Barkly Highway State School - Term 3 Week 6
BHSS WINS Mount Isa Interschool Soccer Competition!
Principal's Welcome
Welcome to our school newsletter. It has been a busy fortnight within the school grounds and in our community. Thank you to float co-ordinators, Eve Wall and Amelia Wood and everyone who participated in the school’s float for the Isa Street Festival Parade. This week, many of our 19 year 6 students who have been participating in Spinifex State College’s Gifted and Talented Program, attended and showcased their participation in the Science, Geography, Health and Physical Education and Gastronomy with their families.
ONGOING TEACHER ABSENCE
Barkly Highway State School, like other departmental schools, is providing teacher absence figures each week, to help monitor the ongoing COVID and flu situation at departmental schools. This data is collected by an ongoing, weekly online survey. This information assists regions and the department to monitor and respond to workforce challenges during the term. In Mount Isa, we access a pool of District Relieving Teachers (DRT) to backfill absent teachers, however, this is also limited when multiple teacher absences occur on several school sites on the same day.
STUDENT FREE DAYS
While our support and office staff update first aid requirements, classroom and specialist teachers participated in sharing of current practices in English and Mathematics aligned to our core priority areas of our Annual Implementation Plan. The spotlighting in these areas by classroom teachers, provided further opportunities for others to take the chance to visit their peers’ classrooms to see the strategies presented as they occur in the classroom. Thank you to Cameron Alley, Sariah Tamihana-Ratana and Bec Samios for leading this important work in our school.
Our Guidance Officer, Lana Lehmann, revisited Trauma Informed Practices and will complete her presentation in an upcoming staff meeting.
Emma Perkins who this year has taken the lead to co-ordinate the 2022 Year Book provided some quick tips and advice to ensure the pages are completed for publication. It was a very successful day, with staff building their own knowledge in the areas mentioned and also having time to align the knowledge to their individual year level or specialist area.
We are fortunate to have the depth in our staff to provide opportunities for each other.
Regards,
Fiona Kropp
Deputy's Report
CELEBRATING OUR MATHS PROFESSIONAL LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES & the INQUIRY BASED LEARNING happening in our classrooms
Maths Professional Learning Community (PLC) on the Rodeo Student Free Day
On the Rodeo Student Free Day last Friday morning, our dedicated teachers participated in professional development on using Open-ended/Inquiry Learning activities to improve the mathematical problem-solving ability of our students presented by Sariah Tamihana-Ratana (5/6 Red Class teacher & Maths PLC co-leader) and Rebecca Samios (1 Blue Class teacher – Maths Club & Chats facilitator & member of our Maths PLC) – see photos below.
This week, our Prep teachers have implemented age appropriate Open-ended/Inquiry Learning activities into their Maths lessons to improve our students problem-solving and engage their students in learning. Emma Perkins (Prep Gold Class Teacher) has introduced her class to a new character in their classroom – Andy the Bull Ant who is the world’s smartest bull ant. He is an expert with numbers, calendars and asking open-ended questions for our Prep Gold students to solve. They have created an ant hill in their room for Andy to ask his questions from. Nicole Brebner (Prep Blue Class Teacher) is introducing her class to a new character Bulldozer Bill who is also an expert in numbers and calendars – both focus areas in maths that all our prep students are learning about. Nicole has had her students answering open-ended questions about measuring time this week, for example, “What are all the things we can do on a Saturday?” and in number “Choose a number. What are the different ways you can show/build that number?”. Our Prep Blue students are using the problem-solving strategy of drawing a picture or diagram to solve the problems – see photos below.
Our students are fortunate to have teachers who strive to continuously improve their practice, support each other through these professional learning opportunities and implement effective research-based practices in teaching mathematics in their classrooms to improve our students’ learning outcomes.
Kind regards,
Cheryl Gallagher
North West Region Representation
Earlier this term we have had two Barkly Highway State School students represent the North West Region.
Yasmin Wyld-Hill has been a representative in Cross Country and Touch Football. Yasmin said that it was a fun experience and that she loved having the opportunity to see other competitors abilities.
Isabella Dyer travelled to Townsville to be a representative in netball. Bella enjoyed meeting new people and experience seeing new playing skills. Bella is definitely keen to try out again next year.
Fractions in 4 Gold
In 4 Gold, we have just finished working on all things fractions! Identifying halves, thirds and quarters. In order to do so, we indulged in making damper, snacked on some fraction bugs and created our own number line. I have just finished assessing and am so proud to see how much learning they have done!
Library News
Book Week Dress-up Day is almost here!
Our Book Week Dress-up Day is coming up fast now too. Our Parade is planned for Friday 26th August at 8.25!
