Barkly Highway State School - Term 4 Week 4
Principal's Welcome
At the North Queensland Learning Fair and Principals’ Business Days which were held in Townsville, the agenda focused on our region’s priorities for 2022. The Regional Director, Lyal Giles, made it very clear that every school team, while working on the 2022 plan which is to begin Monday 21 January 2022 (day 1, Term 1), every student in every classroom still has 6 weeks (or 7 weeks) of learning time to complete.
A valued and relevant session was how to drive school performance and improvement through the development of a clear, sharp explicit improvement agenda. While we know our core focus areas, relationships, reading and mathematics, we are to include strategies and actions, targets and measures so that progress throughout the 12-month timeframe of the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) can occur.
SCHOOL OPINION SURVEY (SOS)
Thank you to the 86 parents who completed the SOS which closed in August. Included below, is the Highlight Report for the Parent / Caregiver Survey section. We value your feedback and will use this to inform how the whole school can review current practices, to make change and to improve what we already do. At each level, whole school, class room and individual, we welcome your ideas and input. It is with this partnership we can share the ideas, practices and decisions. I encourage our parents and caregivers to take the opportunity to talk to our P&C Association or go along to meetings held each month. The school staff look forward to future feedback, so we can continue to work together to improve the opportunities and achievements within our school community.
EXTRA CURRICULA ACTIVITIES
Our school’s Rock Pop Mime, ATSIAP (Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Aspirations Program) and State Final Optiminds’ teams culminating sessions and performances were impressive. Supporting teachers have congratulated our teams for the students’ commitment for their final performances. Our teachers also value the support of our parents who have assisted throughout the preparation time and thank you. Please see further for individual reports.
Deputy's Report
2022 STUDENT LEADERSHIP Process Update
All year 5 students who show an interest in nominating for School Captain/Vice Captain received the Student Leadership paperwork last Friday (22.10.21). The students will be required to submit their application, including a nomination form signed by their classroom teacher and a parent/ carer by this Friday 29 October. Parents and caregivers, please encourage your child to complete this part of the process by this date. Ash Benson and I look forward to receiving the applications from our interested year 5 students. This week, there are daily reminders from our year 5/6 teachers regarding this process through our Student Notices each morning.
YEAR 6 TRANSITION TO HIGH SCHOOL
To support a successful transition for our Year 6 students from primary to high school, our students attended Spinifex State College on Wednesday accompanied by two of our year 5/6 teachers. This is part of our school’s process of preparing our year 6 students for 2022 so that our children get to know more about their new school community.
These activities where our year 6 students spend time at High School are important ways in which our year 6 students can begin forming relationships with their new teachers. Research tells us that children tend to do better when they get along with their teachers and classmates. Parents and carers can support their children’s learning by being positive about their new school, respectful of their teachers and by supporting good relationships with friends and classmates at their new school.
SAFELY TRAVELLING TO AND FROM SCHOOL
We have had some reports from our school’s community members who have let us know that our students, who have been identified by their school uniform, have been playing/hanging around in Gallipoli Park and also in the Leichhardt River bed before and after school instead of moving safely and directly from home to school or from school to home.
Parents and caregivers, we ask for your support by speaking with your children about this issue and please encourage them to head straight to school in the morning and head straight home after school. Remind them that for their safety, not to play or hang around in the park or river bed on the way to or from school. Thank you for supporting safe travel to and from school.
Wear Red and support DAY FOR DANIEL Friday 29 October
Administration Office News
We would like to advise our parents/caregivers of our change in office hours. Starting Monday, November 1 our office will be open between the hours of 8:00 - 3:00 Monday to Friday.
Furthermore, you may have noticed your child bring home an envelope regarding your child's information on our database. If you could please review this information and update if needed by correcting on the letter and returning it to the office by 06 November to help ensure we have the most up to date contact details and emergency information.
OPTI-minds
Over the weekend, 8 students participated in the OPTI-minds State Finals. These students were invited to participate as a result of their excellent responses during the regional event in August. Usually, State Finals are held in Brisbane, however due to ongoing restrictions the event was virtual. Our Mount Isa participants live streamed with all the other participating regions across Queensland! The day began with a welcome ceremony to present the colourful State Final shirts. Teams were then sent away with a small bag of materials and a brand new challenge. They only had 3 hours to prepare a response to an unseen challenge. During the day, teams were also withdrawn to complete another unseen 10 minute spontaneous challenge. These responses were filmed and sent away to Brisbane to be judged. Our Barkly Highway SS students are very proud to have had the opportunity to compete in this challenge and they all demonstrated a lot of effort and team work!
Senior Rock Pop
Last week we had the incredible opportunity to preform our much loved "Rainbow Fish" performance with the Mount Isa Community. Our Senior Rockpop girls worked together to deliver a seamless act against 7 other Primary Schools. They blew the crowd away with their singing, miming and dancing. The girls are congratulated on their efforts. Miss Mckenna, Mrs T and I were beyond proud of you! We would like to thank our parent and teacher helpers that assisted us to get stage ready in the lead up days. We couldn't have done it without you! Mrs T and I are looking forward to next year!
