEN          294

KENT               275

ABEL-SMITH  224

ATHLONE       224

AGE CHAMPIONS
Year 3 - Xariah Daley and Vander Lailey

Year 4 - Ava Wall and Asher Mothe

Year 5 - Yasmin Wyld-Hill and Cruz Pyke

Year 6 - Mikayla Wilson and William Oliver

Mrs Kropp Maths Crime Scene Inquiry Investigation

Last week, 10 classroom teachers implemented our most engaging inquiry yet across the school. These teachers spent 3 weeks vigorously planning and creating mathematic activities teaching concepts such as additive strategies, number, patterns and algebra, measurement and geometric properties. The children’s classrooms were set up with baby powder foot prints leading to maths activities sealed in zip lock bags. They then watched a video of Mrs Kropp asking for missing words and numbers to help unlock her. Throughout the day, our students engaged in creative play designing costumes, gathering evidence and problem solving together. After 2nd break all the students involved were taken to the undercover area where they unlocked a riddle and had the chance to see if their class code unlocked Mrs Kropp. We had an absolute blast learning through play and having our much-loved Mrs Kropp at the centre. It appeared that Mrs Kropp thoroughly enjoyed taking a nap and drinking her milkshake while waiting for our excellent learners to find her!

4 Gold Convict Themed Consolidation of Learning

This term, 4 Gold has expanded their knowledge of convicts and the 1870s life in our English unit. As a playful and engaging way to consolidate our learning, we participated in a whole class convict themed book week dress up. The children came dressed in rags and chains and participated in activities to wrap up their learnings. These activities included;

1. Imaginative play in our make shift jail where convicts surrendered their crime and the judge made the difficult choice of their consequence and which ship they would be sent on for transportation to the new land.

2. A challenge to make the longest chain possible using only 1 piece of paper.

3. Being rationed 1 slice of bread to last at least one month’s worth of food! Our biggest ration was over 300 pieces

4. Scrubbing the decks until sparkly clean.

It was lovely to see our students engaged in playful and imaginative learning with one another.

3 Gold - Science

This term, 3 Gold have been exploring how Science experiments are conducted through Fair Tests.  We have been using the acronym:

Cows - Change one variable.

Moo - Measure one variable.

Softly - Keep all other variables the same.

In the first experiment, students changed a rough marble to a smooth marble and measured the distance they rolled.

In the second experiment, students changed a store-bought plane to a hand-made paper plane and measured the distance they flew.

In the third experiment, students will be changing paper towels and measuring the amount of liquid absorbed in each.

In the fourth experiment, students will be changing spoons (metal, wooden and plastic) while melting chocolate chips and observing which spoon was the more effective heat conductor.  The children will sample the chocolate too – of course!

We have all enjoyed this Science Unit of work!  Their knowledge and application of ‘fair testing’ will also assist them in any future Science experiments conducted – in primary and high school, through their workplace, chosen trade, TAFE and University study.

Opti-Minds

Last weekend 13 Barkly students competed in the Mount Isa Opti-Minds tournament. Barkly Highway State School had 3 dedicated teams respond to challenges. Each team responded to a challenge in a different area (Social Sciences, Language and Literacy and Science Engineering). All students had been working hard this term to prepare for their long term response to their challenge and practise spontaneous challenges. We had a fun day filled with lots of laughs, thinking on our feet and presenting our hard work to our friends, families and other Mount Isa community members.

Hannah Lovett - “Optiminds was lots of fun because I got to work with different people, come up with creative ideas and when we competed we worked as a team.”

Lauraina Richmond – “Optiminds was interesting. We had to come up with creative responses to challenges and we got to make new friends along the way.”

Savannah Little – “ We became better friends while we were doing Opti-Minds because we had to work together and talk about our language literature challenge. I enjoyed doing the performance.”

Jaega Garrett – “ I enjoyed Saturday because we worked as a team and in a group with all my friends. I liked the tuckshop there because it had hot chocolate.”

Lillith Cowperthwaite – “I liked the spontaneous challenge because you don’t know what it is until you go into the top secret room.”

Keely Fairweather – “I liked Opti-Minds because it was fun and group orientated. We worked really hard together as a team and it was really fun overall.”

Two of our Barkly Highway State School Opti-Minds teams showed incredible team work and were awarded a Spirit of Opti-Minds award. Two of our teams were also lucky enough to have the highest score in their category and were awarded first place.

WELL DONE BARKLY OPTI-MINDS TEAMS!!

Library News

What an amazing response to our Book Week Dress-Up Day last Friday! We were blown away by all the amazing, wonderful, unusual, clever and creative costumes we saw on our fantastic Parade on Friday! We hope you had as much fun creating and parading your costumes as we had admiring them! A big thankyou goes also to our school choir, who entertained us on the morning under the direction of Miss Jones.

Our recent Book Fair was once again a great success. Thanks to the generous support from our Barkly Community. Our students thoroughly enjoyed browsing and purchasing a new book. It is fantastic to see so many students being excited about books! From the commission the school will receive from the purchases, we are able to choose around $1500.00 worth of new resources from Scholastic for the school. These resources will benefit all our students. The always popular guessing game was won by Chase in Year 5 who came closest to the actual number of 534. His class got to share the lollies and Chase won $20 worth of books from the Book Fair. Congratulations! Also, re-orders from Book Fair should be arriving shortly.

Book Club #6 orders were due last Friday and we are now awaiting their arrival.

The Premier’s Reading Challenge has now closed. Congratulations to all participating students. A certificate from the Premier will be handed out later in the year.

And with the holidays around the corner, please be aware that all student borrowing is due back Friday 10th September.

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any queries.

Kind Regards,

Svenja Spitzner-Lewis