We are looking forward to some wonderful and imaginative costumes. We have seen so many fantastic creations over the years, many of them very creatively made by the student/ family. So, we can’t wait to see what amazing Book Characters will be on Parade this year! The Theme of the Book Week changes yearly and this year it is ‘Dreaming with eyes open”.
The Premier’s Reading Challenge is closing on 26 August and we hope to have lots of students completing their Reading Record Sheet by then!
Book Club Orders from Issue# 5 have arrived and were distributed at the beginning of this week.
As always, please don’t hesitate to contact us with any queries you may have.
Kind regards,
Svenja Spitzner-Lewis
P&C News
The P&C have been working on our Lehmann's Legacy Garden! Last week, a few members of our P&C and parents started working on our garden that we secured a $2000.00 grant for last year. This grant was to improve our prep area garden and make it into an area that students and teachers would like to see and also give greater growing opportunities in the area. We have a grand plan to lay artificial grass and more shade, some sleepers for edging of paths and more garden beds. So far we have turned the boring IBCs into nice looking planters with the ability for students to draw on the front with whiteboard markers. We also built one cantilever shade sail to provide some relief for the plants from the sun and also give shade to the area where students are going to be able to sit and enjoy.
Lastly, some digging started to remove soil to lay down a crusher dust base for the artificial grass to be laid on top. The area is quite large, so the rest is hopefully going to be dug using a machine (if reading and want to donate, we would love to hear from you 🙂). It's exciting to see the transformation and hopefully the end product will be something the school can be proud of having.
At our last P&C meeting we were able to donate some money to school projects/activities. Since having our last disco and the food stall at the sports days the P&C is proud to give donations of up to $1,000 for the Senior Rock Pop Mime group for props and costumes, another $1,000 to the Junior Rock Pop Mime group for their props and costumes, AND provide up to $1,500 to go towards purchasing sand play toys to replace old and broken toys. These will be used in the sandpit areas that are popular during lunchtime. This was an amazing achievement for our P&C, to provide this money for additional resources and is what our P&C is all about. We love the idea of raising money, and then using it to better our school for our children. That is our goal!
Unfortunately, I have some sad news. Our current tuckshop convenor, the wonderful Nicole, has decided to pursue another passion of hers, and is moving on from our tuckshop. Her last day is not until the end of this term, so please if you see her wish her well and we will definitely miss her! If we aren't able to replace her, the tuckshop will be operating on a very much reduced scale until we can fill the void. If you know of anyone interested, PLEASE forward our contact information or the ad in this newsletter on to them.
Lastly, our next fundraiser is for Fathers Day! Look out for more information on Facebook, but clear Friday, 2 September from 3:00 - 9:00. P&C are hosting a 20/20 Cricket match, followed by a BBQ and movie night. This is aimed at having our fathers/parents and kids playing a fun cricket game and then a family movie on the big screen in the undercover area. This will be a fun afternoon/evening before it gets too hot and will be for all students and families from our school to be involved in.
Thank you for your support, our next P&C Meeting is to be held following our Fathers Day fundraiser on Tuesday 13 September at 6:00 in the Library/Resource Centre.
Pump Track
Most families will acknowledge that the Gallipoli Pump Track and Recreational Park is a wonderful family community space for children with their families to enjoy.
It has come to the school’s attention, families are using the area as a drop off and collection area. With this, an increasing number of students are gathering from as early as 6:30, with some not being collected until 4:30 in the afternoon. While some students walk immediately from the parent drop off to the school, there is a concern for the increasing number of students who are gathering without supervision, as on arrival at school this is impacting on their presence in the classroom and behaviour during the school day. We are also aware of the following occurring -
- Late arrival to school
- Heightened behaviour and differing attitude
- Small student groups not following our Barkly Bs
- Deliberate and accidental damage to plants
- Graffiti at the pump track area
Students have also been seen in their uniforms in the Charles Street gully building jumps before and after school. Please discourage students from doing this.
The school would prefer children to come straight to school on drop off and follow the school expectations as this will set them up for the best day of learning. Thank you for your ongoing support to keep your child safe.
FEAR-LESS TRIPLE P SEMINAR
HELP KIDS PREVENT & COPE WITH ANXIETY
FREE POSITIVE PARENTING SEMINAR IN MOUNT ISA
Tuesday 23rd August, 9-11AM, Barkly Highway State School
Anxiety is a real problem for many children and teenagers – and adults. The Fear-Less Triple P program is now free in Qld, and the FREE Fear-Less Triple P seminar offers practical, simple strategies, a take-home tip sheet and much more! REGISTER NOW: https://www.triplep-parenting.net.au/qld-uken/find-help/check-our-calendar/2022-08-23/fear-less-seminar/111101/
Events & Flyers
Want to know what's happening within the school? Check out our School Calendar to keep up to date.
https://barklyhighwayss.schoolzineplus.com/calendar/1
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