Miss Samios
Around the World
Last week our year 4, 5 & 6 Students went "Around the World" in our latest Maths Club adventure. All 3 classes explored financial maths whilst exploring different cultures. Our students engaged playfully to calculate their travel expenses, meals and recreational activities. They also got to virtually ride in their classroom aircraft and taste traditional foods! We had an absolute blast. We can't wait to see what adventure next fortnight's Maths Club takes us on.
Library News
Term 4 is progressing fast and we are busy in the library as always.
Recently we completed the Premier’s Reading Challenge, during which students from all year levels were asked to read between 15-20 books over a 3-month period. Certificates have now arrived and were distributed to all participants who completed the challenge. Congratulations to all you bookworms! Well done!
Our Book Club Issue #7 was given out in Week 2 and we are awaiting delivery of students’ orders. There will be one more issue of Book Club for the year.
Recently we have moved to automated emails regarding overdue notices for students. We had a couple of teething problems and we apologise if you got multiple messages for your student in a short period of time. Please be reminded that students who have overdue books are unable to borrow until books have been returned or, if lost, been paid for.
With the end of term not being too far away, we like to let you know that all books, including Home Readers, will be due back by the end of Week 7.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any queries you may have.
Kind Regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
Meet our new HoSES
Hello everyone, as the newly appointed HoSES (Head of Special Education Services) for the Barkly Highway State School cluster, I would like to thank everyone for the warm welcome I have received.
I have moved to Mount Isa with my daughter Verity and the dog Lulu. I have six children altogether, four boys and two girls the older three are now working and the younger three are still at university. I have most recently worked at Palmwoods on the Sunshine Coast, before that Gold Coast, Rockhampton, Dalby, Townsville and Emerald. I have a long history in special education due to an interest sparked by my brother Chris who has Down Syndrome. I've worked in special education since 1982, in New South Wales, the Northern Territory and in Queensland for the past 24 years. I have been HoSES for the past 20 years. I have worked in the early childhood primary and secondary sectors with all types of disability and levels of support required. I am keen to get to know the students and staff in the cluster. I’m happy to support everyone with plans strategies and mentoring in order to help our students succeed.
Sandra Gregory
ATSIAP
On Thursday 14 September, Barkly Highway State School had a team who participated in various challenges as part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aspirations Program (ATSIAP). The students were fantastic role models for our school. They displayed sportsmanship, kindness, perseverance and resilience when competing and socialising with other schools. Out of six challenges, the team placed 3rd in the commercial task, 2nd in poetry, and 1st place in the oral persuasive speech, art and long-term problem challenge. With all these points, the team won 1st place overall. Mrs T and Ms Freestone could not be prouder of their behaviour and achievements. We can’t wait until next year!
Ms Donna Freestone and Mrs Tamihana-Ratana
P&C News
The next P&C Meeting is on Tuesday 2 November at 6:00pm in the Resource Centre. All welcome, many hands make light work, new and old faces are always welcome!!
The P&C would like to thank everyone for coming and supporting the school disco last Friday night. It was a resounding success. We couldn’t have done it without the help from the parents and the amazing work from the staff coming back on a Friday night to support it. THANK YOU!
Lastly, tomorrow is WORLD TEACHERS DAY!! The P&C would like to thank and recognize the awesome teachers that we have at Barkly Highway SS. We are so very lucky to have the quality and experience in our current crop of teachers, and want to ensure that you are acknowledged on this day!!
Thanks everyone for your support of our school and P&C and hope to see you on Tuesday for our meeting.
The Arts
End of Year Concert:
Barkly Highway State School’s ‘End of Year Concert' is coming up at the end of the term! Students are starting to work on their class item to perform on the evening. All are welcome and the concert will be held on Monday in week 9. Keep an eye out soon for a letter going home with more detailed information.
Christmas Carols 2021:
All Mount Isa schools have been invited to participate in an 'all schools choir' for the 2021 Mount Isa Christmas Carols. Barkly Highway State School is proud to support any interested students who will then be invited to participate. Notes will be available soon and this will be advertised in the school’s daily Communique. Students are encouraged to speak to Miss Jones for more information. The Christmas Carols performance date is Saturday 4 December.
Junior Rock Pop
The Junior Rock Pop team put together a 6 minute dance to the story of The Very Cranky Bear. The group of year 1-3 students met a few times a week for Term 3 and some of Term 4 to learn the dance. The children were amazing, performing to a huge audience. The teachers would like to thank Ciemon Scotney, Renee Gregor and Larns Puttock for the work they did getting the children ready for the night. The Junior team won best choreography, best costume, best back drop (thanks Ciemon!) and the overall winner for the Junior Primary event. WELL DONE JUNIOR TEAM!!!
Instrumental
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